{"id":311708,"date":"2026-05-28T01:31:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/311708\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T01:31:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:31:23","slug":"jj-oyster-bar-is-closing-but-its-longhorn-is-moo-ving-to-a-new-fort-worth-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/311708\/","title":{"rendered":"J&J Oyster Bar is closing, but its longhorn is moo-ving to a new Fort Worth home"},"content":{"rendered":"

J&J Oyster Bar<\/a> is about to close after 45 years, but its best-known guest already has a new home.<\/p>\n

The giant longhorn bull statue that has stood outside 612 University Drive for 25 years will move to Fred\u2019s Texas Cafe after J&J closes May 30, Fred\u2019s boss Quincy Wallace announced.<\/p>\n

The 12\u00bd-foot-tall bull has a tip-to-tip horn span of 7\u00bd feet. It was one of several sculpted by artist Johnny Pate<\/a> and painted by local artists in 2001 as part of a citywide project, BulLovArts,<\/a> sponsored by the Southwest Public Communications Foundation.<\/p>\n

The larger-than-life bulls were similar to sculptures installed in other cities, such as moose in Toronto, fish in New Orleans and flamingos in Miami, according to Star-Telegram archives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to see it leave Fort Worth, and I\u2019ve always wanted one,\u201d Wallace was quoted as saying in the Fred\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

The bull will move in the coming weeks to the flagship Fred\u2019s location, 7101 Camp Bowie Blvd. West, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I heard Jim [J&J owner Jim Schusler] was looking for someone to take the longhorn that has sat in front of J&J\u2019s for as long as I can remember, it just felt right,\u201d Wallace wrote in a message.<\/p>\n

The bulls came to town two years after the daily Fort Worth Herd cattle drive began on East Exchange Avenue.<\/p>\n

They were made by Mineral Wells-based Associated Fiberglass, which also made the famous cows for Chick-fil-A<\/a> billboards. At least 10 of the company\u2019s bulls were scattered across Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

Local artist Nancy Lamb painted one downtown called \u201cVan Cli-Bull.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philanthropist Therese Moncrief helped lead the effort, according to archives.<\/p>\n

Photographer Bob Lukeman of Fort Worth was part of the organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I\u2019d go by J&J, I\u2019d recollect,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought they were cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fred\u2019s, often ranked a favorite Fort Worth burger grill, opened 48 years ago on Currie Street not far from J&J. Fred\u2019s moved to the west side in 2022.<\/p>\n

Fred\u2019s serves 22 different hamburgers. But it\u2019s best known for the \u201cFred Burger,\u201d hand-cut fries and buttermilk-battered chicken-fried steak, along with peach cobbler.<\/p>\n

Other Fred\u2019s locations are at 2730 Western Center Blvd., Fort Worth, and 101 N. Magnolia St., Crowley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"J&J Oyster Bar is about to close after 45 years, but its best-known guest already has a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117,56730,102597,112358],"class_list":["post-311708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-freds-texas-cafe","tag-jj-oyster-bar","tag-quincy-wallace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}