{"id":371879,"date":"2026-07-14T00:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/371879\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T00:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:36:18","slug":"fort-worth-chef-jon-bonnell-closes-jons-grille-near-tcu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/371879\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth chef Jon Bonnell closes Jon’s Grille near TCU"},"content":{"rendered":"

A beloved Fort Worth chef and restaurateur has turned off the grills at his popular burger joint near TCU. Chef Jon Bonnell has shuttered Jon’s Grille<\/a>, his four-year-old burger-and-BBQ restaurant at 2905 W. Berry St., Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

He announced the closure in a post<\/a> on social media late Saturday night, July 11.<\/p>\n

“This wasn’t a decision we made lightly,” Bonnell says in the post. “Like many independent restaurants, we’ve faced significant economic challenges over the past several years…”<\/p>\n

Bonnell also said his health played a role in the decision. He recently battled throat and tongue cancer, and is now a passionate advocate for HPV vaccinations.<\/p>\n

“Combined with my recent health journey, it’s simply become the right time to close this chapter,” he says.<\/p>\n

The chef’s other concepts – Bonnell\u2019s Fine Texas Cuisine, Buffalo Bros, and Waters – will remain open and will honor gift certificates or coupons for Jon’s Grille.<\/p>\n

Born and raised in Fort Worth and with a penchant for hunting and fishing, Bonnell is widely considered the modern-day godfather of Cowtown\u2019s culinary scene. He opened his namesake restaurant, Bonnell\u2019s Fine Texas Cuisine, in 2001, intentionally spotlighting local farmers and ranchers on his wild game-centric menu. Buffalo Bros, Waters, and Jon\u2019s Grille followed, as did his dedication to the promotion of Fort Worth\u2019s food scene. <\/p>\n

Bonnell won Chef of the Year<\/a> in the 2026 CultureMap Fort Worth Tastemaker Awards.<\/p>\n

He opened<\/a> Jon’s Grille in the old Aardvark space<\/a> on West Berry Street in 2022, alongside his brother Dr. Ric Bonnell and longtime partner chef Ed McOwen. He revived a sentimental favorite first founded in 1989 by Jon Meyerson that was located across from TCU in what is now Dutch’s Hamburgers.<\/p>\n

Meyerson was beloved for his personal touch and for contributing to the Berry Street scene, and the restaurant featured a large photograph of him as a tribute. The restaurant also featured a mural by artist Juan Velazquez of actor Sam Elliott, who became a local hero-of-sorts following the filming<\/a> of the Yellowstone spinoff 1883 in Fort Worth. The dining room also featured 11 big-screen TVs, making it a prime spot for sports-viewing.<\/p>\n

The restaurant adhered to a ranch-to-table philosophy that celebrated “the best of Texas with locally sourced food, beer, and spirits from across the Lone Star State,” they said.<\/p>\n

Burgers came in two sizes: the third-pound \u201cFlatty\u201d and the half-pound \u201cFatty.\u201d Each burger was served on fresh bread from Signature Baking Company, or could be eaten as a bowl.<\/p>\n

In his post about the Jon’s Grille closure, he called the restaurant’s tenure “four wonderful years.”<\/p>\n

Hundreds of comments have expressed disappointment and have wished him well.<\/p>\n

Former Fort Worth mayor Betsy Price even commented, “Hate to hear this; its so good! Thanks for several years of fun dining.”<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Teresa Gubbins and Celestina Blok contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A beloved Fort Worth chef and restaurateur has turned off the grills at his popular burger joint near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1805,745,116,118,117,353,131698,1949,853],"class_list":["post-371879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-burgers","tag-closings","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-jon-bonnell","tag-jons-grille","tag-restaurant-closures","tag-tcu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371879","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=371879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}