Casual Restaurant King Plans to Open New Beer Garden and Playground in Fort Worth This Fall

Jason Boso’s enjoyed spectacular success with the restaurant brands he has launched. They are casual and fun, and there’s more on the way next fall.

Boso’s company, Brain Storm Shelter Restaurants, is responsible for Twisted Root Burger Company, Truck Yard (with three current locations), Hart Hall on Main ― tucked into Old Town Coppell, and three spots in Mansfield. By the Horns Brewery opened there alongside a Twisted Root and Brain Storm’s newest restaurant, Tacos & Avocados, last year.

But Boso is hardly done. In addition to bringing Second Rodeo Brewing Company, revealed to be one of the new tenants of Mule Alley in the Fort Worth Stockyards last year, PaperCity’s learned of his plan to bring a fourth location of Truck Yard to Fort Worth’s Alliance Town Center.

Amanda Boso, whose official title at Brain Storm Shelter, is Ms. Chief of Staff, tells PaperCity Fort Worth that they “are not looking to be open until around September” on either new spot.

With the current coronavirus pandemic, which could lead to indefinite construction delays, no one’s going to hold them to that anyway. But, there’s more than just a glimmer of light at the end of this social distancing tunnel ― if the Bosos have anything to say about it.

The newest addition to their growing lineup, Second Rodeo Brewing Company, will be a prime component of the Mule Alley redevelopment. Shake Shack was the first spot to open in Mule Alley at the end of January, and Marcus Paslay’s highly anticipated Provender Hall just revealed this week that its debut will be postponed due to the current mandated restaurant dining room and bar closures.

Second Rodeo Brewing Company will ultimately bring a backyard bar feel with chef-driven grub. Similar to other winning formulas from Brain Storm Shelter, it plans to be a family friendly venue, and will incorporate live music. Guests will enjoy Jason Boso’s signature beer, which will be brewed in-house, and the design is said to include a rustic interior with a dramatic, retractable roof.

The Truck Yard concept (with spots in Dallas, Houston and The Colony currently) is billed as a “come as you are beer garden and playground.” Each location has a revolving menu of local food trucks who provide the grub, and Boso provides the quirky venue and the booze. The taps are filled by Texas drafts and the drinks menu ranges from craft draft, bottled and frozen cocktails, to wines on tap.

The first Tarrant County Truck Yard venue will be located at Alliance Town Center, and will feature a 6,500-square-foot indoor area named the West Texas Pole Barn, heavily shaded patios, a game area for adults and kids, a rest area for pets and historic windmills, water towers, silos, hand-painted murals and signs, according to a Hillwood release. (Hillwood owns and manages Alliance Town Center.)

“This location will be more live-music-forward with a Fort Worth honky-tonk beer hall ambiance,” Jason Boso, Brain Storm Shelter CEO, says in the release. Designed by Plan B Group, the venue will feature indoor and outdoor stages constructed from two vintage 1950s flatbed trucks parked end to end as well as a “band shell” stage made of tree branches.

“The West Texas Pole Barn has the largest amount of interior space of any of our locations, designed to keep us open and serving year-round,” Boso says. “I’m most excited about the Fainting Goat Ranch, which is a nod to the cattle and horses that Hillwood has kept on this land. It will have guest appearances for holidays, parties and Instagram-able moments with llamas, ponies, goats, bison and other animals.”

Now, that’s something to look forward to as we all camp out at home.