Crystal Wise
Wishbone & Flynt’s superb Flynt Burger is making the jump to owner-chef Stefon Rishel’s new restaurant, Parker County Ice House, soon to open in Willow Park.
A while back, Stefon Rishel and his wife went house-hunting in Aledo. Instead of buying a house, though, Rishel built a restaurant.
Parker County Ice House, the third restaurant by the well-known Fort Worth chef and his Trident Restaurant Group, opened this week in Willow Park, an up-and-coming slice of Aledo ripe with hope and hard hats. Development engulfs the area. In a few months’ time, Willow Park will be filled with additional retail and residential spaces, and Parker County will be at the heart of it all, offering an all-in-one experience of food, drinks, entertainment, and family-friendly activities.
“There’s not a place like this for area residents to go to,” Rishel says. “They have to drive to Fort Worth. I don’t know how many times people from this area would come to my restaurants and say, ‘I wish you’d open a restaurant in Aledo.’”
Crystal Wise
Parker County Ice House’s menu will include chicken-fried chicken, doused in black pepper cream gravy, and served with mashed potatoes and green beans.
Not that Parker County Ice House is a straight-up restaurant. It is that, of course, with a menu that rests comfortably in Rishel’s upscale American food wheelhouse: a gourmet burger, chef-inspired takes on chicken-fried steak and other Americana classics, whimsical sides, and desserts.
But Rishel and his Trident business partners Kyle Bryson and Wallace Owens have built a magnificently sleek restaurant that goes beyond a restaurant. There's a large outdoor area, with family-friendly games, a shaded patio, and a stage for live music. Rishel says he’s opening to bring in both local and national touring music acts. “Not just country or solo singers,” he says. “But acts from all genres.”
Crystal Wise
Cornmeal-battered fried pickles, saddled with housemade ranch.
Parker County Ice House is a spinoff of a similar — and similarly named — concept, Berry St. Ice House. Opened last summer in the old Americado building on West Berry Street, it, too, offered a family-friendly food and drink experience, with upscale bar food, craft cocktails, and a huge outdoor area.
But Berry St. closed in July after Trident and the building’s owners couldn’t reach a new lease agreement. “It is what it is,” Rishel says. “It was just kind of this one-off thing, in which we couldn’t reach a new agreement.”
Berry Street was clearly the victim of the right concept in the wrong building. Built from the ground up, Parker County Ice House allows Trident (which also opened Wishbone & Flynt in the South Main area of Fort Worth) to be in full control. Rishel says if it takes off, he and his business partners, whom Rishel credits with landing this concept in Aledo, may explore opening additional locations elsewhere.
Crystal Wise
That’s down the road, Rishel says. Coming up sooner will be the opening of TreMogli Cucina Italiana, a high-end, family-style Italian restaurant located in the same complex as Wishbone & Flynt, at 401 South Main St. Rishel says he’s hoping to open in October.
When asked if he’s had any time to rest, Rishel says, “We rested for 15 months because of the pandemic. It’s go, go, go time now.”
Parker County Ice House, 210 Willow Bend Drive, Willow Park, parkercountyicehouse.com
