Here’s an old-time weekend breakfast buffet in north Fort Worth. (But don’t be late.)

Bud Kennedy
·2 min read

The weekend breakfast buffet at one new Fort Worth hotel costs $60.

But one of the best breakfast buffets in town is back, and it’s only $12.99.

Freed from pandemic lockdown, Heaven’s Gate Restaurant is back with a home-cooking lunch buffet like you’d find in some country cafe during vacation.

But Heaven’s Gate really shines on weekend mornings, when the 45-year-old cafe at 3820 N. Main St. rolls out a breakfast buffet unlike almost any left in Texas, offering everything from chicken-fried steak to menudo.

The eggs alone take up one of the three buffet steam tables. There’s a choice of scrambled eggs, diced ham-and-eggs, migas, eggs with chorizo or eggs a la Mexicana, and I might have missed one.

Add the fluffy biscuits and some of the city’s best home-cooking-cafe bacon, and you’ve already got a full plate. (The bacon also wraps the cupcake-like poached eggs.)

But then there’s the chicken drumsticks, or the fried pork chops, or the pancakes and French toast.

You have to be punctual. The doors open at 8 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and by 10:45 a.m. breakfast is taken away to make way for the daily Southern-style and Tex-Mex lunch buffet, which offers entrees ranging from meatloaf to enchiladas.

(The restaurant opens at 8 a.m. daily, but serves breakfast on weekday mornings off a regular American and Tex-Mex menu.)

Heaven’s Gate went through two years of turmoil, first due to remodeling, then due to 20-year owner Barbie Stanislawski’s chronic health problems and the pandemic downturn. Sometimes, health scores slipped.

She’s planning to be back in the restaurant soon.

“I feel young at heart again,” she wrote in a text message.

“It’s heartbreaking to think what has happened this last year with lives lost ... we didn’t survive this nightmare to give up now.”

Heaven’s Gate serves a breakfast menu and a lunch buffet daily, with a breakfast buffet weekends.

It’s near Meacham Airport, 2 miles south of Loop 820 or 2 miles north of the Stockyards; 817-624-1262.