Introduction to the State Fair of Texas 2025

As State Fair of Texas concessionaires heat up their fryers for opening day on Sept. 26, 2025, attendees will find new food stands and lounges throughout Dallas’ Fair Park. Among the newcomers are the fair’s first fully vegan stand, a ramen shop and a bargain booth where all items cost less than $10.

Food could get more expensive for fairgoers in 2025, because food prices have increased about 3% in the past year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“I hear it in my restaurant, I read about it in the news: Everybody thinks everything is too expensive, and they’re 100% right,” said State Fair concessionaire Abel Gonzales. He’s been a State Fair concessionaire since 2002. He created Deep Fried Butter, the 2009 phenomenon that helped catapult State Fair food to an international audience.

Gonzales hasn’t lost his love for deep-frying weird things, and his stand on Nimitz will continue to sell fried peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwiches and fried cookie dough.

New Stands and Lounges

He’s choosing to take what he calls “a big, huge risk” on his second stand, now called Cheap Eats and located on the Funway. Cheap Eats is a discount den where consumers can buy hamburgers, French fries and eggrolls for $10 or less. (That’s 10 coupons or less, in State Fair bucks.)

The State Fair of Texas runs Sept. 26, 2025 through Oct. 19, 2025 in Dallas.

Chitose Suzuki / Staff Photographer

The lowest-priced item at Cheap Eats will be a hot dog for $3 or $4. Gonzales is still running the numbers.

Gonzales feels he owes it to State Fair customers, since he also sells the single most expensive food item at the fair: $80 for deep-fried lobster. He created it in 2015 and continues to sell it today. It costs $10 more than last year, and Gonzales is tacking on a third lobster tail to every order.

“Get this: I’m selling $80 lobster at one of my stands. … And at another stand, we’ll have a $3 or $4 hot dog,” he said. “You get the best of both worlds.”

Other New Stands at the State Fair of Texas

In addition to new food items in 2025 and the Big Tex Choice Awards finalists that are sure to draw lines, fairgoers can expect new menus in some corners of Fair Park.

Big Time for Bacon

Rousso’s Fat Bacon is a new stand in 2025 at the State Fair of Texas, near the Children’s Aquarium.

Isaac Rousso

After Cotton Candy Bacon won “best taste” at the State Fair in 2024, concessionaire Isaac Rousso went whole hog on the idea for 2025. His new Rousso’s Fat Bacon stand sells bourbon-glazed bacon, bacon bourbon caramel cheesecake, bacon jam cannoli, bacon jam cheese fries and more.

It will even sell bacon on a stick coated in Dubai chocolate. We’ve seen Dubai chocolate all over Dallas-Fort Worth, but we haven’t seen it on bacon.

Ramen to Go