Popular restaurants all over the world have signature dishes, some even have just one item that makes them a dining destination. You go to Katz’s Deli in New York for pastrami, Mary’s Cafe in Strawn, Texas for chicken fried steak, and nobody complains about the fish at House of Prime Rib in
Restaurateurs dismissing the use of all wood cookers saying “the city won’t let us cook with wood” no longer have an excuse, at least not in San Antonio. Just beyond a low counter that they call the altar at El Machete, there’s a crackling mesquite fire, the flickers of which you
Pioneer BBQ has been around a while in the middle of Nixon, a town about an hour southeast of San Antonio. It was operated by the Chambers Brothers out of Luling, then a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses who eventually put the business up for sale on Craigslist. That’s where Shawn
Three years ago I ate some promising barbecue from a food truck in the shadow of I-410 in San Antonio. Chris Conger was doing it all that day inside what was called Conger’s Smoke Shack, cooking, slicing, and making change. Last year he had stowed away enough change to make the
With the rising cost of meat, specifically beef brisket, inexpensive barbecue is becoming rare today. It’s especially difficult to find a decent version of it. Finding $20 per pound brisket isn’t a challenge in Austin, Dallas, and Pearland, but that doesn’t fly in Corsicana. At
“The good smell in Evadale” is the tag line painted on a wooden fence beside Chuck’s Bar-B-Q and Burgers which sits about thirty minutes north of Beaumont. Folks say the local paper mill produces a stench, and the smoke from owner Chuck Howard’s pit is sometimes the only relief. I
George Gerard didn’t have much time for adjustment to running a barbecue joint. He had planned to leave behind the family business for a life as an electrician in Austin, but his parents pleaded with him to come back home to Beaumont. He relented and a short time later, his
It’s not exactly new, it’s not flashy, and it’s not dogmatic about the barbecue style it serves, but Off the Bone Barbeque in Dallas’s Cedars neighborhood is just good. Dwight Harvey has run this joint in a converted gas station with his son Steven since 2008. It was a scheme to
Spring, Texas is evidently large enough for more than one great food truck. This town of 50,000 just north of Houston has been home to Corkscrew BBQ, a Texas Monthly Top 50 selection, since 2011. Now, just five minutes east is a new food truck park where BBQ Godfather sits
The valet stand just outside the front door of Meat U Anywhere BBQ is a unique barbecue joint amenity. It might seem out of place for this type of restaurant, but owner Andy Sedino has his reasons. When he opened this joint late last year he saw it as a side
Finding a road trip stop with real character always feels like an accomplishment. Highway exits are so often populated with nothing but mini marts and golden arches, it’s hard to find something unique. That’s a quality you’ll certainly find at the Loco Coyote Grill, and long as you see the
It’s only fifteen percent of a wandering menu, but the listings under “New Texas Smokehouse” at Clark Food & Wine in Dallas begged for a visit. It’s a chic new restaurant on Lower Greenville, a neighborhood that has been amping up its restaurant game of late. The meat-centric Blind Butcher
Lindsey Nutter and Brian “Buster” Rauschuber operate Nutter Buster BBQ from a trailer in a small dirt patch of a food truck park near 290 and MoPac in Austin. They sat in relative obscurity in Manchaca south of Austin for a year and a half, but a few months ago they scooted
If it weren’t for the big, red sign that reads “BBQ” out along FM 1970, I’d probably have passed Chuck’s Smoke House. It’s a few miles southwest of Carthage in East Texas, near the shores of Lake Murvaul. A metal bull mounted to the roof and hand painted lettering on
It was big news when the Austin American Statesman announced fourteen months ago that Black’s Barbecue was opening an Austin branch. It looked like the Black barbecue family from Lockhart was expanding. Running the place would be twins Michael and Mark Black, nephews of Kent Black who manages
It was a phone call that brought me back out to Hickory Hill BBQ. It sits along a stretch of State Highway 31, right on the western edge of the East Texas pine curtain. I’d driven by it a few times, but always found it closed, then owner Kerry Shaw
In 1908, German immigrant William Specht bought some property outside Bulverde, Texas, about twenty miles north of San Antonio. He took over the operation of an existing store, and by the early twenties erected a building that, according to the Bulverde Standard, was originally a dance hall. Being
With a history formed by ranching and railroads, Abilene sounds like a city destined to have good brisket. It was founded in 1883 after cattle ranchers and land speculators convinced the railroad to swing north of former county seat Buffalo Gap, and a new city was born. After the
The smokers were everywhere. Co-owner Rhonda Scales had led me through a swinging door into the kitchen where a hulking rotisserie pit was churning with tomorrow’s briskets. “We use all oak,” she told me as we walked out the back door. Split oak logs were piled around two more trailer-mounted
Two weeks after this review ran, Russell Roegels ended his franchise agreement with Baker’s Ribs and rebranded the business as Roegels Barbecue Co. Great barbecue at a chain restaurant? I was skeptical to say the least, but in Houston I stopped at the lone Baker’s Ribs location in town.
Shawn Eagle and Cody Smithers opened a Denton barbecue joint in a strip mall with $5,000 from a Kickstarter campaign and a big dream. A week into running the business they shared with the local paper the desire to make the Texas Monthly Top 50 barbecue list. Five months
I’d like to be able to say more about Mesquite Wood Bar-B-Q, but the items available from the smoker the day I stopped in didn’t allow for it. I stood perusing the menu on the small porch at the ordering window that faces Drake Street. A few blocks south the county
Larry Lavine has been an accomplished restaurateur in Dallas for decades, but he’s best known for founding the Chili’s chain in the seventies. He sold the business thirty years ago, even before baby back ribs ever made it to the menu, and now he’s in the brisket game. After plenty of
I didn’t go looking for a barbecue theme as I drove around the rural roads northwest of Fort Worth, but I found plenty. It seems in the Azle/Rhome/Haslet part of the state that a barbecue joint can’t operate unless it has hand-cut fries (five out of five that I visited)
Good barbecue in West Texas is about as common as an oak tree west of the Pecos River. Consequently, it was a revelation when we found Pody’s BBQ in Pecos a couple years back. When I first visited Pody’s back in 2012 it was brand new. A search
You’ve probably didn’t know there is an Oklahoma, Texas, but that’s where you’ll find The Wooden Spoke on a corner gravel lot along FM Road 2978. It’s officially in Magnolia, but the Oklahoma Cemetery and the Oklahoma Community Center are just a block away. Despite that, owner and
It’s just a mile or so off 190, the state highway that runs through Livingston, but Florida’s Kitchen feels like it’s way out in the country. I passed it on my way to visit Hitch-N-Post BBQ, a Texas Monthly top 5o barbecue joint, just another mile
There’s something homey about a meal at Texas Smoke BBQ Co. in downtown Sanger. Owner and pitmaster Jay Coin prepares the barbecue plates back in the kitchen while his wife, Mindy, works the front of the house. They work together on the popular smoked meatloaf, and a table full of
Just outside of downtown San Saba is Double G Pit Stop, a combination drive-thru beer barn and barbecue joint. You can get a drink any day, but for barbecue you’ll have to wait until the weekend. Owner and pitmaster Bobby Galindo only fires up the pits on Saturdays and Sundays, and
When I took the first bite from the towering chopped brisket sandwich at David’s Barbecue in Pantego, I thought this must be what Sonny Bryan’s used to taste like when it made it on everyone’s “best of” barbecue lists. You see, owner and pitmaster Jimmy Harris is part of the
Cherokee sits in between San Saba and Llano in the Texas Hill Country. There aren’t many dining options in this town of a hundred seventy-five. A gas station has ready-made pizzas and there’s Southside BBQ on the weekends.Alva Zulauf and his wife Chris have operated a barbecue catering company for
The fire burns brightly in a brick pit out front of Heavy’s in Hondo. It’s a hulking brick pit built by the McBee family back when they opened this barbecue joint, and it’s prominent location on the front corner of the building, along with the smoke that pours out of
In a gas station just south of the University of Houston campus you’ll find some of the best fried catfish you’ll ever eat and some great barbecue to go along with it. The barbecue comes from the experienced hands of co-owner Ray Busch who has been serving smoked meat to the
Darby Neaves wanted to be included in the page of Texas Monthly, and he knew that wouldn’t happen with a food truck set up in Arkansas, even if it was just ten miles north of the Red River in Ashdown. It was still worrisome moving his business into the city, but
FM Smoke House began with sous vide brisket and bacon grease injections. The owners of Holy Grail Pub in Plano had some success with inventive barbecue items at their weekend “Smoke Out” barbecue events, so they brought some of those ideas along when they branched out last year into Irving
A pulled pork sandwich with slaw and sauce in between a honey bun and served in a Styrofoam container – it doesn’t get much further from the barbecue you’d expect to get in Lockhart, Texas. That’s precisely why Mad Jack’s BBQ Shack has been successful over the past year. Instead of trying
When Schmidt Family Barbecue opened late last year it was billed as a taste of Lockhart, without having to drive to Lockhart. Two of the most famous barbecue joints in the state, Kreuz Market and Smitty’s, had put aside their differences. In a show of family unity, they partnered and
“The Best Barbecue, Period.” That’s the motto Ronnie Killen has printed on the shirts that he and his staff wear, putting a daily target on every one of their backs. Making that declaration even after a good run of success toes the line between confidence and arrogance, but Killen had them
In 1974 Warren Clark opened a little barbecue shack in Tioga, Texas, and it didn’t take long before it became the darling of food critics, chefs and celebrities. In 1989, Alan Richman, then writing for People, claimed “Clark produces the best barbecue in Texas, which is something to brag about.” Dallas
Kerlin BBQ isn’t yet a year old, making it one of the youngest barbecue joints in Austin to be mentioned with the big names. Owner and pitmaster Bill Kerlin is also pretty new to the craft of smoking meat. “I never cooked a brisket until I moved to
Nothing about Hinze’s BBQ in Sealy says trendy. It’s situated a half block from I-10, and right next to a Whataburger. Just like that Whataburger, Hinze’s has a drive-thru stacked with vehicles. There were so many cars that I went inside to find their massive menu displayed on
Brown’s Bar-B-Que has one of the best briskets in Austin, and one of the best side items in Texas. When I visited a year ago (at their previous location) I found the brisket to be the weak link, but no longer. Pitmaster Daniel Brown has found the sweet spot in his
Johnny Doyle cooks on a gas rotisserie, but he’d do it differently if he could. He takes pride in the barbecue he puts out in his nearly forty-year-old Denison restaurant, so when a pit fire destroyed his Oylers, he wanted to replace them. “[J&R Manufacturing] told me it would be
Melissa Perkins grew up in Colbert, Oklahoma just across the Red River from Texas around the same time that the legendary PO Sam had his barbecue joint along Franklin Street in Colbert. A friend of hers worked at the barbecue joint, so when she took her friend to PO
Chances are you won’t just happen upon Bubba Moses Pit BBQ in Dawson. The tiny town is along State Highway 31 between Corsicana and Waco. Even if you’ve driven that route, a well-timed sneeze might cause you to miss Dawson entirely. If you’re alert, look for the steady mesquite smoke that rises
In Wyatt McSpadden’s book Texas BBQ from 2009 there are two evocative early-morning photos of the tall smokestack at Mack’s Split Rail Bar-B-Que in Mineola. Other than these photos, I hadn’t seen or heard much about the place and wondered if maybe it had closed. On a trip to Tyler
A accolade from two years back brought me to this renovated Sonic on the east side of San Antonio. A local media outlet (I don’t recall which one) wrote that Ed’s Smok-N-Q served the best brisket in the city. That claim in San Antonio doesn’t carry quite the weight as the same
I was looking for a jerk chicken restaurant just south of the Trinity University campus in San Antonio when I drove past a brightly painted converted service station. I hadn’t planned on visiting Hot Spot BBQ that day, but when the jerk chicken shack was locked down tight, I made
This review comes from Texas Monthly’s Food Editor Pat Sharpe who found this little barbecue trailer during her travels through Victoria.The first sign that today was not my day was when I screeched up in front of Kevin Broll’s barbecue truck a mere nine minutes before closing time—that was pretty
For weeks 4-T’s Bar-B-Q courted me via Twitter. They would regularly send out photos of their brisket or of the Friday-only burnt ends. All of this was with the intent of getting me to drive the twenty minutes east of Dallas to try their barbecue in Forney. When I finally
