LoginOne of The Best New Small Town BBQ Joints is Open Saturdays Only
Three years ago, Gregg and Casey Lee Ring watched as a building burned uncontrollably in Flatonia, a town about midway between Houston and San Antonio. Once the damage was cleared, the owner put the empty lot up for sale. Gregg, a budding barbecue cook at the time, saw the potential of the prominent location along Main Street and bought it to set up the trailer for Casey Lee’s Family Craft BBQ. Casey, noticing that locals had criticized the volunteer fire department online about the incident, joined Flatonia Fire & Rescue.“That unfortunate day spurred on a lot of things in our life,” Gregg said. It also allowed Flatonia to get some remarkably good barbecue.Don’t expect smoked brisket every time you visit the Saturdays-only joint. Gregg said…The post One of The Best New Small Town BBQ Joints is Open Saturdays Only appeared first on Texas Monthly.
Decades ago, the late Hubert Green began an annual tradition of cooking a Thanksgiving meal for free at the Euless Senior Center. This year’s feast, on November 12, was the last served by the Green family.Hubert founded North Main BBQ just down the street from the senior center in 1981. A black-and-white pig statue greeted diners outside the front door, and the pitmaster would fire up an armadillo-shaped smoker around back. Both are now gone. Hubert and his second wife, Shari McKay Green, passed away in 2017. The business went to the McKay side of the family, was sold twice, and eventually closed.When Hubert died, his son Don Green had already opened his own barbecue trailer in Euless, the Saturdays-only Green’s Texas Bar-B-Que. He took…
Tifany Swulius and Antonio Guevara originally partnered to seek glory at the State Fair of Texas. In a shift that surprised both of them, they ended up opening a barbecue joint instead. Now they’re serving some of the best breakfast tacos in Dallas.Swulius and Guevara had worked together at Lakewood Landing, a Dallas institution that describes itself as “an upscale dive.” Swulius was a bartender who often brought in home-baked treats for coworkers and customers. Guevara ran the kitchen while also operating his own barbecue and taco pop-up, Tejas BBQ & Tacos, which became Tejas Brisket Co. after a similarly named Texas barbecue restaurant sent him a cease-and-desist letter. “I wasn’t making any money, but I was getting my name out there,” he said.While working…
When Jereis Khawaja launched Truboy BBQ with nationwide shipping in 2020, he wrote a mission statement for the website that promised to give everyone in the U.S. the opportunity to enjoy Texas barbecue. The Houston native read the statement every day, but he eventually realized it wasn’t true for many Muslim and Jewish customers because of cross contamination with Truboy’s most popular item, pulled pork. “By eliminating one product from my menu, my mission statement could become a true statement,” Khawaja says. In March 2021, he switched to only smoking halal meats, including brisket, lamb, and chicken.Last month brought the next big transformation of Khawaja’s business. Truboy BBQ Market, the first physical location for the brand, opened in Missouri City, outside Houston. Inside, a wall…
Wanalee “Nan” Gorelick grew up without electricity in the town of Rangsit, outside Bangkok, in Thailand. She moved to the U.S. in 2008 with just $100 to her name, eventually making her way to Cypress, northwest of Houston, where she met her now-husband, Adam Gorelick. When the subject of marriage came up, Nan demanded Adam spend some time in the Thai countryside living like a local. “I wanted to make sure he knows who he [is marrying] and where I came from,” she explained.Besides making a request for a window-unit air conditioner (which Nan’s family mercifully granted), Adam rose to the challenge. He took showers with a bucket of warm water poured over his head and lived with few of his usual comforts. While still…
This story was originally published in January 2022 and has been updated. No Texas city has Austin beat for its sheer volume of worthy barbecue destinations. Sure, the Houston area’s widespread suburbs might be richer in excellent smoked meats, and the Fort Worth scene is hot and new, but the amount of world-changing barbecue within our capital’s limits is staggering. In the June 2025 issue, we published our list of the top fifty barbecue joints, along with fifty more honorable mentions, but our barbecue recommendations don’t stop there. You can get a great meal at any one of these barbecue joints in Austin and its suburbs.In the City of AustinB. Cooper BarbecueThis unassuming trailer can be easy to miss when driving past. In the city…
Hit the blinker as soon as you spot the trio of BBQ flags waving outside Kirby’s BBQ. The speed limit is 50 miles per hour on Loop 494, and there’s just a wide strip of gravel between the low-slung, metal-roofed shack and the two-lane road. Kirby’s may have the look of a long-standing establishment, but it opened in May, the newest barbecue joint in New Caney, just northeast of Houston.After the cloud of dust settled from my sudden stop in the makeshift parking lot, I walked up the steps to the screened-in porch, where employee Svea Bailey greeted me and took my order. The building only houses the kitchen, so the dining area is limited to the picnic tables lining the porch. I found a…
This story was originally published in March 2022 and has been updated. San Antonio barbecue is ever evolving, but it has deep roots, as evidenced by the old-school brick pits that are still operational around the city. Good tortillas aren’t hard to come by here, and neither is excellent smoked chicken. We have our favorites, of course. In the June 2025 issue, we published our list of the top fifty barbecue joints, along with fifty more honorable mentions, but our barbecue recommendations don’t stop there. You can get a great meal at any one of these San Antonio joints.In the City of San Antonio2M Smokehouse2025 Top 50This barbecue spot quickly became the best in town after it opened in 2016, helping usher in a San…
Finding a great deal at a barbecue joint these days is like scoring a shaded spot at H-E-B in the summer. So on an early August stop at Tyler’s Barbeque, in Amarillo, I was surprised to see beef short ribs on the specials board for only $16 per pound. Surely, that price for this Saturdays-only offering was for a half pound, a common gambit to delay customers’ sticker shock. I double- and triple-checked the board while in line, as I inched ever closer to the counter, then asked the cutter for one of those ribs, one on the smaller side if possible. It was rung up at just $1 an ounce, and I felt like I was getting away with something as I scurried off…
This story was originally published in January 2022 and has been updated. The Metroplex is too big for just one barbecue guide. The Fort Worth area already got its own, so this one is dedicated to Dallas and its many suburbs, which are packed with smoked-meat stops both old and new. We have our favorites, of course. In the June 2025 issue, we published our list of the top fifty barbecue joints, along with fifty more honorable mentions, but our barbecue recommendations don’t stop there. You can get a great meal at any one of the joints below.In the City of DallasHeim BarbecueThe Heims ushered Fort Worth into the modern barbecue movement with their tender brisket, colossal beef ribs, and famous bacon burnt ends, though…
This story was originally published in December 2021 and has been updated. For years, Texas Monthly published a single guide to cover all the barbecue in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Then Fort Worth—as well as the Mid-Cities—suddenly became the most exciting place in Texas for new barbecue joints. Panther City and its suburbs are now receiving the honor of their own directory. In the June 2025 issue we published our list of top fifty barbecue joints, along with fifty more worthy of honorable mentions, but our barbecue recommendations don’t stop there. You can get a great meal of smoked meats at any one of these Fort Worth–area joints.In the City of Fort WorthAngelo’s BBQThis Fort Worth staple goes back to 1958. The brisket and ribs are plenty…
BJ Bradford’s jump start to becoming a barbecue entrepreneur began with 25 briskets gifted to him by the universe. In 2016, while working as an over-the-road trucker and hauling a load of beef from Kansas to Florida, a customer rejected five boxes from the delivery because they were damaged. When the company told him to keep or get rid of them, BJ’s choice was clear. Adopting those orphaned briskets would end up altering his career.He picked up four big coolers from a nearby Walmart, packed them full of briskets and ice, and headed back home to Bryan, Texas, where his family was waiting for him. “I got a lot of training from those briskets right there,” he says. Smoking meat wasn’t new to BJ. His…
This story was originally published in November 2021 and has been updated. The Houston metro area has more standout barbecue joints than exist in many entire states. We have our favorites, of course. In 2023, Texas Monthly released a list of the best new barbecue joints in Texas. In the June 2025 issue we published our list of top fifty barbecue joints, along with fifty more worthy of honorable mentions, but our barbecue recommendations don’t stop there. You can get a great meal of smoked meats at any one of these Houston barbecue joints.In the City of HoustonBrisket & Rice2025 Top 50Phong Tran, his brother Hong, and Hong’s wife, Michelle Nguyen, combined their Vietnamese heritage with classic Central Texas barbecue to create this gem next…
About a year ago, Marc Fadel sat across from me as I burst his barbecue bubble. The then-eighteen-year-old begged for an honest assessment of the smoked meats from his three-week-old Habibi Barbecue trailer. I began with some light, constructive criticism. But then he asked me to be more blunt.“If you keep at this for a year, you’ll look back at photos and be embarrassed of the barbecue you’re serving now,” I told him. His mouth said he understood, though his face looked crestfallen. I didn’t mean any disrespect. Any experienced pitmaster trying to improve with every cook will know what I meant, and the good news is that Fadel did keep at it. A year later, he has matured into one heck of a pitmaster.“I…
Joshua Coleman loved his family, custom trucks, Nike shoes, and barbecue. When he passed away in September 2023, after a tragic accident at the age of 36, his obituary read in part, “Josh had a deep appreciation for Texas barbecue, often embarking on long journeys just to savor the finest flavors of the Lone Star State.” His mother, Adrienne Jolliff, encouraged mourners at his funeral to wear Nike tennis shoes. His brother Casey Coleman now drives one of the many trucks, a red Ford F-150, that Josh customized. After his funeral, Adrienne and Casey decided they would continue to celebrate Josh’s life through barbecue.“We were looking for a way to celebrate his birthday but also keep his memory alive,” Casey told me. A month after…
Salahodeen Abdul-Kafi remembers traveling from his home in Columbia, Missouri, to Kansas City as a boy. As Muslims, his family kept to a strict halal diet at home, but when they traveled, the rules were relaxed. “Back then, there were literally zero halal options at any restaurant,” he says. They usually sought out beef, and he was fond of the brisket at Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ (now Joe’s Kansas City Barbeque). As halal options became more plentiful over time, the family stopped eating non-halal. Abdul-Kafi recalls the burnt ends he ate as a fourteen-year-old with a unique sort of reverence, because it would be another fifteen years before he would eat barbecue again.In 2019, Abdul-Kafi was living in the Bay Area of California, where he had…
This week, Southern Living magazine released its Top 50 BBQ Joints in the South. The number one spot on the list, which is compiled annually by contributing barbecue editor Robert F. Moss, is in South Carolina, but Texas is well-represented with seventeen barbecue joints from the Lone Star State. It’s flattering, especially since the first list, in 2015, only included seven spots from Texas, but I think the Southern Living barbecue list could use seventeen fewer Texas barbecue joints. Stick with me.Barbecue in Texas is thriving. The best joints in the state get so much (well-deserved) attention compared to many of the new and storied barbecue houses throughout the rest of the South. And if you’re wondering if Texas should be considered “the South,” the…
Bill Dumas took off his apron, then his shirt and undershirt, while walking away from the booth where he was serving sausage at the 2022 Monterrey BBQ Fest, in Mexico. Under the hot afternoon sun, he strutted toward the masked luchadores warming up outside a wrestling ring set up at the event. With animated hand motions and very little Spanish, Dumas persuaded one of them to climb in through the ropes with him and give him a proper body slam. Ever the showman, he feigned injury as he lay on the mat in his blue jeans, then rolled out onto the grass and walked back to his booth with a beaming smile.If you find Dumas at another barbecue festival, you may be treated to his…
At the end of last year, Hop and Sting Brewing, in Grapevine, lost its longtime barbecue partner. Trey Sanchez moved his mobile Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q operation into a new physical location, in Allen, but he had a suggestion for his replacement. The duo of Christian Martinez and Paul Pizana had grown Pasión BBQ from pop-up to food truck in two short years and needed a new spot. “They were happy to have us here, and we were blessed to be here,” Martinez says.Martinez and Pizana were childhood friends growing up in Arlington, and they bonded as adults over barbecue. Together in their backyards, they smoked ribs and briskets for their friends and family members before moving on to beef tongue and cheeks. “We would try…
It felt too early for barbecue one morning at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. I was on my way to Omaha to start a multistate barbecue tour last year when I saw a sign near gate A16 for the Salt Lick. The normal timetables for consuming food and drink seem to bend at airports. Ask anyone at a so-called Irish pub with a pint of Guinness before their 8 a.m. flight. So I pondered the breakfast taco for a moment before going right for the biggest barbecue sandwich on the Salt Lick menu.The Chop Chop ($21.99 with a side and drink) is a combination of brisket and smoked sausage chopped together and piled high on a sesame-seed bun. I got a side of slaw so…