Back in 2020, two retired couples from Paris, Brad and Christi Coe and Greg and Penny Skidmore, were discussing their futures. “We were talking about getting a camper and traveling across the world,” Penny recalls. Soon after, an ad popped up on Facebook for a used Airstream trailer in nearby Clarksville, in the far northeastern corner of Texas. They all drove down together to take a look and decided to buy it. As they were renovating it, the idea of a commercial kitchen supplanted the bedroom layout. “I don’t know how that part happened,” Penny admits, but the plan shifted to realize her husband’s lifelong dream of running a restaurant. Along with help from the Coes’ daughter Catelin and granddaughter MaryAnn, the couples opened Fireside…

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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…

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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…

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A Puerto Rican flag and a Philippines flag flank the ordering window of the Yammy’s Filipino Letchon truck, in Round Rock, just north of Austin. Meriam Soto, the matriarch of the family business, hails from the Philippines, and her husband, Santos Soto, is Puerto Rican. Both cultures have distinct cuisines, but they share a love for lechon. At its most basic, lechon is a small pig cooked whole on a rotating spit until the skin is crisp and the meat is tender. Yammy’s serves a simplified version of just pork belly at the truck. It’s exceptional—but the business owes its genesis to a particularly bad lechon.A decade ago, Meriam wanted a whole roasted pig for the holidays, as is traditional for Filipino families. “I ordered…

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