Arnis and Mallory Robbins thought they’d be slinging brisket with ease when they opened a new location of Evie Mae’s Pit Barbeque in Miramar Beach, Florida, last year. The couple is a decade into a successful run at the joint’s original location, in Wolfforth, just southwest of Lubbock, which has landed a top ten ranking in the last three of our Top 50 barbecue lists. They assumed the reputation they built in Texas would transfer elsewhere, and that barbecue lovers all over the Florida Panhandle would flock to Evie Mae’s once it opened. “Texas barbecue transcends Texas,” Arnis said. In a recent conversation at Evie Mae’s in Wolfforth, the couple shared some of the unexpected hurdles they’ve encountered and a stark realization about expanding to…

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Todd David has found that when professional pitmasters seek advice, it’s rarely about smoking meat. “No one asks about cooking barbecue,” he says of the conversations he’s been having through his new resource, Nextep Q. David launched the site to give back to the barbecue community that helped him build Cattleack Barbeque, in Farmers Branch, a suburb of Dallas, into a successful business. Think of it like a free hotline for barbecue joint owners in need of advice, with David always on the other end of the line.David opened Cattleack with his wife, Misty, in 2013 and sold it to longtime employee Andrew Castelan a decade later. The restaurant has been on our Top 50 barbecue joints list every time it has been eligible. What…

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