I. Show Up Late, Lose Weight BBQ takes time. Real time. There’s only so much room on the pits, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. If you roll in at 2 PM and they’re out of the good stuff, that’s not bad luck. That’s just bad math on your part. This isn’t made to order. It’s made for the people who showed up. II. Respect the Line The line is not a flaw in the experience. It is part of the experience. No cutting. No soft excuses. No saving space for someone who isn’t standing there

Kerry Bexley, tending the fire before the rush. 📸 @reservedtablestudio There are barbecue joints you visit, and then there are barbecue joints you commit to. Snow’s is the second kind. It is Saturday only. Doors at 8:00 a.m. Meat until it is gone. Ms. Tootsie Tomanetz turns 91 tomorrow as of writing this, and somehow the place still carries that rare thing most famous restaurants lose somewhere along the way: its pulse. I got there at 1 a.m. and still fell well short of bein

The Houston BBQ Festival is not just another food event. For one day, Houston barbecue gets pulled out of its separate corners and asked to stand shoulder to shoulder. That is what makes the festival matter. Yes, the food is good. It better be. But the real story has never just been what lands on the plate. It is the people behind it. The ones trying to keep a business alive, keep the fires right, keep the line moving, and still carve out enough time to show up and feed a cit

BBQ takes time. Real time. And yet, every weekend, some poor unsuspecting soul wanders into a barbecue joint halfway through the afternoon, hears the words “we’re out of brisket,” and reacts like the place just hit every trigger he came in with. Let’s clear something up. Barbecue is not a QSR. It is not built for quick service. It is built around time, fire, limited space, and the constant balancing act of making enough to meet demand without cooking so much that profit goes

In front of the pits at Harlem Road Texas BBQ, where the smoke and the man behind it both carry a point of view. I met Ara in 2018, back when I was still trying to get my media company off the ground and find my footing with the Cost of Goods Told podcast. A mutual friend, Darren Lafferty, told me I needed to go try Ara’s barbecue. So I drove out to Richmond early one morning, back when there was not much out there. Harlem Road stood almost by itself, a barnlike restaurant in

The covered patio at CorkScrew BBQ in Spring, Texas, where the line eventually gives way to trays and conversation. My first visit to CorkScrew came wrapped in ignorance, which is sometimes the best way to find a place worth remembering. I did not know the full history yet — that it had started from humble beginnings and fought its way into the conversation with the best barbecue joints in Texas. I only knew my brother-in-law had told me to go, so one early morning I met my f

Cooper Abercrombie, pitmaster and co-owner of Bar-A-BBQ, with Shelby Abercrombie, co-owner, at their restaurant in Montgomery, Texas. I first pulled into Bar-A-BBQ while filming for Kevin’s BBQ Joints (you can watch the video here ). It quickly became the kind of trip where you are there to document someone else’s story, but end up stumbling into one of your own. Montgomery isn’t the kind of place that shouts for attention, and Bar-A doesn’t either. It doesn’t need to. It sit

Ben Maxwell and Jordan Rosemeyer of Rosemeyer BBQ I’ve used the word “unassuming” before to describe a place — but Rosemeyer Bar-B-Q...

Texas Tech student Kristen Witherspoon made this drawing of Daniel Vaughn for a class project, and now is his Instagram avatar. In 2013,...

Tootsie Tomanetz - 2025 After back-to-back “Top 5” headliners in 1997 and 2003, the editorial team changed course. This time, there...

By the time 2003 rolled around, Texas Monthly's Top 50 BBQ list had already become a lightning rod for pitmaster pride and public...

With the Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ list dropping in 4 days, I figured now’s the perfect time to take a step back—not to speculate on this...

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo rarely involves barbecue, but the celebration was in full swing at J-Bar-M. Walking in, you could feel a...