We wrote about Jonny Butch back in May, before most people in Dallas-Fort Worth had heard his name. If you missed it, here’s the short version: Butch works the pits at Goldee’s Barbecue in Fort Worth, the place Texas Monthly has ranked number one in the state and that Food & Wine put among the best new chef programs in America in 2024. Before that, he cooked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York and staged at Noma in Copenhagen. His resume reads like two careers stitched together — fine dining at the highest level, then a deliberate turn toward the oldest, most honest version of Texas barbecue he could find.
Last summer he spent weeks driving through eight states — Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas — eating at old-school joints, the kind of places that have been doing the same thing the same way for decades and have no interest in changing. He came back with a point of view: the most interesting direction in barbecue right now isn’t forward. It’s back. Classic methods, classic cuts, a short menu that doesn’t need to explain itself.
That thinking became Beef Lounge Bar-B-Que, the pop-up he’s been running at Goldee’s since late last year. The first menu was Elgin hot guts, German potato salad, sauerkraut, and jaternice — the Czech pork-liver sausage you find in Central Texas hill country towns and almost nowhere else. Not a greatest-hits menu. A statement. He’s run several pop-ups since, each one with its own personality, each one drawing a crowd that shows up knowing what it’s getting into.
Wednesday, September 16, Beef Lounge returns to Goldee’s at 4645 Dick Price Road in Fort Worth, starting at 11 a.m. This time the menu includes plates, sandwiches, Jell-O, multi-regional goat, and what Butch is calling “Deco picnic treats.” There will be a line. Go anyway.
The other thing worth knowing: Butch has said this will be the final Beef Lounge installation at the Kennedale location. That language sounds a lot like someone who’s close to signing a lease somewhere permanent. We’ve been watching this one since before the buzz caught up. Read our full piece on Jonny Butch right here, then go Wednesday and see what all the noise is about.
