The smoke gets you before the building does. Turn onto Springdale Road in East Austin on a weekend morning and it’s already in the air, oak and rendered fat drifting out over the parking lot before the line even comes into view. That smell has hung over this part of the city since 2012, first out of a trailer parked in a lot on Rosewood Avenue, now out of a building that used to be a church.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Smokey John’s Bar-B-Que and Home Cooking turns fifty this year, and the story of how it got here is better than most restaurants could invent.
It starts with a mortgage broker. In the mid-seventies, John Reaves was juggling home loans, roofing, construction, and insurance businesses around Dallas, and every holiday season he thanked his clients with hickory-smoked turkeys and hams he cured himself. The gesture got out of hand in the best possible way. People started asking for them year-round. At one point the family had more than a hundred turkeys and hams stacked in the house waiting for pickup. A friend finally told him the obvious. You need to open a restaurant.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Angelo George opened his barbecue joint on White Settlement Road in Fort Worth in 1958 with four dining tables, a stand-up counter, and not much else. He ran it with his wife, June, and his brother, Orville. It was as much a beer joint as a restaurant in those early years, the kind of place where the smoked meat was the reason people showed up but the cold beer was the reason they stayed.
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Todd and Misty David started Cattleack Barbeque in 2010 as something to do in retirement. That plan did not survive contact with the public. Word got out, lines formed, and what was supposed to be a quiet hobby turned into one of the most decorated barbecue operations in North Texas. In 2023, Todd sold the business to Andrew Castelan, a 34-year-old former accountant who had been working there long enough to know what he was getting into. The name is a pun on Cadillac.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Dwight Harvey spent 38 years in finance at PepsiCo. When he retired, he started barbecuing in his backyard. Rose, his wife, thought it was a fine hobby. Then it became something else.
In 2008 Dwight and Rose opened Off the Bone Barbeque in The Cedars, in an old service station at what is now 1734 Botham Jean Boulevard. Their son Steven came in alongside Dwight to run it. They had about 800 square feet for everything — kitchen, counter, the works. They used the old service bays as a patio. They came in and redid the whole thing themselves. It was a challenge, Dwight will tell you. It turned out pretty good.
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If you’re looking for a reason to get out on May 5th and don’t want to fight a generic margarita crowd, Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q in Allen is running $5 specials all day and actually has the food to back it up.
The deal is simple: $5 margaritas, $5 tacos, $5 palomas, and $5 beers from open to close on Monday, May 5th. The beer selection includes Victoria, Modelo, El Chingón, and house picks. Not a limited window, not just during happy hour — all day long at their Watters Creek location.
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What began as a modest farmers market stand has evolved into one of Dallas’ defining culinary institutions, a place where long lines once signaled not just popularity, but a shift in the city’s barbecue identity. Pecan Lodge is rooted in Central Texas tradition—offset smokers, wood-fired discipline, a reverence for brisket—but it leans harder into intensity. The smoke is assertive, the bark deeply developed, the seasoning confident. This is meat that announces itself.
And nowhere is that philosophy more clearly expressed than in the Pitmaster sandwich.
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Hogs for the Cause, the nonprofit supporting families of children with cancer through community and barbecue culture, is expanding nationwide with the launch of the Trail of Barbecue. The initiative partners with restaurants to raise funds through simple efforts like rounding up at checkout, hosting events, or donating proceeds from menu items.
Since 2009, Hogs for the Cause has grown from helping one family to distributing more than $14 million to hospitals and charities, along with over $3 million in direct grants to more than 2,300 families. Its flagship New Orleans festival draws over 30,000 attendees each year and fuels much of that impact.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
