Page 26 - March2022 Barbecue News Magazine

article courtesy of
Sean Ludwig -
sean@nycbbq.com
Ryan Cooper -
ryan@bbqtourist.com
During the past several years, the Hous- ton BBQ scene has grown and trans- formed into one of the most notable cities for barbecue in the country. Fellow Texas destinations such as Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin also have a claim to the designation, but Houston sets itself apart with diversity and tenacity.
The Smoke Sheet visited Houston in January with two main goals in mind. First, we had many BBQ joints to visit that we hadn’t eaten at before this year. Secondly, we wanted to work closely with BBQ Brawl champion Erica Blaire Roby and director Conor Moran
of on3media on Erica’s digital video se- ries The Pit Stop with Blue Smoke Blaire. (See the teaser for her Houston travels in this week’s Watch section below.)
Photos Courtesy of
Wai Chan
During the visit, we hit up a combined 17 BBQ joints and opera- tions, including Truth Barbecue, Tejas Chocolate + Barbecue, Corkscrew BBQ, Roegels Barbecue (both locations), Feges BBQ, Gatlin's BBQ, Nomad BBQ, Harlem Road Texas BBQ, Blood Bros. BBQ, J-Bar-M Barbecue, JQ’s TexMex BBQ, Reveille BBQ, Fain- mous BBQ, Rusty Buckle BBQ, Brett’s BBQ Shop, and Dozier’s BBQ.
Trying to visit so many joints strained our wallets and stomachs,
Another early stop for the team was to the original Roegels Barbe- cue location on Voss Road. The food was incredibly tasty and the team there created one of the most stunning BBQ platters of our trip. The brisket, sausage, and mac and cheese were notable bites. We also were able to briefly see the gorgeous new Roegels loca- tion in Katy during a “friends and family” event, where we hap- pened into a great conversation with Texas BBQ queen Tootsie Tomanetz and a who’s who of Texas barbecue showed up in sup- port of Russell and Misty Roegels.
Houston’s BBQ Scene Is Booming
in 2022
One of our favorite visits in Houston was to Truth BBQ.
but it was worth it to finally hit up so many places we’ve been waiting for patiently. There were others we missed, and hope to see more on the next visit.
One of the most memorable moments from early in the trip was a group outing at Feges BBQ at their Spring Branch location. Pitmaster Patrick Feges showed Erica and our crew how he makes whole hog, which is notable because Feges was the first spot in Houston that smoked whole hogs on a regular basis. We then dined on a huge meal with like-minded BBQ media folks including Ben Sassani, Gabe Ramirez, and Andrew and Bryan from the Tales from the Pits podcast. We have no doubt that Erica’s upcoming dispatch from Feges BBQ will be full of mouthwatering whole hog bites and so much more.
BarbecueNews.com - 26
MARCH 2022
Erica Blaire Roby filmed sev- eral episodes of her show The Pit Stop at Houston joints including Feges BBQ.
One of the most stunning platters we ate during our trip was at Roegels Barbecue.