Houston Barbecue Events

Why aren’t there more 24/7 barbecue joints in Texas?

January 3, 2026

By many measures, barbecue joints should be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After all, most joints have staff on site all day, either cooking, prepping or serving. Why not just keep the doors open continuously and if someone wanders in in the middle of the night, have the pit team do double duty and serve them a basic menu of chopped beef sandwiches or a rib or sausage plate. Genius business idea, right? Surprisingly, though, there are very few barbecue operations serving smoked meats around the clock.

You might include Buc-ee’s in the list, as there are some locations open 24 hours. But I’ve never been to a Buc-ee’s at 3 a.m. to check if they still have pre-wrapped chopped beef sandwiches in the warming cabinet.

Announcing the 2025 BBQ Block Party: The New Houston ‘Q

June 23, 2025

The Houston Barbecue Festival, Goodstock by Nolan Ryan, and Saint Arnold Brewing Company announce the 2025 BBQ Block Party: The New Houston ‘Q celebrating a new generation of pitmasters that will continue greater Houston’s reign as the best and most creative city for barbecue in the state. Like the old saying goes, Houston is an hour away from Houston. It’s a big place to cover for barbecue fans searching for the latest and greatest smoked meats.

Fortunately, the team at HOUBBQ has put in the research and the miles to discover the next wave of Houston-area barbecue talent and will bring them together on July 20th for barbecue aficionados to taste their wares and meet these rising stars in person.

A brief history of brisket in Houston

April 24, 2025

A brief history of brisket in Houston. One of the few certainties of life in Texas is finding brisket on a barbecue menu. This was not always the case. Brisket only became a regular menu item in the 1960s, when Midwest meatpackers made them readily available by shipping them pre-butchered in boxes to restaurants across the country. “Boxed beef” helped brisket to overthrow beef shoulder (clod) as the quintessential Texas barbecue joint menu offering. But brisket as a cut of beef certainly existed before the 1960s. A history of commercially-available brisket in Houston, as documented in the pages of the Houston Chronicle, goes back to early 1900s, and often paralleled