By many measures, barbecue joints should be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week (24/7 barbecue).
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.
By my count, there’s only one real-deal barbecue joint open 24/7 in Texas: Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Dallas.
What’s the secret sauce at Sonny Bryan’s that allows them to stay open continuously? Mainly, location.
The original Inwood Road location sits across from the UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas’ version of the Texas Medical Center. And it’s not far from Dallas’ version of Hobby Airport, Love Field. This provides a built-in clientele for continuous service.
But that’s rare for barbecue joints that are often located in rural and suburban areas. If you’ve ever spent any time in a small Texas town, you know that most businesses shut down in the early evening. For instance, if you visit Marfa during the week and you haven’t eaten by 8 p.m., you’re out of luck (though the local Dairy Queen may be an option).
Urban barbecue joints may have a bigger late-night audience, but they would have competition. Even then, one of the knocks against the Houston food scene is that it doesn’t have many late-night or 24/7 dining choices. Of those that are open 24/7, the most popular cuisines are (not surprisingly) diner food (Katz’s Deli, Dot Coffee Shop) and Tex-Mex (Chachos).
There’s a reason that diner food is associated with restaurants that are open 24/7 (think Waffle House, IHOP, Denny’s, etc.). It’s relatively cheap to make and serve.
A breakfast plate of bacon, eggs, and pancakes at a diner might cost $2 in raw materials and can be sold for $9.99. That’s a very attractive 20% food cost. With that type of profit margin on diner food, it makes sense to stay open continuously.
Labor is also a factor. It costs less to pay someone to make “short order” menu items like pancakes and eggs than it does to pay a pitmaster to tend a pit full of briskets all night. And considering those briskets have a food costing north of 50% (in some cases, meaning zero profit margin), staying open all night becomes less attractive to a barbecue joint owner.
Still, the ability to get a Texas trinity plate of brisket, ribs and sausage at 3 a.m. holds a unique attraction for any true Texan.
Late-night barbecue eats do exist in Houston in the form of trailers and pop-ups usually attached to late-night dance and music clubs, but the idea of walking into a brick-and-mortar barbecue joint with a blazing neon sign announcing “Open 24/7” like Sonny Bryan’s would be a welcome addition to any Texas city.