WACO — Many will plan trips to Dallas, Austin, and Lockhart to fill up on barbecue from places like Cattleack Barbecue, Franklin Barbeque and Kreuz Market. These places have made a name for themselves with great food and being listed on the Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ List. The barbecue culture in Texas is unlike any other, where people embark on road trips just to try barbecue.
Three young Waco barbecue joints are looking to make Waco the next barbecue destination. Honky Tonk Kid BBQ, Guess Family Barbecue and Helberg Barbecue have grown from upstart food trucks to all having a brick and mortar restaurants within the last three years.
Daniel Vaughn is the Barbecue Editor for Texas Monthly and suggest to others that they stop in Waco to get some great barbecue.
“If you wanted to go on a barbecue road trip before - I would usually send you to Austin. But now a-days, you go half the distance and come to Waco and have a really great day of barbecue eating.” Vaughn said.
Vaughn recently visited and wrote about all three restaurants to see how they have grown.
“It certainly shows that there are plenty of folks in Waco that are supporting them, but it shows they are continuing to make good barbecue, good enough to make Waco into a barbecue destination,” Vaughn said.
David Gorham is the owner and pitmaster at Honky Tonk Kid BBQ and says that all three places have established themselves in town and offer its own unique experience.
“With one downtown, one mid-town, and one a little bit more north and I think we’re all putting out very unique barbecue, with our own unique twist and perspectives and sides,” Gorham said.
Guess Family Barbecue most recently opened their brick and mortar location in September. Reid Guess is the owner and pitmaster and just wants people to come to Waco.
“I think we all have the same goal, which is to get people here to Waco to eat great barbecue. To get people here to Waco to experience Waco,” Guess said.
While these three barbecue joints have similar goals, he also says that they push each other to get better.
“We’re always going to have that little competitive edge. I always want to be better than them and they, I’m sure, always want to be better than us, which keeps everybody on their toes,” Guess said.
Other pitmasters, like Phillip Helberg, the owner and pitmaster at Helberg Barbecue would agree.
“I think the quality of all of our barbecue has gotten better because of each other. Having peers and contemporaries like them makes us better, makes us want to be better. It makes us all work harder,” Helberg said.
Texas Monthly first started it’s Top 50 BBQ Joints list in 1997 and has been regularly putting out new top 50 lists ever since. The last top 50 list was made in 2017 and three Central Texas barbecue joints made the list; Miller’s Smokehouse in Belton, Fargo’s Pit BBQ in Bryan, and Blue Moon BBQ in Hearne all were part of the list. The first list that was made in 1997 included a now closed Waco restaurant, the Hickory Stick. You would have to go all the way back to 2003 to find a barbecue joint from Waco on the Texas Monthly top 50 list, when both Jasper’s Barbecue and Vitek’s BBQ were mentioned on the list.
In the spring of 2019, Texas Monthly released a list of the top 25 new barbecue joints in Texas. Two new Waco establishments made the list, Helberg Barbecue and Guess Family Barbecue. The next top 50 list is set to be released in 2021.
