Kerry Bexley, owner of Snow’s BBQ, and Ms. Tootsie Tomanetz, pitmaster, discussed opening a Lexington, Texas, barbecue joint at the end of the 1990s to serve Saturday barbecue to their community. It took a few years, but they opened Snow’s BBQ on March 1, 2003.Since then, good barbecue, good service, and friendly people have helped maintain a steady and consistent business for the last seventeen years. Snow's BBQ has been deemed best in Texas twice by Texas Monthly magazine in their Texas Barbecue Top 50 list.
Read moreOn July 4, 1935, Joe T. & Jessie Garcia opened Joe T. Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant in part of their home in Fort Worth, Texas. Upon opening, the tiny house had a maximum seating capacity of sixteen. The Garcias served their famous enchiladas in the front room while they slowly expanded their home over the next few decades to accommodate more customers and their growing family. Today, the restaurant encompasses most of a city block and can serve around 2000 customers on the weekends.
Read moreLolo Garcia claims to be the architect of both the smoked brisket-filled tortilla and the brisket and egg taco. He’s certainly one of the first to present the combo to customers. Garcia’s Plantation BBQ (since 1987) is a food trailer parked along a busy industrial highway in Richmond, Texas. The twelve-hour briskets are prepped, smoked, and sliced in the tiny confines of the trailer. Fresh scratch-made tortillas, pico de gallo, and fried eggs, round out one of the most inventive tacos in the area.
Read moreBorn in Ville Platte, Louisiana, Thelma Williams relocated to Houston in 1969. After working and learning the restaurant and brisket trade at Kessler's Barbecue, she opened her own place in December 1999. Thelma cooked, her five-year-old granddaughter worked the cash register, and her customers ate in living room-type surroundings. A fire forced Williams to move in 2009; on Southmore she again smoked briskets for 16 to 18 hours over a mix of hickory coals and “a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.” Early in 2013, a rent dispute forced Thelma’s Bar-B-Q out of business.
Read moreGreg Gatlin opened his family’s namesake restaurant with his mother and father in June 2010. A graduate of Rice University, in business, Gatlin and his parents run their establishment like, what he calls, “a conglomerate of heads.” The brisket is smoked over hickory wood at 250 degrees for a dozen hours. Gatlin’s menu reflects Houston’s melting pot of cultures, including some traditionally non-Texas items like pulled pork, smoked turkey, deer sausage, and Louisiana-style dirty rice.
Read moreIn 1976, Johnny Halili immigrated from the mountains of Kosovo to Chicago penniless, unable to speak English, and having never spent time on the open sea. Within decades, he would become the largest holder of oyster leases along the Gulf Coast. He started off shrimping in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. He moved to Texas City, started working on oyster boats as a deck hand, and eventually, with his wife Lisa, bought his own boat and oyster beds. Today he is gradually transitioning the Prestige Oysters brand to his son, Raz Halili.
Read moreNathan Jean “Mama Sugar” Sanders is a legend in the east Texas “Cowboy World” and the matriarch of a riding and roping family that bridges four generations. Born on a farm in Nacogdoches, Texas, by the time she was twenty years old, Sanders had enough of horses, mules, and cows and set off for Houston, to work in a series of restaurants. She became a leader and cook for her riding group, the Sugar Shack Trailblazers, cooking flapjacks with homemade sugar syrup, stews, and, of course, barbecue over an open fire.
Read moreMatt and Janie Martinez opened Matt’s El Rancho on July 7, 1952, in Austin, Texas on Cesar Chavez Street. In December 1986, Matt’s El Rancho moved to their current location on South Lamar Blvd. Janie and her three daughters still run the family-owned business, which celebrated its 60-year anniversary on July 12, 2012. The restaurant enjoyed former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s approval as he used to enter the back door with a Secret Service detail to eat his favorite dish, Chile Relleno.
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