Pecan Lodge in Dallas might attract a new herd of barbecue admirers this year, after Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives star Guy Fieri revisited the restaurant in an episode that aired on Food Network on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026.
Nearly 15 years ago, Fieri was part of the restaurant’s meteoric rise in an era of new-school barbecue in Texas. DDD aired an episode in 2012 about the family-owned brisket shop, then a single stand inside the Dallas Farmers Market.
The restaurant has been a steady player in Dallas barbecue over the years and most recently made headlines when actor Tom Cruise visited Pecan Lodge before a screening of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
Fieri’s 2026 follow-up found much to be admired about the restaurant that had since moved a short distance, from the Farmers Market to a restaurant on Main Street in Deep Ellum. Fieri lauded Pecan Lodge’s loaded sweet potato, called the Hot Mess, and praised the brisket.
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He called out its peppery bark, a hallmark of Texas barbecue.
“You put bark on your brisket like a pack of dogs,” Fieri said.
Guy Fieri, host of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” has visited more than two-dozen Dallas-Fort Worth restaurants for Food Network features. His first visit to Dallas’ Pecan Lodge aired in 2012.
Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer
Fieri zeroed in on the Pitmaster Sandwich, which comes piled high with sliced brisket, pulled pork, sausage, coleslaw and jalapeño.
Your eyes aren’t deceiving you: Those are brisket prices, lowered, at Pecan Lodge in February 2026.
Sarah Blaskovich/Staff
About 36 hours after Food Network aired its new episode, I went for a bite of the Hot Mess and a half-pound of brisket. I found a steady stream of a dozen or more customers waiting for weekend lunch. The line was speedy, never so long that customers stood outside in the brisk February weather.
On the butcher paper menu board was a surprising sight: reduced prices for brisket and burnt ends sold by the half-pound. Brisket and burnt previously marked $21 for a half pound (or a walloping $42 per pound) had been X’d out.
Brisket and burnt ends now cost $19 for a half pound. That’s more than double the price of brisket from many Texas shops a decade ago, proof of a dramatic increase in beef prices.
Co-owner Justin Fourton reduced the fee for brisket three weeks ago, he confirmed to The Dallas Morning News, to reflect a cooling-off period after beef prices soared.
“We’ve always tried to be fair with our pricing,” Fourton said. “We need to charge enough to have a healthy business, but we also want to be fair to our customers.”
The Hot Mess is a loaded sweet potato from Pecan Lodge in Dallas. Pats of butter are shoved in the supple orange flesh, and then this two-person lunch is topped with barbacoa, bacon, cheese, scallions and chipotle cream.
Sarah Blaskovich/Staff
From 2020 to today, beef costs have “risen faster than most other items in the consumer price index,” according to a recent Bloomberg story. Some of the challenge is a shrinking cattle herd in the United States, due to drought and surging production costs.
“The beef market is very volatile right now,” Fourton said, “and so we are trying to be more flexible with our pricing, which means making small adjustments more frequently.”
The change seems to be unrelated to Pecan Lodge’s recent brush with fame on the Food Network. Still, customers new and old might be happy about it.
Pecan Lodge is at 2702 Main St., Dallas.