Few Houston area restaurant openings are as anticipated as that of Terry Black’s Barbecue. The acclaimed Austin-based business with locations across the Lone Star State has been rumored to land in Houston for years, with plans officially revealed early in 2025. Now, it seems Terry Black’s will open its Houston location soon, considering recent updates in hiring.
Terry Black’s Barbecue has opened the application process for the following positions: cashier, floor attendant, line server, meat cutter, meat trimmer, overnight prep cook, pit cook and prep cook. The open roles were first listed June 12.
In March, Terry Black’s was hiring an assistant general manager. With these latest developments, it seems an opening day for the popular barbecue brand is not too far away.
Houston has plenty of barbecue to go around, but the Austin-based Black Family Hospitality, which operates Terry Black’s Barbecue, has been eyeing Space City for years. The company began buying parcels of land on the 1300 block of North Shepherd Drive in the Houston Heights in 2021. These moves took place while the Memorial Heights Redevelopment Authority pushed forward plans to completely alter the North Shepherd area. That $100 million infrastructure project has been ongoing.
In 2025, Black Family Hospitality acquired its final parcel of land and officially announced it would come to Houston. But the company isn’t just putting a Terry Black’s Barbecue in the ground—it is also constructing a boutique hotel of one- to two-story bungalows and an on-site bathhouse.
Black Family Hospitality co-founder Mark Black told Chron in 2025 the two businesses would operate separately. The barbecue restaurant would likely arrive in 2026, while the hotel probably wouldn’t open until 2027, at the earliest.
“We love the neighborhood and its residential nature, and there are a lot of diverse components when it comes to food,” Black said in 2025. “It’s not downtown with of bunch of high-rises. It has charm with a lot of the bungalows.”
Perhaps no Texas barbecue business has been as successful as Terry Black’s, primarily as it has expanded far beyond its original restaurant and maintained popular branding over time. Since opening their first restaurant in 2014 in Austin, Black Family Hospitality has brought its acclaimed ‘cue to Dallas, Fort Worth, Lockhart and Waco.
Terry Black’s, with its high-visibility original location on Barton Springs Road in the center of Austin, has been a popular spot for celebrity visits. Multiple locations of the business have reached the Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ Joints list, as well.