{"id":323993,"date":"2026-06-05T12:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/323993\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:01:09","slug":"bbq-joints-are-struggling-with-beef-prices-theres-another-way-texas-monthly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/323993\/","title":{"rendered":"BBQ Joints Are Struggling With Beef Prices. There\u2019s Another Way. \u2013 Texas Monthly"},"content":{"rendered":"

A gaggle of press armed with cameras and microphones formed outside Smokey Joe\u2019s Bar-B-Que<\/a>, in South Dallas, this week. Senate candidate James Talarico<\/a> had invited us there to announce his plans for lowering beef prices to provide relief to Texas barbecue joints. Ending the war in Iran, suspending the federal diesel tax, and fully staffing the USDA were on his list of priorities, but his real reason for being there was the photo op inside.<\/p>\n

Countering accusations of being vegan<\/a> from his opponent Ken Paxton<\/a>, who nicknamed him \u201cTalafreako,\u201d Talarico sat beneath a BBQ Freak sign with Smokey Joe\u2019s owner, Kris Manning<\/a>, to share an overflowing tray of smoked meat. He cleaned the meat off a spare rib with his teeth and ate brisket slices with his hands. Smoked sausage, brisket boudin, and Texas Twinkies<\/a> beckoned while Talarico savored a South Dallas specialty called brakes. Sometimes spelled \u201cbreaks,\u201d they are usually the end pieces of meat sliced on the chopping block, but at Smokey Joe\u2019s, Manning smokes the raw trimmings from his rib racks and seasons them liberally with lemon pepper. They\u2019re delicious.<\/p>\n

Along with the omnivorous overtones, the message from Talarico was that the high price of beef is making the barbecue business unsustainable. (Paxton<\/a> has his own plans to combat the issue.) His proposed solutions highlighted that everything is too damn expensive. When barbecue joints close, it\u2019s the beef prices\u2014or more specifically, the brisket prices\u2014that are blamed, but grocery, fuel, and utility bills at home are whittling away at the profitability of every restaurant. The National Restaurant Association has collected data on customer traffic and found that operators reported a net decline<\/a> during fourteen of the last fifteen months. Diners are staying at home more often.<\/p>\n

\"James\"JamesJames Talarico enjoying barbecue with Smokey Joe\u2019s owner, Kris Manning.Photograph by Daniel Vaughn<\/p>\n

Rising beef prices and the threat they represent for struggling barbecue joints has been covered ad nauseam by national media of late. I talked with The Washington Post for a Memorial Day story<\/a> that built on my reporting<\/a> from January about some beloved Texas barbecue joints that have called it quits. Other outlets like The Independent<\/a>, the New York Post<\/a>, and Men\u2019s Journal<\/a> echoed that reporting, and the Today<\/a> show visited Iron Works Barbecue, in Austin, over the weekend to tell a similar story. Evidently, barbecue stories sell when barbecue isn\u2019t selling so well.<\/p>\n

Brisket prices are a culprit, for sure, due to ridiculously high demand. If all the Texas-style barbecue joints opening across the country<\/a> haven\u2019t affected supply enough, major chains are getting in on the action too: Panda Express just unveiled its new Cantonese BBQ Brisket entr\u00e9e. And beef prices are elevated across the board thanks to low cattle-herd counts and the Big Four meat companies\u2014Cargill, JBS Foods, National Beef Packing Company, and Tyson Foods\u2014controlling about 85 percent of the country\u2019s beef supply. To add to the concern, this week brought news of the first detection of New World screwworm in the U.S. beef supply since a 1976 outbreak<\/a>. There are a whole lot of market forces restaurant owners can\u2019t control, but they can put a dent in demand. But what is Texas barbecue without brisket?<\/p>\n

The hysteria over this single cut has clouded our understanding of Texas-barbecue history. It\u2019s a cuisine born of necessity that has been relentlessly adaptable. Meat market\u2013style barbecue was created by cooking cuts from whole lambs, goats, and cattle that didn\u2019t sell in the raw-meat case. Barbecue stands in the big cities of the early twentieth century were built on the beef naval plate, which was chopped and served almost exclusively as sandwiches. When pitmaster Steve Kapchinskie started cooking as a young man at the century-old Martin\u2019s Place<\/a>, in Bryan, smoked T-bone steak sold just as well as brisket, and he remembers when the family began offering pork ribs back in the eighties. Texas barbecue\u2019s menu is not set in stone.<\/p>\n

When the norm for beef delivery switched from half carcasses to boxes of individual cuts in the late sixties, a few cuts became popular in barbecue because of their value. Joints like Clem Mikesk\u2019s<\/a>, in Temple, went with sirloin; Kreuz Market<\/a>, in Lockhart, relied on the shoulder clod; Black\u2019s BBQ<\/a>, also in Lockhart (across the square and a couple blocks down from Kreuz), chose brisket as its default\u2014all of them made their choices because of cost. Customer demand had all of them serving brisket eventually, but it was still a very inexpensive cut of beef until recently.<\/p>\n

A few Texas pitmasters have looked to the past when expanding their offerings. I just had a platter of shoulder clod, brisket, and tri-tip at Moreno Barbecue<\/a>, in Austin. Casey Lee\u2019s BBQ<\/a>, in Flatonia, just announced it would be serving brisket again this weekend after going without it in favor of tri-tip and beef cheeks for months. A couple friends and I shared a platter of beef cheeks, flat iron, brisket, and tri-tip at LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue<\/a>, in Austin. \u201cThis might be the best bite of barbecue I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d one of them said, holding up a half-eaten slice of smoked tri-tip.<\/p>\n

In Austin, smoked-beef sweetbreads were a standout in my recent review of Churchrow Tejas BBQ<\/a>, and Space Kat Barbecue<\/a> abandons brisket entirely for smoked tri-tip. The meaty, beef back ribs were a treat at Burnt Bean Co<\/a>., in Seguin, and its new beef-cheek pastrami is one of the best bites of barbecue I\u2019ve ever eaten. Every one of the meals mentioned above, I consumed within the last six weeks. Great beef barbecue in Texas doesn\u2019t have to be brisket.<\/p>\n

Texas barbecue is defined more by cooking style than by a single cut of meat. But we are the beef state, and that separates our barbecue from the pork tradition of the rest of the South. What I loved about that massive tray in front of Talarico at Smokey Joe\u2019s is that it showed off the variety that is emblematic of Texas barbecue. It\u2019s up to pitmasters to find a cut they can highlight to differentiate themselves. That\u2019s what it will take for them to survive and thrive, along with all of us getting out there and ordering a plate from our local barbecue joint.<\/p>\n

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