{"id":376917,"date":"2026-07-17T15:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/376917\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T15:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:20:08","slug":"a-small-texas-barbecue-joint-prepares-20000-pounds-of-brisket-for-world-cup-visitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/376917\/","title":{"rendered":"A Small Texas Barbecue Joint Prepares 20,000 Pounds of Brisket for World Cup Visitors"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this episode of Large Format, Zavala\u2019s Barbecue<\/a> in Grand Prairie, Texas, handles an influx of 3 million tourists visiting the town for FIFA\u2019s 2026 World Cup by staying open for 30 days straight \u2014 a record for the small barbecue operation. With 20,000 pounds of brisket and hundreds of pounds of sausage hitting the grills, the Zavala\u2019s team is busy.<\/p>\n

About 200 beef briskets are trimmed, dry-rubbed, and smoked each week. A simple spice rub of salt and pepper helps Zavala\u2019s brisket to stand out. An additional 250 pounds of sausage, all made in house, are put on the grill throughout the day, starting at 4 a.m. When they reach that perfect snappy texture the team soaks the links in ice water. Finally carnitas are grilled for hours before being thrown back in the smoker in a bath of coke and oranges for another three hours until the meat is falling apart.
Owner Joe Zavala says the secret to pulling off a large volume of barbecue \u2014 spread out across six smokers \u2014 is having everyone on the team be involved in keeping the meats consistent. \u201cEverybody walks by the smoker, they\u2019re looking at the temperature, they\u2019re looking at the fire,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo it\u2019s multiple eyes on it to hold all of us accountable, because it\u2019s not just one person, it\u2019s all of us.\u201d
Watch how this barbecue spot is serving up massive amounts of smoked meats, alongside classic Texas hospitality, during the World Cup in this episode of Large Format<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this episode of Large Format, Zavala\u2019s Barbecue in Grand Prairie, Texas, handles an influx of 3 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2323,27,29,28,2459],"class_list":["post-376917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-dining-out","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}