{"id":449229,"date":"2026-09-27T10:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T10:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/449229\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T10:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T10:44:08","slug":"cousins-bbq-closes-in-suburbs-near-fort-worth-after-23-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/449229\/","title":{"rendered":"Cousins BBQ closes in suburbs near Fort Worth after 23 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

CROWLEY<\/p>\n

A Crowley Road location of 43-year-old Cousins BBQ closed Saturday night, the latest in a series of local restaurants to close as food and labor costs continue to rise.<\/p>\n

By 7:30 p.m. Saturday, the restaurant was sold out of its popular pork ribs and budget-friendly smoked chicken, a worker said.<\/p>\n

THe Crowley location opened in 2003 in the then-new Stone Gate Plaza shopping center near Farm Road 1187.<\/p>\n

The original Cousins in Fort Worth remains open at 6262 McCart Ave., 7 miles north of the Crowley location. A newer location also remains open at 5125 Bryant Irvin Road in Cityview.<\/p>\n

In its heyday as a Fort Worth barbecue tradition<\/a> alongside Angelo\u2019s and the Railhead, Cousin\u2019s shipped brisket and ribs to Washington for President George H..W. Bush and late founder \u201cBoots\u201d Payne<\/a> trained cooks at Disneyland.<\/p>\n

Cousins made Texas Monthly magazine\u2019s Top 50 list of Texas\u2019 best barbecue twice and was chosen for the magazine\u2019s annual barbecue festival.<\/p>\n

But after Hill Country-style, small-batch \u201ccraft\u201d barbecue came to Fort Worth in 2015, old-time commercial barbecue restaurants faced tough competition.<\/p>\n

Cousins remodeled and retooled to upgrade its food and decor. But then the prices of beef and labor started skyrocketing.<\/p>\n

Cousins now charges $34 a pound for brisket. That\u2019s less than several of the top-ranked restaurants.<\/p>\n

Chain restaurants On the Border, The Rim and Rio Mambo closed Burleson locations recently as several new restaurants opened in that city\u2019s Old Town.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Bud Kennedy\u2019s Eats Beat<\/a><\/p>\n

Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n

Bud Kennedy is celebrating his 40th year writing about restaurants in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He has written the \u201cEats Beat\u201d dining column in print since 1985 and online since 1992 \u2014 that\u2019s more than 3,000 columns about Texas cafes, barbecue, burgers and where to eat.
\n Support my work with a digital subscription<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CROWLEY A Crowley Road location of 43-year-old Cousins BBQ closed Saturday night, the latest in a series of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-449229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449229","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=449229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}