The importance of pop-up restaurants in Houston barbecue
There’s no shortage of barbecue joints opening in Houston. Recent high-profile launches such as Feges BBQ, Pinkerton’s Barbecue and Blood Bros. BBQ have only added to the bounty of our smoked-meat options.
For the typical Houston diner, these openings may appear to be a case of entrepreneurs forming a bold idea, getting a loan or other funding and debuting a storefront to great fanfare. In some cases, it may even seem like an overnight success.
But the path to barbecue success is far from simple or perfunctory. Indeed, if you talk to any restaurateur, you’ll learn banks aren’t keen on giving out loans for new restaurants. It’s a high-risk business, and most funding of this type comes from wealthy investors rather than conservative financial institutions.
Still, most barbecue entrepreneurs aren’t rubbing shoulders with millionaires on a daily basis. Launching a startup usually means self-funding with no outside capital.
So how did all these hot new barbecue joints get their start? Humbly, to say the least. In most cases, they started with a smoker, a table and a tent. Then they found an existing business to partner with — usually a gas station, bar or brewery — that allowed them to set up a temporary or “pop-up” stand on the weekend. Using Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram, they got the word out about the location and time for future pop-ups.
Of course, the benefit of this arrangement is that there is a low barrier to entry — it takes very little capital and logistical planning to get the business off the ground. And that facilitates the process that every aspiring commercial pitmaster must go through: finding a way to get his or her barbecue in front of the dining public to see if it’s good enough to establish a fan base.
These pop-up barbecue joints can be found all over Greater Houston on any given weekend, and form the basis for the thriving ecosystem that is producing the extraordinary number of new brick-and-mortar joints.
I first encountered Patrick Feges and Erin Smith of Feges BBQ when they popped up at Liberty Station bar several years ago. Blood Bros. BBQ originally popped up at the owners’ other business — Glitter Karaoke Bar — and would move on to other locations such as Lincoln Bar on Washington. Grant Pinkerton of Pinkerton’s Barbecue set up his table, tent and smoker in various parking lots throughout West University Place when he was just starting out.
The concept of pop-up barbecue restaurants has a long history in Houston. The city’s Third and Fifth Wards have always been known as “barbecue wards,” and backyard barbecue sessions would often migrate to
the front yard, where a table would be set up and the cook would feed his neighbors for a nominal fee.
Pitmaster Ray Busch of Ray’s BBQ Shack credits a local man named Rivers Falls as his mentor. Falls was known as the “Barbecue Man” of Third Ward and sold barbecue from his house on Ruth near Almeda in the 1970s.
Another local pop-up tradition is known as “shade tree barbecue,” in which an aspiring pitmaster sets up a table and smoker under the shade of a tree along a busy thoroughfare. This is how one of the city’s barbecue institutions — Burns Original BBQ — got started. Patriarch Roy Burns set up a table and smoker in his own Acres Homes neighborhood and went on to open a brick-andmortar on De Priest in the
1980s.
Today, the pop-up tradition is alive and well. In just the past few weeks, I’ve visited pop-ups for Khoi Barbecue at Baileson Brewing in Rice Village, Eddie O’s Texas Barbecue at D&T Drive Inn in the greater Heights and JQ’s Tex Mex BBQ at 4J Brewing in Spring Branch.
Each one reminds me of the quality and enthusiasm I found years ago at pop-ups for Feges, Blood Bros. and Pinkerton’s. It may only be a few more years before this new crop of Houston barbecue entrepreneurs opens their own joints.