Building the perfect barbecue joint: service style
It’s a great time to be a fan of smoked meats in Houston as the city is overflowing with new barbecue joints, with more on the way.
I’ve had the opportunity to talk with many of the entrepreneurs planning barbecue joints and share in their excitement and passion for making Houston the greatest barbecue city in Texas. But I also sometimes wonder if they realize what they are getting into. As someone who has visited hundreds of barbecue joints all over the world, I have an intimate understanding of what can go right and wrong in the barbecue business.
With that in mind, I’d like to provide some insights into how to build the perfect barbecue joint. It’s a big topic, and I’ll spread it out over several columns, intermittently, over the next few months.
The first topic I’ll address is a restaurant’s “service style,” which refers to the process that customers use to order and get food. The three main service styles in the restaurant business are table service, counter service and cafeteria style.
Table service
involves having a host seat you at a table, with a waiter taking your order and bringing your food. This is the most recognizable style of service for most restaurants, but it is rare in the barbecue business. Pizzitola’s Bar-B-Cue features this style, and it works great there. But most new barbecue joints are evenly split among the other two options.
Counter service
involves approaching a point-of-sale register where you place your order, are given a number and then collect your food when your number is called. Food is prepared in a separate kitchen or in an area just behind the order counter. Houston barbecue joints using this method include Gatlin’s BBQ, CorkScrew BBQ, and Pappa Charlies BBQ.
Cafeteria style
features an order area where all the meats and sides are right up front on display. Grab a tray, place your order and watch as it is assembled before your eyes. Then take your tray to a checkout register, pay and find a table. Joints using this style include Killen’s Barbecue, The Pit Room and Pinkerton’s Barbecue.
Advice:
For the entrepreneur building a barbecue joint from the ground up, I recommend using the cafeteriastyle model. Why? The “showmanship” factor. Nowadays, barbecue is as much a performance as it is a cuisine. Mobilephone-toting barbecue fans love to interact with pitmasters slicing meat at the counter. Slow-motion Instagram videos of juicy, jiggly brisket being carved with a long knife on a wood cutting board are the best publicity a barbecue joint can get (and it’s free).
Cafeteria style also allows the carvers and pitmasters to provide “tasters” to customers standing in line. I remember the first time I visited Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor. Watching the pitmaster carve the meat at the big chopping block was mesmerizing. But then he sliced off a nugget of burnt end (the crusty, smoky end piece of a brisket) and placed it in front of me to taste.
This is a great way to interact with guests and get their mouths watering. Based on the delirious effect of this free sample, I probably ordered twice the amount I otherwise would have.
One practical piece of advice I’d provide to prospective barbecue barons is to have at least two checkout registers. With only one register, a customer fumbling with cash or a declined credit card can significantly slow down the whole line. Also, you can delegate one register for phone-in and to-go orders.
Why even bother with phone-in orders? Mainly to accommodate loyal, regular customers who are annoyed by the idea of standing in line with a bunch of nonregulars. They want to call in the order, show up, collect the order, pay and be on their way. This may seem like a small detail, but taking care of regular customers is just as important as accommodating the hordes of Instagramsavvy barbecue fans.