Getting a barbecue fix at the grocery store
The connection between barbecue and grocery stores has a long history in Texas. Famously, in Central Texas starting in the mid-1800s, barbecue joints would be near small grocery markets so that workers could pick up butcher-wrapped smoked meats, then head to the grocery store to get condiments such as pickles, onions, bread and cheese.
To this day, the most traditional of Central Texas barbecue joints — Kreuz Market in Lockhart, for example — still serve these condiments with their barbecue.
In recent years, grocery stores have been partnering with local barbecue joints to sell sauces, rubs and ready-to-cook meats. Killen’s Barbecue and Franklin Barbecue are prominent brands that you will find in many grocery stores throughout the Lone Star State.
H-E-B went even further, opening its own barbecue restaurants known as True Texas BBQ in some stores.
Grocery-store partnerships with local restaurants became even more important with the coronavirus pandemic that closed restaurant dining rooms. In April, H-E-B partnered with local restaurants Hugo’s and Brennan’s, among others, to provide ready-to-cook meals in some locations. Kroger partnered with Frenchy’s, Peli Peli, Kim Son and Burns Original
BBQ to provide meals at some of its stores.
Burns also started setting up pop-up locations on Thursdays and Sundays at various Kroger locations to sell cooked barbecue. The pop-ups have become so popular that co-owner Cory Crawford has named it the “Burns Original BBQ Kroger Tour.”
The barbecue is cooked at the restaurant and brought to the location to sell and serve. Tents are set up, and a trailer pit is brought to hold the barbecue before serving.
I’ll admit that I was somewhat skeptical such an arrangement would work. Grocery shoppers always seem to be in a hurry to get in and out, especially nowadays, so would they be tempted to stop and buy barbecue to go?
My doubts were vanquished during a trip to another barbecue pop-up, this one by pitmaster Sloan Rinaldi and her Texas Q Crew at an H-E-B in Kingwood. Rinaldi set up a tent and her trailer pit directly in front of the store entrance.
The scene of a busy cooking team working under a tent and, more importantly, the fragrance of post oak smoke wafting throughout the parking lot instantly drew shoppers to the pop-up. Like all good Texans, as soon as we get a whiff of cooking meat and burning wood, we are obligated to seek out the source.
As I observed for a good halfhour, a steady stream of shoppers mad a bee-line from the store exit to Rinaldi’s tent to get their fix. Rinaldi and team sold out within a few hours.
Recently, Tomball-based Tejas Chocolate & Barbecue became the second local operation to hold pop-ups at Kroger stores. In the parking lot of a location in the Heights, co-owners Scott and Greg Moore and Michelle Holland and their team braved the blazing heat to serve their smoked meats to store patrons. The setup is the same as
Burns’ — the barbecue is cooked in their commercial kitchen and brought to the pop-up. A trailer pit is there to hold barbecue.
Again, you might doubt that anyone would stand in a furnacelike concrete parking lot, wearing a face mask and waiting to order barbecue. But this is Texas, and at the Tejas popup, there were about 20 people in a socially distanced line waiting to place their orders.
Quite a few had come just to try Tejas’ famed smoked meats since they aren’t able to get out to Tomball on a regular basis.
In this arrangement, wellknown barbecue outlets draw customers to the grocery-store location, and the pop-ups benefit from the high-traffic stores. That’s a win-win for local Houston barbecue joints and grocery stores.