The Link Link is a new generation of Beaumont-style barbecue
Although barbecue options continue to expand in Beaumont, the city is still best known for the unique style that originated there.
“Beaumont-style” or “Southeast Texas-style” barbecue was born in the Pear Orchard and Charlton Pollard neighborhoods of the city. It is a mélange of influences, including the beef-centric techniques of Central Texas with the pork traditions of East Texas, as well as Creole and Cajun recipes of nearby Louisiana, and even seafood influences from the nearby Gulf Coast.
The canonical dish is the all-beef sausage link. Known by various and colorful names — homemade links, juicy links, grease balls, garlic bombs — these looped sausages combined the plentiful trimmings of beef processing facilities with Creole spices like paprika, garlic powder and cayenne pepper.
There are still several barbecue joints in the Pear Orchard neighborhood that specialize in the all-beef links — including Patillo’s BBQ, which opened in 1912 and is widely recognized as the first to commercialize this style of link.
Fortunately, a new generation of sausage-makers and pitmasters are beginning to open and continue the unique tradition.
The Link Link is one of these new joints. It is owned and operated by Beaumont native Alphonse Domeaux III and his wife, Tanisha.
Alphonse grew up in Pear Orchard and patronized the beef-link joints as well as the soul food restaurants of the area with his family. He also grew up watching his grandparents cook soul food as well as local specialties like gumbo, crawfish and beef links.
As a kid, he and neighborhood friends would do their own cooking using an improvised brick barbecue pit.
“We’d look around the neighborhood for loose bricks and build a pit in our front yard and start cooking boudin and ham and bologna,” said Alphonse.
As he got older, he noticed the similarities and differences in how some dishes were cooked and applied them to his own cooking.
“The way my mom’s mom cooked smothered okra was different from the way my dad’s mom cooked smothered okra,”
he said. “I took the way they both cooked and mixed it together.”
After graduating from Ozen High School in 2004, Domeaux attended Stephen F. Austin State University on a football scholarship. A knee injury sidelined him and he decided to strike out on his own in 2006, moving to Afghanistan and
Iraq to work for military contractors there. This allowed him to travel the world, sampling cuisines from Asia and Europe.
Domeaux’s extensive experience with cooking and cuisines culminated on March 27 of this year, when he and Tanisha opened The Link Link, serving true all-beef links (including a beef casing) from a recipe he learned from his grandfather and uncle. He still uses the same cast-iron sausage stuffer he used with his family growing up.
They also serve an extensive soul food menu every Sunday, including dishes like oxtails, beef tips, sweet potatoes and cornbread.
The name “The Link Link” refers to Domeaux’s own terminology when referring to the authentic beef links of the area. Due to the many names and variations of these links, when he patronized a restaurant and they asked what kind of link he wanted to order, he’d just say “I want the ‘link’ link,” with the repetition meant to emphasize the unique all-beef link of the area as opposed to other variations like pork links or boudin links.