Pinkerton’s to open in former 59 Diner spot
In March of 2016, the beloved coffee shop 59 Diner closed for good. Later that year, one of Houston’s most promising young pitmasters, Grant Pinkerton, opened his first brick-and-mortar barbecue joint in the Heights.
Now, eight years later, the two paths crossed. Grant Pinkerton has signed a lease on the old 59 Diner location, where he plans to open his third location of Pinkerton’s Barbecue after the original in the Heights and an outpost in San Antonio.
It all started back in the fall of 2022 when it dawned on him that the 59 Diner had been empty for years, despite its prominent location on a curve headed into the tony enclaves of West University Place, Rice Village and Southampton. Pinkerton had patronized the diner growing up.
“I drive by it every day to get home from the restaurant,” says Pinkerton, referring to the commute from the Heights to his home near Rice University. “And I finally passed it one too many times and thought, ‘that would make a badass barbecue joint.’”
It turns out that the location had significant restrictions on the type of businesses that could occupy it. Fortunately, barbecue was just fine, and Pinkerton snapped it up.
Not only does it satisfy the famous real estate mantra of “location, location, location,” there’s also a sizable parking lot as well as the extra benefit of the material used to construct the 1930s-era building: poured concrete.
“As a barbecue person, it’s very good to have a building built all in cement,” Pinkerton said, referring to the fire hazards that come with smoking meats.
Pinkerton is still committed to cooking on traditional offset steel barrel pits, though he will incorporate other types of pits he’s encountered in his recent travels around the country to compete in barbecue cook-offs.
Specifically, he’ll use pits to do the whole-hog cooking that he encountered on trips to Mississippi and Tennessee. But it won’t just be the usual pulled pork and chopped pork that you occasionally find in Texas barbecue joints.
“We’ll have the ability so people can order specific muscle groups,” says Pinkerton. “You want loin? You get loin. Belly? You get belly. Cheeks? You get cheeks. We’ll pick it right off the pig and give it to you.”
And although he’s incorporated some of the creative recipes and techniques of competition barbecue into his commercial outlets, the menu at the new location will still focus on the classic Texas trinity.
“It’s fun to do fun stuff,” says Pinkerton. “But at the end of the day, people usually want brisket, ribs and sausage. And, hopefully, now pork.”
Recent reports from the Texas barbecue business have featured trends of retrenchment and scaling back due to the high cost of beef and labor. The occasional new or old barbecue joint closing is always a wake-up call to fans of Texas smoked meats.
So, it’s a welcome sign when one of the best pitmasters in Texas goes full throttle into expanding both his locations and his menu. For Pinkerton, it’s been an eight-yearlong graduate course in the business of barbecue and restaurants.
“With the new store, I’m excited to be able to take everything I’ve learned over the last eight years and really roll it all into one super store where I can make things exactly how I’ve always wanted to make things.”