Opening doors for Bay Area barbecue
Popular pitmaster starts Oakland restaurant
Black Oakland chefs rarely receive national attention for opening new restaurants, and local barbecue spots seldom steal the gaze of the restaurant industry. Yet Matt Horn, an Oakland pitmaster opening the most highprofile barbecue business in the Bay Area, is standing at this unique intersection.
After a few months of delays caused by permitting issues and the coronavirus pandemic, Horn was set to open his eponymous restaurant Horn Barbecue on Saturday in West Oakland at 2534 Mandela Parkway, but ran into another setback related to the building’s indoor smoker. On the restaurant’s Instagram account, Horn described the delay on Friday evening as a “bureaucratic hurdle,” and said he will be able to use the smoker next week. He did not provide a more specific opening date.
The address was formerly home to the pioneering soul food spot Brown Sugar Kitchen, which closed in 2018. The building is painted black, with a large mural of cow on one side that Horn said reflects the importance of beef in Texasstyle barbecue, the main style he cooks. The location will open with takeout and outdoor service for up to 80 diners between some patio space and extra seating behind the restaurant on Campbell Street.
The project has been hotly anticipated since Horn announced it last year, after the pitmaster spent three years building a cult following behind his Texasstyle barbecue popups throughout Oakland, San Francisco and Wine Country. The events were known for their
long lines, sometimes spurring people to bring camping gear, as if they were at a music festival.
The new Horn Barbecue menu isn’t deviating from the items that made his popups so popular: brisket, spare ribs, housemade sausages, lamb shoulder, pulled pork and smoked turkey, with prices per pound ranging from $22 for turkey to $30 for brisket. All of the sandwiches — brisket, tritip, pulled pork — are $15, and sides like macaroni and cheese, collard greens and potato salad are $6 to $10. Among the occasional specials will be smoked oxtails, and, on Saturdays, Horn plans to smoke whole hogs on his 1,000gallon smoker. The restaurant will offer craft beer from local breweries.
Here are four reasons why Horn Barbecue matters now.
It will help define Bay Area barbecue.
The Bay Area has never been able to craft an actual barbecue identity, as most businesses use differing techniques. Everett and Jones and KC’s BBQ in Oakland have Kansas City barbecue influences through how they use sweet, tangy, tomatobased sauces on their meats. Another popular shop, the Emeryville location of Pig in a Pickle, uses Alabamastyle, mayobased white sauce.
Horn cooks Texasstyle barbecue, where the meat is cooked slowly over low heat for hours, often over oak wood. Horn’s style isn’t a byproduct of where he grew up. Though he has relatives in Southern states like Louisiana and Texas, Horn spent his childhood in Southern California. It just so happened that while searching for an identity as a pitmaster years ago, the natural flavors and smokiness of Texasstyle barbecue appealed to him, and he decided to build a business around it.
Horn’s food isn’t covered in sauces, and relies heavily on the natural flavors infused by the cooking process. With all of the attention being heaped on the project, Texasstyle barbecue will likely represent the foundation of Bay Area barbecue.
Blackowned businesses are suffering during the pandemic. Horn Barbecue represents the potential for their future viability.
Horn’s ethnic identity is an inextricable component of his business. He often talks about the importance of acknowledging the influence of Black pitmasters on dining in the U.S., and also how he wants to use his prominence to help guide more young Black people in the restaurant world.
But these are Horn’s future ambitions. Right now, he’s opening a restaurant when more than 41% of Blackowned businesses have permanently closed nationally since February, according to research from UC Santa Cruz. This shows how the pandemic has hurt Black businesses more than any other racial and ethnic groups in the country, and it makes Horn Barbecue uniquely positioned to represent the viability, to diners and investors, of Blackowned restaurant postpandemic.
The restaurant continues West Oakland’s recent history of being a destination for Black culinary talent.
Before Horn Barbecue, Tanya Holland’s soul food restaurant, Brown Sugar Kitchen, served as a beacon for outoftown diners to come to West Oakland. But the neighborhood has always been a complicated place in terms of food offerings. It has long been considered a food desert because of the lack of grocery stores in the area. Meanwhile, highwage tech workers have been seeking apartments in West Oakland, driving up the price of housing and compounding gentrification as well as contributing to the flight of Black residents from the area. Horn’s new restaurant comes at a time when the neighborhood needs Black representation the most.
If it’s a success, it will build on the importance of popups to the local dining scene.
Horn’s ascent in the local food scene was fueled by his popups. In the East Bay, especially during the ongoing pandemic, the legality of such ventures has been a hot topic in city politics. Several have been shut down by health officials due to their lack of permits in recent weeks, yet these makeshift food businesses have become important to the local dining culture. They are an affordable way for locals to try new restaurant projects, especially minority business owners whose opportunities are rare in the Bay Area. And, if Horn Barbecue continues to draw crowds as a brickandmortar restaurant, the business will highlight the important role popups play in the local industry.