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In 2 decades, Texas barbecue has become an international icon of American tradition and craftsmanship. What used to be an affordable, practical meal for blue collar families has evolved into a gourmet, Michelin-starred delicacy – drawing in tourists and locals who line up as early as 5AM to dine at the state’s most famous spots.
The South boasts the highest concentration of BBQ restaurants in the country. BBQ there is not just a meal, but a way of life, and each state has its own style. Yet it’s the purist, no-sauce, brisket-first style of Texas that has earned national and global recognition. But when we look past the romanticism and glorification, BBQ in Texas is a grueling business. Owners work from dusk till dawn and only a lucky few ever make the spotlight.
Yet no one knows how many BBQ spots there are in Texas or in the South – just that there’s a lot. Ask any historian, old-school pitmaster, or LLM – and you’ll get wildly different numbers that are often thousands apart. All the data available today is either hearsay or non-existent. No one’s been crazy enough to count—until now. We scraped over 200,000 listings across 9 states and verified each one manually to produce the first, truly accurate snapshot of the American BBQ industry. With these numbers, we can truly understand just how extreme the Texas market really is.
🔥 AGAPE BBQ (Jeremy & Lonnie)
3610 Ranch to Market Rd 1869 Suite B, Liberty Hill, TX 78642
https://agapebbq.com/
https://www.instagram.com/agapebbq/
https://www.facebook.com/agapebbq/
🔥 BODACIOUS (Madilynne & Spencer)
2227 S Mobberly Ave, Longview, TX 75602
https://bodaciousonmobberly.com/
https://www.instagram.com/bodacious_bbq_mobberly/
https://www.facebook.com/BodaciousonMobberly/
🔥 KAFI BBQ (Salahodeen)
8140 N MacArthur Blvd #100, Irving, TX 75063
https://www.kafibbq.com/
https://www.instagram.com/kafibbq/
@kafibbq
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43 Comments
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🔥 AGAPE BBQ (Jeremy & Lonnie)
3610 Ranch to Market Rd 1869 Suite B, Liberty Hill, TX 78642
https://agapebbq.com/
https://www.instagram.com/agapebbq/
https://www.facebook.com/agapebbq/
🔥 BODACIOUS (Madilynne & Spencer)
2227 S Mobberly Ave, Longview, TX 75602
https://bodaciousonmobberly.com/
https://www.instagram.com/bodacious_bbq_mobberly/
https://www.facebook.com/BodaciousonMobberly/
🔥 KAFI BBQ (Salahodeen)
8140 N MacArthur Blvd #100, Irving, TX 75063
https://www.kafibbq.com/
https://www.instagram.com/kafibbq/
https://www.tiktok.com/@kafibbq
🎬 Buy Us A Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/modernmba
☕ Patreon: https://patreon.com/modernmba
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📸 Follow Modern MBA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/modern.mba/
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19:33 brother god isn’t the one getting you on that list, your meat is😂
Millions of steers and pigs were sacrificed.
Watching this from Longview, TX and Grew up eating Bodacious BBQ! How cool to see a whole segment on them! Also love Carters BBQ and Sunbird as well!
LOOK YOU DEMORAT, WHERE I LIVE IN TEXAS, WE HAVE 4 SIMI CONDUCTER PLANTS THAT HAVE BEEN BUILT HERE. AND 10,00O NEW HOMES HAVE BEEN BUILT HERE. AND IT'S BECAUSE OF A PRESIDENT BY THE MAME OF TRUMP. I CAUGHT YOUR VAILED INSULT.
Black's BBQ is the best. 3110 Guadalupe St, Austin, TX 78705
The First Pitmasters Were Black
Origins in Enslaved African Traditions: Barbecue began in the early 1500s when enslaved Africans in the American South blended their cooking techniques with Native American methods. They developed slow smoking and seasoning styles that became the foundation of Southern barbecue.
im a lifelong vegetarian and found this so fascinating! great content!
bbq is a huge ripoff these days. 40 bucks for a pound of brisket is insane.
great work on this. really great.
Well the thing is… Texas is reputable as THE bbq state. I hear peeps across the nation saying "Man I wanna go to texas In my truck for some BBQ, MURICA!" "You don't hear peeps saying oh, I wanna go to Cali for some Murican bbq" C:
International ? Ive never heard of it
I like your video but when i get 3 double adds in 12 mins plus invideo add I'm closing that shit
AMAZING EFFORT on the production and video!
I now look at Texas Monthly completely different now.
We need the bbq restaurants to revolt against the publication. No one man should have all that power.
The ending read like a horror film lol
What is beef klotz? I can't find it online
Sonnie Bryan''s in Dallas was pretty trendy in Dallas in 1981.
He was happy to sell out rather than make too much (depends on margin vs stock out cost).
Excellent video! I really started questioning the list back in 2021 when 407 BBQ didn’t make it. Their exclusion was no doubt based on factors other than their barbecue. That said, most places on the list are deserving, I can count on one hand the ones I felt weren’t truly Top 50 worthy.
Crazy these people work 80 hours a week for 11% margins
shout outs to agape bbq
also extra shout outs for the fact you can buy their brisket burgers raw and grill em, thats always a nice treat for the next couple days afterwards
god i love brisket
kafi's food looks sooo good.
Shout out to your investigation, jeez the images combined with the hard data, honestly it surprised me that you and your team recollected all the locations of BBQ restaurants😮
Amazing documentary…. incredible production quality
❤❤❤❤
15 pound brisket does not equal 6 pounds of sellable meat where are you getting these numbers
I love the effort and analysts put in this episode. Some of which may or may not be accurate IMO. Still great content and insight. But can you really put Applebees, Chipotle, Chili’s, and Outback even in the same category as some of these MBA’s? Maybe it’s the Corporate vs. small businesses comparison? And I do agree that tradition and culture still drive this corner of the food industry. I still love great or even good BBQ!
Texas BBQ is not BBQ, it's just smoked brisket.
This one was real special for me, been watching you for little over a year now I think and I’ve always enjoyed watching your work. I can feel the wrinkles form over my smooth monkey brain. Also never knew that one dude from Ohio was in charge of the Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ Joints, definitely will look at it a little differently now. I’ll pray that you don’t catch any unreasonable flak from them.
9:43 as a born and raised Texas I can tell you just by looking at it that's some nasty dry brisket
Does Michelin tell you what the differences are in detail between one and three star reviews? Criticism of Vaughn seems silly. Of course the list is subjective. That's not any different from any other review. The NY Times reviews of NYC restaurants can make or break a restaurant, too.
That dude that names the Top 50 is literally Bubble Bass from Spongebob.
I actually really like the philosophy of Bodacious BBQ. Eloquent wife + shokunin husband seems like a great combo.
36:58 bro petting future bbq meat 😭
I could go for some bbq rn 😋
This is the best one yet. Incredible
Really surprised not to see Rudy's mentioned as a chain. They're everywhere down here in Texas. You did show footage of them when talking about catering and listed them on a chart during the section on Bodacious, though. Then again, I've never heard of Famous Daves or Sonny's. I'm also not a BBQ person. And I've been to some BBQ spots in Texas with Michelin stars. I still don't eat the stuff. I don't like beef.
I’m to broke to donate but I’m leaving a like , and commenting .
U earned another subscriber sir! Great job.
Lazy video that isn’t well researched. The whole narrative all leads to one point that is factual incorrect. Probably should take down the video as it is embarrassing for your reputation. Big oof.
43:08 I wonder if that's just survivor bias though. Sure the creators that made it all just tried to make the best content they could without worrying about the algorithm, but I'm sure many failed creators also did the same, no? I'm sure at least some of those failed BBQ places tried to "just make the best content" too.
21:51 BEEF CLODS, NOT KLOTZ.
This is a really interesting YouTube video. One thing, a note for the guys in Liberty Hill is people eat with their eyes. When they walk into a place that looks like a very generic building, they're not going to think the food's going to taste that good. It doesn't matter how good the food is. Go to STiles Switch in Austin It's not an old cool place, but it looks like an old cool place. And people feel like they're special for being there.
Bro taking about god putting them on the list, as if the list isn't bought and paid for… God doesn't even exist lmao. What a clown