The state of Texas has a new best barbecue joint. Burnt Bean Co. in Seguin, a small town east of San Antonio, has taken the top spot in Texas Monthly’s new list of the 50 Best Barbecue Joints in Texas. Two more in Austin join the top 10.
Here’s the new top 10, in order:
1. Burnt Bean Co. (Seguin)
2. LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue (Austin)
3. Goldee’s Barbecue (Fort Worth)
4. Redbird BBQ* (Port Neches, near Beaumont)
5. GW’s BBQ* (San Juan Texas in the Rio Grande Valley)
6. InterStellar BBQ (Austin)
7. Dayne’s Craft Barbecue* (Aledo, near Fort Worth)
8. LaVaca BBQ* (Port Lavaca)
9. Truth BBQ (Houston)
10. Evie Mae’s Pit Barbeque (Wolfforth, near Lubbock)
Published Tuesday, May 27, Texas Monthly’s new list is the latest update to its quadrennial ranking of Texas’ best places for barbecue. Texas Monthly presents the list as a ranked top 10 with the remaining 40 restaurants listed alphabetically by city. An additional 50 restaurants earn honorable mentions.
To compile the list, the magazine visited 319 restaurants, including more than 100 personally visited by barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn in January and February, he writes in the list’s introductory essay.
The four newcomers to the top 10 are marked with an asterisk to make them a little easier to spot. Compared to 2021, Burnt Bean Co. moves up from No. 4 to No. 1, followed by LeRoy & Lewis, which ranked No. 5 in 2021. Goldee’s, ranked No. 1 in 2021, drops two spots, and InterStellar moves from No. 2 to No. 6. Truth and Evie Mae’s are the only restaurants to make the top 10 in 2017, 2021, and 2025, a nod to their consistent excellence.
Conversely, both Snow’s BBQ (Lexington) and Franklin Barbecue (Austin) drop from the top 10 to the second 40 for the first time. In 2021, Snow’s ranked No. 9 and Franklin ranked No. 7. Both restaurants have ranked No. 1 previously, Snow’s in 2008 and 2017 and Franklin in 2013. Cattleack Barbecue (Dallas) and Panther City BBQ (Fort Worth) also drop out of the top 10 but remain in the top 50.
Notably, only two of the barbecue restaurants to receive a Michelin star — LeRoy & Lewis and InterStellar — make the top 10, but CorkScrew BBQ (Spring) and La Barbecue (Austin) are both in the top 50.
Austin did about the same as it did on the previous list, published in 2021. Then it had one more spot on the top 10, and two fewer in the top 50, totaling eight. As CultureMap Houston editor Eric Sandler pointed out in his predictions, Franklin Barbecue is still a top dog, but it can only hang onto high ranks for so long on a list that favors change.
This year, the second 40 spots contain eight Austin-area restaurants:
- Briscuits
- Franklin Barbecue
- KG BBQ
- La Barbecue
- Mum Foods Smokehouse and Delicatessen
- Stiles Switch BBQ
- Barbs B Q (Lockhart)
- Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor)
The lower 50 serve as honorable mentions. They contain nine more true Austin-area picks (three more than last time), plus a handful of Hill Country spots that would be a stretch to claim, but Austinites frequently visit.
- Distant Relatives
- Micklethwait Barbecue
- Rollin Smoke BBQ
- Terry Black’s Barbecue
- Louie’s Craft BBQ (Buda)
- Henry’s Barbecue (Del Valle)
- Eaker Barbecue (Fredericksburg)
- Baker Boys BBQ (Gonzales)
- BBQ Fiends (Hutto)
- Kreuz Market (Lockhart)
- Brotherton’s Black Iron Barbecue (Pflugerville)
- Pustka Family Barbeque (Temple)
- Kelly’s Hill Country BBQ (Wimberley)
As for CultureMap’s predictions, Sandler accurately identified seven of the top 10, and all 13 restaurants we spotlighted made the top 50. We’ll take it.
