Barbecue's Kingmaker: Meet the man with the final say on BBQ's most important list
KENNEDALE, Texas (KXAN) — A light November rain fell on the tired and hungry crowd gathered in the parking lot.
Some brought folding chairs, others ponchos and umbrellas, knowing it's better to be dry and comfortable than wet and sore when waiting hours for the doors to open.
At one point, a horse escaped from a nearby ranch and trotted between the dozens of cars in the lot. Those waiting merely looked on, unwilling to risk losing their spot in line attempting to corral it.
At 10:37 a.m. on that Friday morning, an employee stepped out of the front door of the small, red wooden building and started shouting out the lay of the land before opening. The crowd learned that meats were priced by the half pound, a Laotian sausage was the special, and banana pudding was the dessert.
Equine excitement aside, the morning played out like a typical start to a Friday at Goldee's BBQ, in Kennedale, Texas, a suburb south of Fort Worth.
Then Daniel Vaughn showed up.
The Texas Monthly's BBQ editor parked and headed toward the front of the line, meeting up with a friend who'd been saving his spot since 5:30 a.m.
A typical Friday no more.
Speaking from experience, Goldee's owners will tell you that when Vaughn arrives at your restaurant, you'd better pay attention. It may be the most important thing that ever happens to your business.
'It was life-changing,' recalled co-owner Jalen Heard.
Vaughn first stopped by the newly-opened restaurant in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, when the BBQ was sliced, wrapped and walked out to his car.
'I thought it was really good, but I didn't know what this was gonna taste like fresh,' he said.
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Vaughn returned when pandemic restrictions relaxed and he could eat inside. That's when he said he experienced a flavor palette unlike anything he'd had before, including mouth-watering ribs covered in an acidic and sweet simple syrup made from vinegar and sugar.
'That's when it really hit me, like, this place is special,' Vaughn said.
The following year Vaughn named Goldee's the number one restaurant on the Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ Joints list.
A star was born seemingly overnight.
'The line was all the way down the street,' Heard said. 'There was no parking. It was wild, just like, 'Oh my goodness.''
The restaurant went from cooking as few as five briskets a day to 50. In the four years since, it hasn't looked back.
The coveted ranking only comes out once every four years, and if Vaughn visits a restaurant in the final few months, it's not because he was simply in the area and craving barbecue.
Preparation for the 2025 ranking began in August 2024 when Vaughn assembled a team of 25 Texas Monthly staffers to serve as tasters.
Each is assigned a territory in Texas. They're then given a list of barbecue joints to visit, and a list of those not to bother with.
Those are the joints where Vaughn's gone five times in a row and had a terrible meal each time.
'I've had a meal so bad I'd be embarrassed if they were on the Top 50 list,' he said. 'I don't want them to get bogged down in wasting their time.'
Instead, the focus is on finding new places and trying those tried-and-true places on their list.
There are an estimated 2,000 barbecue restaurants in Texas. This go around, Texas Monthly tasters expected to eat at roughly 400 of them.
When scores come back and there are new restaurants Vaughn hasn't tried, he will personally visit them.
The top 10 on the list receive even more scrutiny. In 2021, Vaughn recalls 26 or 27 places in contention. He will visit each at least three times, making sure their quality is consistent.
To get to this point, restaurants had to score highly on their brisket, ribs, turkey, sausage and sides.
'Really, what it comes down to as far as the meat goes: is it juicy, is it tender, and is it well seasoned?' Vaughn said.
Nearly all of the top 10 meet this criterion. At that point, Vaughn uses the quality of the sides as a tie-breaker.
Daniel Vaughn was not born a meat lover. Originally from Ohio, he went to college in New Orleans before moving to Dallas in 2001.
That's when he tried brisket for the first time, and ribs unlike anything he'd ever tasted at now-closed Peggy Sue's Market.
'(I) couldn't quite wrap my head around how you get this sort of texture out of a pork rib,' he said.
Vaughn was hooked.
'I just became enamored with it almost instantly,' he said.
He started traveling around North Texas, trying barbecue, and writing about it in his blog titled 'Full Custom Gospel BBQ.'
His travels and writing didn't start out with the intention of being a review site, as much as it was his attempt to keep track of his personal favorite spots.
In 2012, Vaughn's hobby became more. After more than 500 reviews up and down the state, Texas Monthly reached out and asked Vaughn if he'd like to start writing articles for the publication. He, in turn, asked to be part of the magazine's 2013 Top 50 tasting team.
Both said yes.
This all happened at the same time Vaughn had just started a book deal with the late great food critic Anthony Bourdain. While writing and researching for the book, Vaughn had another idea, one that eventually allowed him to quit his job in architecture and pursue writing about barbecue full-time.
He asked the magazine to name him its BBQ editor. He's been getting paid to write about it ever since.
'There are a lot more bad meals that I eat. My mantra is, 'I eat the bad barbecue, so you don't have to,'' he said.
Vaughn said for every restaurant owner happy about being ranked on the list, there are many more who are angry about being left off.
Some question whether Vaughn favors new restaurants, emphasizes modern cooking techniques and flavors too much, and if joints that are only open one or two days a week have an unfair advantage.
'They can find a whole range of things to blame, whether it's personal preferences, or politics, or whatever they might call it,' Vaughn said. 'But the one thing they rarely consider is maybe it's their barbecue, and I can guarantee you, it's the barbecue.'
What none of them dispute is how influential the list is.
In Lockhart, the state-designated 'Barbecue Capital of Texas,' Black's and Terry Black's have both been on the list at one point or another. As have Kreuz (which graced the first cover in 1997) and Smitty's (which made the cover in 2003).
'It brings in a lot of people that are going around on the barbecue tour,' said Smitty's Market Owner Nina Sells. 'We were struggling, and three years after we opened, they put my son on the cover, and so we saw what it does to your business.'
Meanwhile, Kreuz most recently made the honorable mention in 2021.
'We were swamped for weeks after that first issue kicked off, owner Keith Schmidt said. 'I stopped worrying about it. I tried to get my dad to stop worrying. I don't care as long as we're still getting written about.'
While it was Terry Black's Austin location that made the Top 50 list in 2017 and its Dallas location in 2021, its other restaurants in Waco, Fort Worth and Lockhart also all benefit.
'There are 100 different top barbecue lists out there. Texas Monthly is the one that matters,' said Terry Black's Co-Owner Mike Black. 'That's the one that everyone wants to be in. If you make the Texas Monthly Top 50 List, you'll see an impact the following day.'
How did Lockhart become the Barbecue Capital of Texas?
Black's BBQ last made the list in 2013, something Owner Kent Black said doesn't bother him.
'We were already a king before Texas Monthly came around,' Black said. 'It's not frustrating. We're successful, been extremely successful, whether we're on the list or not on the list.'
Barb's B Q is the newcomer to Lockhart and made the Texas Monthly's 25 Best New and Improved BBQ Joints in Texas list in 2023, after opening earlier that year. Owner Chuck Charnichart is familiar with the experience, though. She worked at Franklin BBQ in Austin when it was named to the top spot in 2017, and at Goldee's in 2021.
'There's nothing like being at the number one barbecue restaurant,' she said. 'It changes the restaurant for that period of time. Yeah, that list carries a lot of weight.'
Texas Monthly's new 2025 list comes out May 27.
While the pressure has been off for a while, it's returned.
Owners dote on Vaughn when he shows up, offering him free food (he refuses and pays himself) and a spot at the front of the line. They gently nudge him to share what he plans to write about them.
'Everybody knows what season it is right now,' Vaughn said. 'The attitude does change a bit. In some people, you can see a nervousness.'
Vaughn shared a story from 2017 when he was working on that year's list. He said he showed up at Snow's BBQ in Lexington, only to see Wayne Mueller, the owner of Louis Mueller's in nearby Taylor, also stopping by for lunch.
Wayne stood up and told the owner of Snow's he had to go, knowing Vaughn was likely heading to his restaurant next.
'I think there is a greater meaning to being on the Texas Monthly Top 50,' Vaughn said. 'I think Texas has the best barbecue in the country. So if you're the best in Texas, then you're the best barbecue joint in the nation.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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00:00 You have been doing this a long time. You understand consumer trends? Well, yeah, I understand. Not always. Yeah, I've been doing it. I practiced my craft. Yeah, for 50 plus years. 50 plus. Just. Just repetitious repetition. All right? You're not to be modest. No, no, but. But. But one reason why we love having you on is because when we talk on the show about the health of the consumer, we always look at it through the economic lens. But there are a lot of other factors that determine what we buy, how much we're willing to spend on what we buy, and then, of course, whether we continue that. When you look at the state of specialty apparel right now, what does it say to you? Well, I'm a tough critic. First on myself and then on everyone else. I think the specialty and it's really a good group, all retailers. And I think the days of a kind of merchandising centric pick the goods. You know, I have a little hobby of listening to founder, so great companies, reading articles, etc., etc.. And you know, words appear on the sun, everyone. Enzo Ferrari, Steve Jobs, the Michelin Brothers, the common thread instinct, gut and intuition because you can't run those companies. And of course I watched Steve for 16 years and that's what to me, that's the business. I think it's true in any business. Yeah. So when I look around and you know gut instinct, gut I mean, not to belittle that, but that seems a little bit more esoteric, particularly in a time where we're dealing with very real world issues, economic pressures, tariffs. I mean, you know, just being able to source goods at this point right now is just mind boggling. Not just the costs, but just not even knowing what's the right tariff rate you're going to pay today versus tomorrow. So how do you do that? Well, I don't the esoteric you know, you have to put, you know, as an artist, a great painter, esoteric designer, I think esoteric, whatever it actually means. Exactly. I'm not sure what it means, you know, but it's a qualification in the creative world and in the merchandising world. How do you know if something's a best seller or not? You know, I will not pick colors. It will not tell you what's a bestseller and da da da. And of course, it'll probably eliminate a number of jobs. So I think the world underestimates that. I was listening this morning to I do my rehearsals for the show, Bloomberg and CNBC, sorry to say. Yeah. And whoever the other one never heard never heard of it. And it was interesting how the fellow who was the guest and a guy who's been in the retail business a life retired, was talking about Target and saying about a financial person and there's nothing wrong. Look, I could never be a CFO in my life, but they were saying Target used to be my word, target. What do you need to run that? And the numbers don't create the products. And it's kind of like, look, I don't I could be an accountant, but I couldn't be a chef. But if you put the restaurant's accountant as the chef, it's no different. Then you need merchants, right? And this guy was saying it, and I'm going to get in touch with him because I don't know his context. Yeah, but but it's. It's kind of a misunderstood concept. Yeah. Way. Right, Right. So let's follow on that, because we named a whole bunch of companies and said one of them that didn't do well is TJX. And they have this incredible business model where it's off price goods catering to a high household income. I idolize her, Carol. Or tell me more what you say. But from what I looked at, they were four comp and 10% increase in earnings. We do business with them. And Carol, long term and she doesn't like me to praise her like this fact. I'm seeing her this weekend for a coffee. And you're talking about Carol, Michael Myer chair. She's the best and she's a merchant and she's a wonderful person and she knows who she is down to earth. But they buy the goods from all the places who the biggest customers of the wholesale brands in a lot of cases and the wholesale brands sell their goods to the department store retailers and they kind of pay for markdowns. They her prices, the real prices you see. Right. You go into T.J., Max, and that's the price. So is that a case there where they just have a really great business model, or is it that they have exceptional execution? Which do you give credit to? Well, any great business model is dependent upon the great. Leader of that business. And T.J., Max has always been. They buy the goods from all of us. They negotiate like crazy and they put it out at a price. And they don't have assistant buyer's day or prime day or whatever. It's a very honest model. And that's looked, what, 50 billion? 60 billion. But I'm curious and we don't have time for why it wasn't a good report and. Yeah. Well, yeah, but it gets to this idea though, too. I mean, their model has been resilient and we know that. Yeah, but it decidedly was always supposed to be a value model for those companies that maybe didn't have that model. So you take the gaps and Abercrombie's and all of those names there, all of those companies at one point in their history have fallen victim to that sort of perpetual discounting that there's still a group of them that's in that. There are some have managed to try to wiggle themselves out of that. But I am curious as to how you do that, if that wasn't your model to begin with and you have found yourself trapped in that, how do you get out without simply going under, reinvent, move forward? Imagination. I mean, for me, that's I never thought about the answers to that, but I always lived in my imagination and I always was very critical. But I learned from the best in the business and not the retail business. I mean, I'm learning about these founders and the extraordinary stories, but it's not always the founders. I mean, I mean, we talk about and we can go down memory lane for a quick second, so just bear with me, Scott. But I mean, we go back to the late sixties, early seventies, when the Fishers founded Gap, which was basically just a reseller of jeans and records and other stuff. Some point I remember the exact year you come into the picture and you completely reimagine what they sold from very colorful, a wide variety of stuff to basics. Simple, but with it. No, that was you. That was your was the number one ingredient. That was part of the concept. Oh, yeah. Get up. In all respect to Dawn, help me in my life. Sure. Gap was a discounter. Okay. It was pure discount 20. It would start as a Levi business, and Gap was discounting Levi's when I got there, two for $26 or whatever. I went to Houston Galleria. I said, What do I get myself into? There's on the windshields, there's these what do they call those little things under the windshield? The flyers, the flyers. I look at one where I today only get 30% off and it was a nightmare, but I didn't say, Well, I'm going to reimagine it. It was inside. You have a vision. I used to live in my imagination as a kid for a lot of other reasons. But if and a lot of founders, by the way, and Don knew this when they hit a wall in 19, I got there in 1980 or 83, he knew I mean, it was two or three people. No one could do the job. You imagine it. Old Navy was an imagination, came from Old Navy, named after a bar in Paris. So weird. Who is out there right now? What company is out there? What merchant out there is doing that imagining is getting people excited about their specialty apparel. Well, yeah, well, the customers would answer that better than me. I am so critical of me and everything we do. You can ask my team. They call me the pain in the ass. And that's what they did. They did an email or whatever. I don't know if you can put that on the air, but. Well, it's like I respect companies that build great businesses long term and you don't turn around a company in a year or two or three. Well, but I'm curious, though, on that point, because I think the last time we were here, we talked a lot about kind of the re-emergence of Abercrombie and Fitch, certainly in terms of its stock price, its revenue. Just earlier this week, Bloomberg did a great story talking about some of the progress that has made in turning itself around. I want to see the brand, and I know it's so early and I want to be fair to the CEO over there living wall and what she's doing. But I do I am curious about when these CEOs and whatever their background are trying to turn around these companies. Why isn't sort of the MBA, the CFO, the CEO types, not necessarily the ones in your mind that can do that best? Yeah, it's an art and a science, this business. And and Libby and I worked together for 15 plus years in Gap and She's terrific. But I always ask the customer, I work for customers and I go into all of our competitors. I schmooze with the salespeople and Gap and I know a lot of people made, well, Old Navy, but you have to find out from the consumer, and I have a judgment I make, like I hate to say the car industry, I look. Today. And I'm an old guy. I've been around a million years and I like nice things. Getting the Bronx, which taught me all that. But if you look at the card designs today, where are the great classics you look at? I mean, designer clothes. It should only happen to us. But the consumer has changed. Logos forget about and. And the fakes. It's not so prestigious to carry some fancy dinner. That's right. Well, consumer tastes have changed, especially with Gen Z. And we see that in what they think of as stylish. I mean, there's a lot of what's popular right now is stuff from the eighties or nineties and, you know, concert band t shirts are seen as a brand in and of themselves. How what what are customers telling you really when you look at the customer and what they favoring what they favor what does that tell you about where we are in the cycle. I first of all, looking at customers, I never done a focus group that I've liked in my life. But what I do is I look, you have to every company has to surround and I'm lucky. Well, not lucky If you don't have the top talent who can answer those questions, then you don't have the right people. We have a vision. We have a vision. My vision is clothes that never expire. The always taste is stylish. Who defines that? Our team does. What brands excites you right now? And don't say Alex Mill, but take Alex Mill out of the equation. I mean, what brands excite you when you look at them and you say they're doing this right, or at least right enough? Well, if you talk style, first of all, I can't mention brands because they've all upset some friends. You know, there's very few where I walk into a shop or I walk down the street. What I don't there's some really good ones. Okay. I'll let you off the hook on that. But but to kind of build on that question, though, too, with the way people shop, do you think that the stand alone retailer is sort of the single brand retailers like Abercrombie Gap can compete or are better at merchandising than, say, the multi-line retailers like a Target or and the higher end like a Bloomingdales. You give me a name and I'll tell you who's good. Every business has a name, has a founder and founders. You know, after ten years or so of five, that time is up. Great inventions. But I don't think Well, look, go look at the factory outlets. My good friend Steve Vail off is CEO of Tanger. Yeah, we have him on. He's terrific. Steve We worked together for years at Gap. But look at look at the factory store relationships to their regular price stores. Factory business is a great way for companies to cash quick put it on sale. This whole world is a discount world. You know, you look on the three major networks and everything's 50 off. It's a game. They used to be legal, I think, to have these fake high prices. Yeah, Yeah. And now it's all that.
