A Pitmaster Honors His Father’s Legacy at Heffernan Bar-B-Que
For the Heffernan family, 2017 was a tumultuous year. Bob Heffernan, the patriarch and pitmaster of their barbecue trailer, Heffernan Bar-B-Que, learned he had lung cancer in the spring. His oncologist estimated he had seven months to live. Bob’s wife, Jeannie, helped run the business, but Bob was the one who made the barbecue. The couple’s older son, Cole, had already graduated college and was starting his career. If the torch were to be carried, it would fall to their younger son, Evan, to do it. “I knew if I said no, it would be gone forever,” Evan said. He felt a responsibility to sustain what his father had started, so he dropped out of college and tied on an apron.
“I had really no aspirations to do barbecue, and I didn’t know anything about barbecue,” he said. After a one-month hospital stay, Bob was released. He got to work teaching Evan everything he could about working the smoker he’d built. “It was stressful,” Evan said. “The clock is ticking. You know he only has so much time.” Instead of dwelling on the future, they focused on fulfilling the catering orders on the calendar.
Bob showed Evan how he cooked his briskets fat-side down. After they had good color, he moved them into foil pans and basted them with a mix of melted margarine, mayo, and hot sauce. Bob was too debilitated to offer much more than on-site guidance, so Evan did the work alongside his mom. One event got off to a rough start, he remembers. “We were serving sliced brisket over mashed potatoes, and the brisket was tough.” Jeannie didn’t want to serve it, but Bob patiently told Evan to put the brisket back on the pit and find another that felt tender.“He knew there was a lot being put on me, so he gave me that grace,” Evan said.
Bob passed away in December 2017. “The doctor was on the money with his prognosis,” Evan said sadly. Now it was on him to reproduce his father’s recipes. Over the next few years, the catering orders were steady, and Evan felt he could be successful in the vocation he’d chosen. Then 2020 arrived. “COVID happened, and we lost all the catering, every bit of it,” he said. The family had spent years in business without needing to serve directly to the public, but that changed immediately.
The Heffernans got permission from a dialysis center off Texas Highway 6 in Houston to park their trailer and open the window for business. Handing the barbecue directly to customers changed Evan’s mindset from wanting to replicate his father’s shredded pork and chopped brisket sandwiches to desiring to serve trays of sliced meats and sausages. “If I’m going to do this, make a career of it, I want to be really good at it,” Evan said.
Evan studied barbecue videos and Aaron Franklin’s cookbook to develop his own techniques. “I totally overhauled the cook,” he said, changing the rubs and eliminating the basting. His mom told him to stop messing with a good thing. Evan struggled with his feelings, but he knew the barbecue needed to get better if he wanted to feel fulfilled by the work. He said his mom trusts him more now based on positive customer feedback, and by 2022 he felt confident in the food the joint was serving. When Franklin himself visited the trailer that year and praised the barbecue, Evan knew he was on the right track.
Since that parking lot back in 2020, Heffernan Bar-B-Que has moved around the Houston and Cypress (just northwest of Houston) areas a few times. Evan expects the spot where it’s currently set up, in front of Brew:30 Taphouse, in Cypress, will be for the long term. For now, the trailer serves only on Thursday and Friday evenings, beginning at 5:30 p.m. and selling out around 9 p.m.
I visited on a Thursday evening right at opening. Jeannie greeted me at the window with a warm smile. Evan’s aunt Jennifer Gustavus was next to her, waiting to serve one of her desserts, a lemon-berry custard cup. It’s like a tall tart with a buttery crust that looks too thin to hold the thick layer of lemon custard covered with a layer of blueberries. It was a perfect barbecue dessert.
Before we get to the meats, I must describe what might be my new favorite coleslaw in Texas. Evan loved the yellow, chile-based ají sauce served alongside some Peruvian grilled chicken he once ordered. A few joints, like LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue, in Austin, and Redbird BBQ, in Port Neches, serve a Caesar slaw, so he changed the consistency of the ají sauce into that of a Caesar dressing. An hour before serving the slaw, he dresses thin strands of red cabbage he’s sliced by hand, and there’s just enough time for the stout vegetable to relax a bit without losing its crunch. A forkful of that slaw is a great complement to a bite of smoked beef or turkey.
Sausage making is a new skill Evan has developed, but I wouldn’t have guessed that from the result. “I have no problem throwing away something I’m not proud of,” he said, and he threw away a lot of sausage before he starting serving his homemade version a month ago. Three all-beef sausages are available: classic Texas smoked sausage, jalapeño and cheddar, and French onion. I tried the last and could immediately taste the hint of funk from the grated Gruyère cheese. Evan thought it needed more of an oniony punch, and I agreed, so expect a bit more caramelized onion in future batches. The casing had beautiful color, good snap, and a nice smoke flavor. I appreciated the coarse grind and the juiciness.
Brisket is the top seller, though the most Evan smokes are four at a time. After a couple of burnt ends covered in black bark, I hardly needed the fatty slice of brisket. The lean slice was plenty moist as well, with a tender fat cap. The smoke flavor was bold (Evan has stuck with the pecan wood preferred by his father). The turkey had picked up a bit too much smoke for me, but the slices were well cooked.
Bob never liked sweet flavors in his barbecue, and Jeannie agrees, but Evan convinced her to try the thin, sweet glaze he added to the spareribs. He uses rendered pork fat in it to give each rib a shiny bark. I’ve rarely had juice dripping down my chin from a bite of rib, but this one had me reaching for napkins. Jeannie’s a convert too.
Jeannie’s potato salad shows that the basics can be great when done thoughtfully. She mixes a mayo-based dressing with potatoes while they’re still hot, leaving some of the tubers mashed and others in big chunks. Evan’s granny always had red beans and cornbread on the dinner table, and the family replicates her recipe with smaller red beans than you’ll find in Louisiana.
After a thoroughly impressive meal, I asked Evan what his dad might have thought of the tray I received. “I think he would be proud of how far I’ve gone with it,” Evan said, though he added, “I think with all the changes I’ve made, he would have said I should go open my own place.” The barbecue business is tough enough when things are going well, so to lose a founder and pitmaster and continue on, as Jeannie, Evan, and Gustavus have done, is a testament to the family’s dedication to keeping Bob’s legacy going. They’ve gone beyond keeping the Heffernan Bar-B-Que name relevant among the competition and have made Cypress a required side trip on any Houston barbecue quest.
Heffernan Bar-B-Que
15914 Telge Road, Cypress
Hours: Thursday–Friday 5:30–9
Phone: 832-654-9245
Pitmaster: Evan Heffernan
Method: Pecan in an offset smoker
Year opened: 2008
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