Behind the Scenes of Texas Monthly’s Top 50 Barbecue List – Texas Monthly

Transcript

Katy Vine (voice-over): Hi, and welcome to TM Out Loud, exclusive audio storytelling for Texas Monthly Audio subscribers. I’m Katy Vine. 

Every four years, the world’s greatest athletes go head-to-head in the Olympics. The best soccer players on earth compete for the World Cup every four years. And every four years, the world’s finest barbecue joints in Texas are sorted and ranked in the Texas Monthly Top 50 list.

How do we do it? At what cost to our health and relationships? And what did we learn on the way to making this year’s list?

This week, on a special episode of TM Out Loud, I’m joined by three Texas Monthly staffers who can answer all those and more: our director of Editorial Operations, Anna Walsh; senior editor for Food and Drink, Kimya Kavehkar; and—of course—barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn.

Katy Vine: I’m here with Daniel Vaughn, our barbecue editor. 

Daniel Vaughn: Hi.

Katy Vine: And Kimya Kavehkar, senior editor for Food and Drink.

Kimya Kavehkar: Hi Katy.

Katy Vine: And Anna Walsh, director of Editorial Operations.

Anna Walsh: Hi Katy. Happy to be here. 

Katy Vine: So Daniel, could you start off by telling us about the history of the Top 50 barbecue issues?

Daniel Vaughn: Oh yeah. Well, starting in 1997 was the first Top 50, and we’ve had gaps of five years and six years, and now we’ve really got it down to four years. So yeah, we’ve had ’97, 2003, 2008. 2013, 2017, 2021, and now the new one in 2025.

Katy Vine: A lot of familiar names on those lists in the early years?

Daniel Vaughn: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Lockhart was the dominant, certainly, and down in Luling, Cooper’s in Llano, Louie Mueller Barbecue up in Taylor. They always had a spot on those early lists, and really dominated those first three, four lists.

Katy Vine: And then when did it start to change? Do you remember? When you were the “BBQ Snob,” you were really getting into it when that all started to shift, right?

Daniel Vaughn: I think my sort of rise in coverage of barbecue really mirrors Aaron Franklin’s rise as a pitmaster in Austin. And I think so much of Texas barbecue hinges on that moment when Franklin Barbecue opens. So I really do think that’s when so much changed.

Katy Vine: And Anna and Kimya, have y’all been part of the barbecue issue before? And can you talk about your past experiences with it?

Anna Walsh: Yeah, so my first list was in 2021, which was quite the year to have that be my first list, because we were coming, obviously, right off of the pandemic. And so, there really, it was a little bit up in the air at the start of the year as to whether we would even be able to pull it off.

We send taste testers all across the state to do this list. We’re going to hundreds of barbecue joints. And so we weren’t sure if that was going to be, you know, a safe or ethical thing to ask of people. And luckily when vaccines started rolling out, we were like, “Okay, it’s go time. Let’s do this.”

Katy Vine: Kimya, how about you?

Kimya Kavehkar: Yeah, so I was hired shortly after the 2021 list was released. So this is really my first go at it. And I always joke that like, this is why I took this job and wanted this job, was to be a part of this project. So I will be quitting shortly after it’s done. (Laughs) No. 

But I think that three-and-a-half-year lead-up really gave me a good foundation in Texas Monthly, in what Daniel does, and editing his work and getting more of that barbecue knowledge foundation for myself before really diving into something like this.

Katy Vine: Okay. And Daniel, you’ve been writing about Texas barbecue exclusively full-time for the magazine since what year? 

Daniel Vaughn: 2013, when that 2013 Top 50 came out. But—

Katy Vine: How do your daily barbecue evaluations get folded into this project? 

Daniel Vaughn: My daily evaluations . . . Like, just what I do in the four years in between these lists? Yeah, I really see my job, my full-time job, as a big scouting mission for the next list. You know, the next list, of course we got the 2025 list here . . . the 2029, presumably, will be our next Top 50.

But then there’s the 2027 list, that will be upcoming, which will be the Best New Barbecue Joint list. We’ve been doing that I think since 2015, doing a sort of interim report on the best new barbecue joints. So my full-time job is to be out there scouting the state and trying to find all the great new spots that might be eligible for the next list and the list after.

One of the things I really recognized this time around is I had spent a lot of time, in the year prior to the search for this list, outside of Texas, doing our United States of Texas Barbecue touring, looking for the fifty best Texas-style barbecue joints outside the state.

And what I realized when we got into the search for this year’s Top 50 is that a lot of those more recent visits that I would’ve had to, a lot of these places just sort of naturally didn’t occur because I was outside the state doing all this traveling. And so, that six-month period where we really hammered out all the visits for this Top 50, I had so many—so much ground that I had to cover in the state to get a more recent opinion about all these places.

Katy Vine: How much does it change, would you say, from year to year? 

Daniel Vaughn: Well, the thing is like, I don’t know if it changes that much from year to year, which is why we don’t do it every year. You’d be able to sort of fall into that rut if we did it every year. I think that having that four-year span between lists is what helps us really have an independent assessment of these places. And that four- year gap, so much changes. I mean, I started this in 2013. I was on the search team for the 2013 list. And, this 2025 list doesn’t seem like that big of a gap between the two, but there are only seven barbecue joints that remain from that 2013 list on this one. So a whole lot changes in that four- year gap.

The thing is like, we want a refresh, because this list is about “what have you done for me lately?” It’s not where were you on the last list, you know, how good have you been throughout your history? It’s really, you know, how good are you right now, compared to the rest of the state, and being able to have a sort of tight time span to be able to evaluate that in, I think, is important.

Katy Vine: Okay, I’m gonna talk to Anna and Kimya now; let’s talk about the taste-testing process, the administrative piece of it. How are the taste testers chosen? 

Anna Walsh: So we were able to go back to a lot of the people who did taste testing for us in 2021. So it’s a mix of staffers. Ideally some who have done this at least once before, though newcomers are always welcome. We do have a couple of freelancers that we use who are people whose taste and judgment about barbecue specifically we trust. It helps to have a couple of people who are located geographically across the state. So that’s kind of a factor in terms of the freelancers who we’ve pulled in.

We worked a little bit backward from the pool of how many places we wanted to evaluate this time around. in 2021, we actually had a larger list of places that we wanted to have go through this evaluation process. Because Daniel hadn’t been able to do as much travel in the past year, there were just a lot of places that were a bit more of an unknown. Whereas, despite, you know, what he was saying about the United States of Texas Barbecue project and how that took him out of the state for a while, we were kind of able to curate it down a little bit.

We still went to over three hundred barbecue joints across the state. So it’s not like we had a modest list. But so we had the number of joints that we wanted to go to. We had sort of a rough idea of the pool of people who we could pull in as taste testers. And then, sort of hammered out, working from experience, what is the ideal number of joints to give each taste tester.

You don’t wanna give them so many that they get palate fatigue and every place just starts to taste the same. We didn’t want to give them so few that they have no frame of reference of comparing places against each other. So we settled on everyone having roughly a dozen joints, you know, give or take a couple.

Kimya Kavehkar: And you made sure most people, most everyone had a really good joint in that list.

Anna Walsh: Yes. 

Kimya Kavehkar: To kind of set the bar for everything else. 

Anna Walsh: Yes. So we wanted to make sure that people had—and we kind of recommended they start with like, okay, here is a place that has been on the list before or who, you know, has been an honorable mention before, at the very least, that we think will kind of give you a sense for where the bar is.

And then here’s your, you know, eleven to thirteen other places to also go to. Everybody had an evaluation sheet to fill out, for every joint that they went to. Giving a numerical grade to all sorts of different factors. 

Katy Vine: Like what?

Anna Walsh: Well, judging each individual meat, for instance. The brisket had a whole kind of set of sub-scores that you had to give or, or sub-rankings, I guess. Same with the ribs. There’s a place to make notes about the sides, the overall ambience and, and quality of the experience, the service that you’re getting. This is the top fifty barbecue joints. It’s not the top fifty brisket list. And so we are taking the holistic experience into account when we’re ranking these. 

Katy Vine: How do you educate a lot of the taste testers in Texas barbecue? I’ve done the list a few times, but it’s . . . I still feel like a newbie when I go out ’cause it changes a lot. And what we’re looking for sometimes changes. How do you initiate new people and remind those of us who’ve done it before what’s expected? 

Anna Walsh: Yeah. So we have a taste testing tutorial—try saying that three times fast—to sort of kick off this entire process after we’ve selected the taste testers. We have everybody come into the office and we get barbecue from two joints. One is obviously good, one is obviously bad, for them to compare against, and we have everybody kind of build a plate of meats and dishes from both joints. And then Daniel stands at the top of the room and really walks you through the details of, “What it does it mean to taste this barbecue and gauge this barbecue?” Also, just looking at it physically, you know, pulling the meat apart, kind of evaluating the fat in the meat, the smokiness of it. And just giving people a thorough rundown of what they should be tasting for and looking for. And it’s about an hour and a half total. And so I do think people kind of walk out of that feeling pretty well-equipped to judge these things, at least on an initial basis, for us to then kind of evaluate from there.

Kimya Kavehkar: Yeah, and I think despite that thorough education, a lot of us are still amateurs, so we’re going out with a “regular diner” mindset. And I think that brings in an extra layer to the project that Daniel can speak more to, which is like the retrials. So once you get in that final score sheet, it’s like, what looks accurate just by reading it or what seems super way off and maybe like we need to get an expert in there to give a second take. And I think Daniel experienced a lot of that this round.

Katy Vine: How long did we spend over the list? Was it six months? No, nine months. 

Anna Walsh: Try one year. So we had truly a kickoff meeting for this like one year out from when we thought the list was gonna launch. The initial taste testing window, I think we gave them a two-to-three-month period for that. And then, to what Kimya was saying, you know, we have Daniel kind of do a second round of taste testing once he’s gotten these. This vast set of initial impressions from people kind of going through and doing a subsequent visit on places, where there’s sort of a—either a question of like the ranking or if they’re sort of on the cusp of making the Top 50, especially then deciding on the ranking of the top ten. So that’s another, I guess, two to three months of tasting that Daniel was doing. 

Katy Vine: How many miles did we travel for this? Do you, have you kept track of that yet? 

Anna Walsh: We do not have numbers on the amount of miles traveled yet. I can tell you that we spent; I don’t have a final total yet, but it was definitely over $26,000 on just the meat. Well, the meals at the barbecue joints, I should say. So that doesn’t include the travel costs, the hotels, rental cars, Tums. What have you. 

Kimya Kavehkar: And for your second question, stepping on a scale during this process is strictly verboten.

Katy Vine: Yeah. Oh, it has to be essential, I think, for the preservation of everyone’s sanity. I think it’s best not to do that. Okay. What happens once the testers turn in their score sheets? 

Anna Walsh: Yeah. So it’s a mix of, you know, we, we do give everybody sort of sheets that they can print out to actually handwrite as part of their process. So it’s a mix of, we get a pile of physical papers dropped off at my desk. 

Kimya Kavehkar: Stuff splashed on that.

Anna Walsh: Some grease spots maybe here and there. And then some people will, you know, email in a PDF version of their form for each joint that they went to. Our wonderful editorial coordinator, now fact-checker, Meher Yeda, with the help of an intern who went through all of the physical sheets and the digital sheets that we got. We had a spreadsheet of all of the joints that people were assigned to and who was assigned to go where. And they took, to start—you know, there’s a final total score that we gave every place out of five. So they put in the numerical score out of five. So that Daniel could kind of see at a glance, like, okay, what’s at least getting above a 3.5? You know, we can kind of start from there.

So we sent that spreadsheet to Daniel and then scanned and compiled all of the sheets. I believe it was above 3.5 or maybe 3.75. And then also emailed those to Daniel so that he could then kind of start looking through the more qualitative notes from people on their sheets. Because in addition to just giving a numerical score on all of these things, we asked people to write down as many details as possible about their experience, about the flavor, if a place was truly exceptional, anything that they wanna note about that. So that then that gave Daniel context for how to proceed from there.

Katy Vine: Talk about the final list. How do you decide on the top ten, and especially the number one? 

Daniel Vaughn: Well, so right around the first of the year I got that Excel spreadsheet and was able to go through it and determine the places that really have good potential for the list and are real contenders. And for me to really set out to determine how many of those places I need to go revisit, I’m looking for scores that are, you know, sort of unexpectedly high or unexpectedly low or just like I said, some of those places that maybe it’s just been so long since I’ve been. 

Back in 2021 when I got that list, you know, that contender list was about 80 places maybe. And this time around it was more like 120. So these are places that we deemed good enough to really meet the minimum requirements for being in the Top 50 as far as an evaluation standpoint.

And that was just daunting right off the bat, right? So in that six-month period in total, I personally visited 192 different barbecue joints. And so that was just how hard it was to really pare things down, some of them multiple times. And how we determine that Top 50, so much of it is looking at my score, based on my visit versus the other tasters.

And I have to take their scores into account because they’re the ones getting the meal. That’s, you know, not me. It’s not me being served, and I’m recognized at nearly every one of these places. And so, I consider what I get, like, the high end of what they can do. But they might not be serving that to everyone, and that’s why we have so many other tasters going out. And I think that other score is really helpful. 

And you know, I do go through and I have to look at each of these individuals and figure out who are the sort of chronic high scorers and chronic low scorers and sort of weave through that as well. And so it’s not purely a numbers game. And then, you know, look at people like Katy Vine who got a really terrible section of Texas and her best barbecue joint that she had was probably the only good barbecue joint that she ate at.

Whereas, you know, you have other people who are, you know, they’re in the middle of Austin or in the middle of Houston and they’re eating [at] some of the best barbecue joints in the state, looking at them one to the next. So their scoring might be a little bit different.

Kimya Kavehkar: We salute you, Katy.

Katy Vine: There are definitely some areas where you pick the short straw or some years where you pick the short straw, but I have to say, I was surprised that the best place—and Daniel and I talked about this earlier—but I was surprised that the best place in my area didn’t make the Top 50. ‘Cause I still did think it was fantastic. So I was wondering if you could talk about how much . . .

Daniel Vaughn: Barbecue in Pearland, is that what you want me to— 

Katy Vine: So, tell me what, was this a harder year than past years? The decision-making, it seems like that the level of the quality of the barbecue just increases each year, to the point where it’s gotta be nearly impossible for you to make these calls at a certain point. How do you pick fifty?

Daniel Vaughn: Yes, the quality and consistency has certainly been raised, and so it does make it more difficult. One of the things that I contend with as I’m out there eating is so much of what I’m doing instead of, like, enjoying these meals is that I’m out there really looking for mistakes.

And that is so much about what determines this list or who makes it or who doesn’t make it. Who’s making big mistakes, who’s making unforced errors, who’s not making any mistakes? 

Katy Vine: What would be a big mistake? 

Daniel Vaughn: Well, so at Killen’s BBQ, I remember it, specifically, you know, the casing on that sausage was just really tough. It was really, really tough to bite through. The pork ribs themselves, they weren’t as good as what I’d had at Killen’s in the past. But they just were, they were good. They weren’t great. and the brisket was really just sort of sloppily sliced and put on the platter. And, you know, it was really good.

But it was also one of those meals where I have taken three bites and I’m just like, dammit. Like, I like Killen’s. I like Killen’s BBQ a lot. I like what it represents. And how great they’ve been year after year and what they meant to Houston barbecue when they first came on the scene, like they were the Franklin Barbecue of Houston when they opened. They were that first spot that really started changing the way people felt and thought about barbecue, and evaluating barbecue and their expectations of barbecue, Killen’s BBQ represents that. And so not having him on the list is, you know, I don’t really like it. But I, I’ve gotta call it the way that I eat it.

Kimya Kavehkar: And I think there’s a, sometimes like a misnomer or a mis-stereotype that like anything that’s not in the top ten but still makes the forty and makes honorable mentions are like also-rans and that’s like so not the case. Just like, the top ten were like super-duper extra on top of everything else. Like the best of the best. So I feel like those other places like deserve a ton of credit as well because they’re serving really, really excellent barbecue. It’s just like the level of excellence has changed. 

Katy Vine: Why do you think it’s changed? 

Daniel Vaughn: I think just because a lot of the barbecue joints, especially those that are in the top ten or those who are vying for top ten are a different kind of restaurant than we were used to back in 2013 or 1997. They need to be able to impress a wider base and get people in more often with just a wider variety of a menu.

And if they have that wider variety and they’re able to do all of it at a really high level, then that’s just gonna be more impressive than four meats and four sides and a banana pudding. 

The quality, consistency, of that final round of going through and finding out who’s top ten. That was from like thirty different places that I was, testing against each other. There were places that I was going into this time around that I had on my list as potential top ten that didn’t make the top fifty. That’s how much the barbecue has changed.

Katy Vine: Was that hard for you personally? Because you get attached to these pitmasters and owners and you know that?

Daniel Vaughn: It’s not hard from a scoring standpoint and from compiling a list standpoint. But, you know, like I said, so much of this list is what have you done for me lately? But these pitmasters and barbecue joint owners have meant a lot to Texas barbecue, over decades, some of them. And, I know many of them very well. Like I’m not your traditional food reviewer. You know, I’m not the food editor, the dining critic of . . .

Katy Vine: You don’t wear a fake mustache. 

Daniel Vaughn: . . . a local newspaper who tries to remain anonymous. Texas Monthly asks me to be a lot more than that. You know, I’m the host at different events and, certainly, our big Texas Monthly barbecue festival. I know these people.

Katy Vine: Well, on that note, what security measures are in place to ensure the list stays secret until the launch day? 

Daniel Vaughn: Not enough, that’s for sure. The harder part is not how many people know it, but for how long we’ve known it. Because we had to get this list done so far ahead of when this, when it actually comes out in print. And so I’ve had people ask me and, “Oh, I swear I won’t tell anybody.” It’s a long time before we—between us deciding the list and when it actually comes out.

Katy Vine: How do the restaurants find out? How do the restaurants find out that they’re on the list? Do you call them? Does somebody else call them? 

Anna Walsh: We’re going to be emailing all of the joints when the list first comes out, letting them know. This is different than what we’ve done in the past. So they’ll know as soon as our BBQ Club members and subscribers know. 

Daniel Vaughn: But I think the point is, whether it’s an email or if they see it online or they see it in a print magazine, like they’re gonna learn about it when the public learns about it. There’s no big warning that they get the—it’ll come out on a Tuesday. And so hopefully they’ll be able to order more meat if they need to, if they’re higher on the list than maybe they’d expected. But yeah, it’s, it’s a big surprise to everyone.

Katy Vine: What’s the impact of being included on the list? What have you heard from owners, pitmasters in the past who got a surprise? 

Daniel Vaughn: Yeah, well, I mean, Goldee’s Bar-B-Q was, I think, a surprise number one for a lot of people the last time around in 2021. They’re right outside of Fort Worth and, you know, their immediate impact was the first day that they were open, after the list came out, they had to post on social media an hour before they opened to not come.

They were sold out. There was enough people in line already to buy everything that they had cooked. And, so, you know, they’ve gone on to really become this great teacher of different barbecue joints all over the state. Now, there are people who have come through that pit room that went and opened Barb’s B Q in Lockhart, who’s on the list. Sabar Barbecue in Fort Worth on the list. Redbird BBQ, number four on the list. All worked at Goldee’s Bar-B-Q. So to see their—such an immediate impact they’ve had on Texas barbecue culture is pretty astounding as well. But yeah, I mean it certainly brings a whole lot of business to any place that’s on the list.

And then it’s really up to that business to keep that going or not. Right? It’s like you can react in so many different ways. You can keep doing what you’re doing, build it slowly, or you can just be like, let’s cram these smokers full of everything we can possibly do and, you know, quality be damned. We got people to serve here. So you can do it one way or the— 

Katy Vine: I imagine that’s not the preferred method. 

Daniel Vaughn: Well, I mean, it can be preferred to their pocketbooks immediately, but it’s probably not going to— you know, the line at Franklin Barbecue is still there because it’s still worth waiting in line for, right? Still at the end of that line you get absolutely superb barbecue.

And you know, once that stops happening, word’s gonna get out pretty quick that they’re slipping big time. And if they are, then that line’s gonna go away. But as long as they use being in the Top 50 and use those accolades to, you know, not change so much of what got them there, to be able to retain that new customer base that they get, then, yeah, I mean, they’ll continue to be financially successful.

Katy Vine: Well, just zooming way out, can you talk about why we’re doing this? I mean, what makes barbecue so central to Texas culture and Texas culinary history? 

Daniel Vaughn: Well, I can say just from personal experience, we talked about my first list being 2013. Well, really my first list was 2003. I moved to Texas in 2001. I almost immediately became a Texas Monthly subscriber, ’cause I wanted to learn about this new place that I had made my home. And the 2003 barbecue issue came out and I was just like, “How much better can this stuff really be?” Like I’ve been eating barbecue around Dallas and it’s just fine. Like, really, what are these people talking about all this stuff around Austin and Lockhart and Luling and all that?

And so I set up a road trip of my own based on that 2003 barbecue list and truly changed the trajectory of my life. After that list of, discovering this whole different level of barbecue that I didn’t know existed up until then, really made it seem like an entirely different cuisine from what I had been eating. And so, I really still hold that with me as I’m going around eating at all these new places as well.

Part of the great thing about my job right now is the ability to travel all over the state. I’ve been to every county in Texas, haven’t eaten barbecue at every county in Texas, but being able to be, exposed to all different parts of the state and see what those different pitmasters and barbecue joint owners value in the barbecue they’re serving to their community. It’s one of those things where, it’s like a sports team where you have the locals who are rooting for a spot, right? Like, that’s their barbecue joint, that’s their local spot and you’re not gonna sway them. So I love the way that people root for their local spot, or the spot that they grew up with and maybe were first introduced to barbecue through.

Katy Vine: Yeah, there’s certainly nostalgia associated with the foods that you feel passionately about. Right. But it is also true that a lot of people who consider themselves to be barbecue experts have only eaten at like two places. 

Daniel Vaughn: Well, yeah, and I, you know, I used to be able to have that really fresh eye when it came to evaluating barbecue joints. I used to, you know, not have a lot of the baggage and a lot of those memories, a lot of that nostalgia that would come with a barbecue joint that I grew up with. I’m originally from Ohio.

I didn’t know, I didn’t visit Louie Mueller Barbecue until 2006. And so I, you know, I didn’t—Which was really my barbecue turning point. And so I didn’t have a lot of that to hold on to. I could really just go into a place, and it didn’t mean anything to me. It’s just, is this barbecue good or not?

And now a lot of these places have meaning to me. And so when I went to Lockhart, it was one of the last trips of the whole list and I went into Kreuz Market. I was there to go to Barb’s, to go to Barb’s B Q for a final evaluation. And I stopped over, you know, I questioned whether I should go to Kreuz Market or not. And, you know, they had already gotten an okay score. Not all that great. They haven’t been in the Top 50 the last two times. 

And I was like, what am I talking about? Why am I quibbling here? Like go to Kreuz Market. It’s been around for over a hundred years. It’s right down the street. And I kid you not, I had the best meal I have ever had at Kreuz Market on that day.

It was spectacular. Like I posted a photo and pitmaster friends of mine and other barbecue fans were like, “Where did that brisket come from? That looks incredible.” I was like, that is Kreuz Market’s brisket right there. And they’re like, I’ve never seen a slice that looks that good from there. I was like, yeah, I mean, me neither. But it was a good time for them to serve it to me. And so, that was one of the last things I did in putting the list together was, I had to find a spot to drop off our honorable mentions list to make a spot for Kreuz Market in that meal that I had had. It was so good. 

Katy Vine: And in what ways have the art of barbecue and public perceptions of barbecue changed since you started this job? 

Daniel Vaughn: I think the biggest thing about the public perception is, among barbecue fans anyway, is that expectation of consistency. There’s just so many options out there and so many great options. Barbecue’s not inexpensive anymore, so you are making an investment in these meals.

And so having an off day is something that, I think, lingers a lot more in the minds of barbecue fans who really demand that consistency day in and day out.

Kimya Kavehkar: I think the average barbecue knowledge of a diner has also increased tremendously, and that’s, you know, in large part due to Daniel’s work and the work of Texas Monthly, and also just how prevalent it’s become in in popular culture movies, TV shows, reality shows. It’s just disseminated into American culture in a way that’s so surprising.

Like, people know what bark is, and they know what an offset smoker looks like and how it’s supposed to work, and how it might be different from a rotisserie smoker. Where I feel like perhaps like twenty years ago, your average diner didn’t know and probably didn’t care.

They just wanted, you know, “Was this a good meal for me? Did I enjoy this or not?” So I think people have more exacting standards. And so that kind of builds with barbecue joints, right? The higher standards they have to live up to. And it just kind of feeds itself. 

Katy Vine: When you got into this business and you’ve been doing food writing for a little while, like how . . . this whole culture of food writing and foodies has been changing dramatically it seems like in the past 20 years. I mean, how has that changed your experience with your work?

Kimya Kavehkar: Well, I think a lot of it is just like democratization of the people who are doing the food writing. They’re much closer to their subjects. They’re much closer to their readers, right? You know, I think people like Anthony Bourdain, just his personality, the way he kind of touched people’s lives, made people seem like food is not just a hifalutin thing that we only care about when it’s a special occasion. You know, the food that we consume every day, that’s part of our lives. The food that we cook in our own homes, the food that we feed our children, deserves to be good food like, and we deserve to give it that same kind of care and treatment ’cause that’s ultimately caring for yourself. 

Daniel Vaughn: But I think the other thing, too, to remember out there is that like, it doesn’t take that much to become a quote unquote barbecue expert, right? Like you can go out there and as long as you’ve eaten at some of the greatest places out there, you know what good barbecue is. And I think because of the similarities in the menus and the way that it’s prepared, it makes that comparison so much easier.

The components are pretty much the same. It’s about individual preparations, sure. But it’s about qualities of individual ingredients and how they’re put together. But from one to the next, we’re really talking about the same things. I think that helps create like this whole group of quote unquote amateur experts. And I know that’s an oxymoron, but yeah, I think because of that, it drives more people to want to go out and have those just great experiences.

Katy Vine (voice-over): That was my conversation with Daniel Vaughn, Kimya Kavehkar, and Anna Walsh. Texas Monthly’s list of the top fifty barbecue joints in the state is out now in the June 2025 issue of the magazine. The package is edited by Kimya Kavehkar and fact-checked by Doyin Oyeniyi and Will Bostwick.

This piece was produced by Ella Kopeikin, Patrick Michels, and Brian Standefer. We’ll be back with more from the pages of Texas Monthly next week.