HOUSTON — If a big plate of barbecue is your idea of hog heaven, then Houston is the perfect place to live. In a recent study of the best BBQ cities in America, H-Town smoked the competition.
Houston ranked third behind only Kansas City, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee. Two other Texas cities, Austin and San Antonio, also made the top 10.
Lawnstarter.com came up with the rankings based on five categories in the 500 largest U.S. cities.
- The number of barbecue vendors
- The number of smokehouses
- Number of top-rated barbecue spots
- Competition awards
- Number of barbecue festivals
As home to the World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest, Houston definitely had a leg up on the competition. H-Town finished fourth or higher in four out of five categories.
- Barbecue vendors: Houston finished No. 1 with 139
- Smokehouses: Ranked No. 4 with 11
- Top-rated barbecue vendors (4.5+ stars): No. 2 with 24
- Award-winning cooking teams in past five years: No. 4 with 7
- Barbecue festivals: No. 15 with 2
Lawnstarter.com mentioned Gatlin's BBQ, Pinkerton's Barbecue and Pappa's Bar-B-Q as favorite spots.
2024 Top 10 Best BBQ Cities in America
1. Kansas City, MO
2. Memphis
3. Houston
4. Kansas City, KS
5. Los Angeles (Seriously?)
6. St. Louis
7. Austin
8. San Antonio
9. Chicago
10. New York
12. Midland
21. Dallas
34. Fort Worth
For the record, there are a bunch of small Texas towns that probably serve up better barbecue than a lot of the cities on the list but Lawnstarter only looked at larger cities.
