2M Smokehouse

Sorted by Date

The Texas BBQ Posse's Favorite 41

Customers stand in line at the world-famous Franklin Barbecue in Austin. (Photo ©Tom Fox) Others may have their Top 50 or Top 40 lists. Not the Texas BBQ Posse. After years of eating and months of debate, we’re listing our Favorite 41 joints in the state, including a ranking of the Top 10. 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio is No. 1. Of course, there wasn’t universal agreement among Posse members so we’ve included Top 5 lists from others elsewhere in this package. Austin/San Antonio region Brotherton's Black Iron BBQ, Pflugerville: Traditional Texas barbecue and creative sandwiches including brisket grilled cheese,…

Is the BBQ Posse just ‘a bunch of city boys’?

The Posse works a Moberg smoker full of briskets before eating at Flores Barbecue in Whitney, our No. 7 favorite spot in the state. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse) We always knew barbecue commentary was a full-contact sport. So many good joints. So many different opinions. That message came through loud and clear after we published our list of the Texas BBQ Posse’s Favorite 41 joints last week. So far there have been a total of nearly 100 comments on Facebook postings by the Posse and others sharing our posts. And even a few here on our site. Some comments…

Join the discussion / Posse's Favorite 41 - 11/13/2018

2M Smokehouse No. 1 Posse Favorite

Lunch spread at 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio, the Posse's favorite BBQ joint in Texas. (Photo ©Tom Fox/Texas BBQ Posse) If you’re a regular Posse reader, you know that we’ve been high on 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio since it opened a couple years ago. So, naturally, we'd take a close look at the place as we put together the Texas BBQ Posse's Favorite 41, our list of our favorite joints in the state. After our first visit in the spring of 2017 we wondered if 2M was, in fact, turning out the best barbecue in Texas. After a return…

Joints / Posse's Favorite 41 - 11/07/2018

Posse members share their Favorite 5 BBQ lists

Pitmaster Tootsie Tomanetz works the smokers early on a Saturday morning at Snow's BBQ, the favorite stop of Bruce Tomaso. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse) Full and frank discussions about our favorite food. That's what the Texas BBQ Posse has been all about in the decade or so we've been on the barbecue trail. Sometimes we all agree. Often we don't. So it is with the Posse's Favorite 41. After getting opinions from everyone, co-founders Chris Wilkins and Gary Jacobson made the final selections. Here's how other Posse members rate their Top 5. Bruce Tomaso Snow's BBQ, Lexington: The brisket is…

Joints / Posse's Favorite 41 - 11/07/2018

$Valentinas-Tex-Mex-BBQ$

Recreating Valentina’s breakfast tacos with barbecue leftovers

The gold standard of all breakfast tacos in Texas, from Valentina's Tex Mex BBQ in Austin. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse) What to do with barbecue leftovers? Always an important question. The best advice the Posse ever received on that front came years ago during a visit to Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, Tx. Reheat slowly in the oven with lots of butter, owner Kerry Bexley told us. Still solid advice. After a recent Saturday Posse feast at 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio, we found ourselves with lots of barbecue leftovers on a Sunday morning at our place in Austin. There…

Cooking - 09/26/2018

400 miles, or so, to the pork rib on a long road trip

Josh Johnson, left, and friend Cooper Furlong dig into pork ribs at 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio. (Photo ©Tom Fox) Over a decade on the barbecue trail, the Texas BBQ Posse has seen a lot of things. But we ran into a first last Saturday during a visit to 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio: A couple of young guys fueling up on smoked meat before their two thousand mile road trip to Oregon. Talk about a cross country adventure. Cooper Furlong of San Antonio and his friend Josh Johnson of Los Angeles arrived at 2M Smokehouse at 8 a.m. and…

Joints - 09/24/2018

A star is born - Zavala's Barbecue in Grand Prairie

Joe Zavala Jr., left, and partner Drew Wright work the cutting board at Zavala's Barbecue in downtown Grand Prairie. (Photo ©Tom Fox/Texas BBQ Posse) Newly-opened Zavala’s Barbecue had been on the Posse’s radar for the past couple of weeks, so we headed south to old downtown Grand Prairie last Saturday. The sky was deep blue and it was 70-degrees. It also just happened to be Cinco de Mayo, the making of a perfect BBQ day. Zavala’s had been open on Main Street for eight Saturdays when we visited, growing from a small catering outfit to a pop-up and eventually to…

Joints - 05/08/2018

A ‘quantum shift’ in the BBQ universe, all because of Texas

A couple who bailed on the long line at Franklin Barbecue checks out the menu at Micklethwait Craft Meats in Austin. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse) It was 10:40 on a recent Sunday morning, 20 minutes before Micklethwait Craft Meats opened for business. There was no line, just five people sitting at tables in front of the little yellow trailer. Across the street, a couple walked toward us from the direction of Franklin Barbecue, a few blocks away near downtown Austin. “Did you just come from Franklin?” I asked when they arrived. “Yes,” they answered. “It didn’t look like that…

Joints - 04/10/2018

Side dishes are better than ever at Texas BBQ joints

Sides like these from Micklethwait Craft Meats, top & middle bottom photos, and Tejas Chocolate Craftory are changing the Texas BBQ scene. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse) In the early years of the Posse, we didn’t care much for barbecue side dishes. You know, the standard potato salad, coleslaw and beans that often accompany smoked meat. We even had a no-side-dish rule, meaning we almost never ordered anything but meat. When you hit a half-dozen or more joints on a weekend tour, you want to reserve all your eating space for brisket, ribs and sausage. To us then, side dishes…

Joints - 03/19/2018

A year later, 2M Smokehouse hasn’t lost a step . . .It still might be the best BBQ joint in Texas

Our lunch of ribs, brisket, turkey & sausage with sides at 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse) When we first visited 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio last year, we wondered if the joint was turning out the best barbecue in Texas. After a recent visit, our view hasn’t changed. “I’ll flat out say it,” Posse co-founder Chris Wilkins said after our lunch of brisket, pork ribs, turkey and Serrano pepper/Oaxaca cheese sausage, “I think the food here is better than Snow’s.” Snow’s, of course, is the legendary joint in Lexington that was ranked No. 1 last…

Joints - 03/15/2018

Check out the top Posse Stories in 2017

Our trip to Texas Monthly Top 50 newcomer Truth Barbeque in Brenham was one of the best meals the Posse had in 2017. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse) As Texas BBQ Posse co-founder Chris Wilkins observes, when Texas Monthly comes out with its Top 50 list of joints every four years, “it’s the Super Bowl of BBQ.” So, it’s no surprise that five of the 10 top Posse stories in 2017 were related to TM’s list. For this post, we're defining top as most read. And, right at the very top, we batted .500 in our fearless barbecue predictions. Franklin…

People - 12/28/2017

Have the young guns of Texas BBQ won the revolution?

Left to right: Esaul Ramos & Joe Melig of 2M Smokehouse, Leonard Botello of Truth Barbeque and Grant Pinkerton of Pinkerton's BBQ. (Photos ©Michael Ainsworth & Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse) Your response to the above question probably depends upon personal taste. Evolving personal taste. At first glance, the answer appears to be a loud YES! The young guns of Texas BBQ have, indeed, taken over from the traditional joints. Look no further than the makeup of Texas Monthly’s recent Top 10 places in the state. Seven of them have either started or reopened operations since 2011, five since 2013. Only…

Joints - 07/25/2017

Why do we have nicknames for BBQ pits?

Owner & pitmaster Grant Pinkerton poses with his matching Klose pits "Waylon" & "Willie" at Pinkerton's BBQ. We met “Waylon” and “Willie” recently at Pinkerton’s Barbecue in Houston. “You know how to tell the difference?” Grant Pinkerton asked, setting up a punchline about his two big Klose pits. “Willie is always smoking,” Pinkerton said. Why do we have nicknames for BBQ pits and other machines we love? A few years ago, The Atlantic magazine tackled that question and basically determined that we apply human characteristics — names — to machines because it makes us think the machines work for us. Maybe.…

Equipment - 07/05/2017

Top 10 brisket joints for Texas Monthly

Briskets on the smoker at 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio. With all the hullabaloo over the online release of Texas Monthly’s Top 50 barbecue joints early this week, the print edition of the magazine still contained a nice surprise when it arrived Thursday: a list of the top 10 brisket joints in Texas. While seven of them are also among TM’s overall Top 10, three are not, including 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio. Regular readers will remember that Chris Wilkins and I raved about 2M after our first visit there earlier this year. I even argued that it might be the…

Joints - 05/28/2017

2M Smokehouse video: Living the BBQ dream

2M Smokehouse video: Owners Esaul Ramos, left, and Joe Melig at the counter of their San Antonio restaurant. Esaul Ramos, co-owner and pit master at 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio, has some advice for anyone who thinks they might want to smoke meat for a living. "Don't get into barbecue unless you really, really love it," Ramos told the Posse recently during a visit to his joint when we also taped a short video in his smokehouse. With a mattress propped against a nearby wall, Ramos explained how he and partner, Joe Melig, literally camp out there during their long…

Joints - 05/21/2017

Killen’s will be #1 on Texas Monthly’s Top 50 BBQ list, the Posse predicts

Diners wait for Killen's BBQ to open on a Saturday morning in Pearland, a suburb of Houston. Be bold. That advice from an old boss recently ran through my head here at Posse HQ as we contemplated stepping off the barbecue cliff. We took the step. Yes, we are predicting that Killen’s Barbecue in suburban Houston will be No. 1 on Texas Monthly’s highly anticipated list of the Top 50 BBQ joints in Texas, displacing the legendary Franklin Barbecue in Austin. It shouldn’t take long to know whether that call is indeed bold or just plain boneheaded. The list will…

Joints - 04/19/2017

Prediction: Franklin Barbecue won't be No. 1 on Texas Monthly's new Top 50 list

The BBQ world is anxiously awaiting the release of the 2017 Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ list next month. If Blackie Sherrod were writing this column, he would call it Scattershooting while wondering if Geddy Lee still loves Texas barbecue. . . Sherrod, of course, was a legendary newspaper columnist. After he died last year, his obituary in The Dallas Morning News began: “Blackie Sherrod, the greatest Texas sportswriter of his generation or any other, now and forevermore, died Thursday afternoon at age 96.” Kevin Sherrington, a good wordsmith himself, wrote that. Sherrington tells me Blackie’s food tastes tended toward…

Joints - 04/12/2017

Is 2M Smokehouse turning out the best barbecue in Texas?

Our lunch of brisket, pork ribs, sausage & turkey at 2M Smokehouse. The first thing you see in the pit room at 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio is, of course, the giant smoker. Built by Texas barbecue legend John Lewis, it is named El Mexicano. Next, you notice the big-screen TV, hanging on one wall. Not far away are two outdoor chairs, and a mattress propped against the wall behind. “Our landlord owns a mattress store next door so he gave us a good deal,” Esaul Ramos said. 2M Smokehouse is open Thursday through Sunday, so Ramos and his partner,…

Joints - 04/08/2017

Advertise with the Posse

Product Review Request Form

“

Let the meat speak for itself.

Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy