The Best Barbecue in Nacogdoches, Texas

Texas Monthly named Brendyn's one of the Top 50 BBQ Joints in Texas in its 2025 edition, which is the single most meaningful thing anybody can say about a pit in this state and the reason this list has an obvious number one. Visit Nacogdoches announced it on 27 May 2025. Pitmaster Brendyn Todd started the business out of a trailer and now owns the East Main building it runs from.

The brisket is the reason. The rub is at least half coffee grounds, with the remainder equal parts coarse black pepper and kosher salt, and the meat goes into a reverse-flow smoker over oak. Everything is sliced and chopped to order at the counter rather than held. Beyond brisket, the Pig Apple pulled pork sandwich with slaw and green apple and the Garebear, a three-meat sandwich with a sweet and a Carolina sauce, are the sandwiches people drive in for, and the white cheddar mac and the jalapeno cream corn are the sides to take.

Butcher Boy's has been on North Street since 1977 and has never moved or opened a second location. Billy and Cathy Huddleston founded it. Billy died on 30 June 2025, and Cathy now runs it with their granddaughter Macy Smith, which makes it the oldest continuously family-run smokehouse in the city.

What separates it from the pits is the market. There is a traditional meat counter selling fresh cuts including old-fashioned rind-on bacon, so you can buy raw and cook it yourself as well as eat chopped brisket and sausage off the barbecue side. The menu runs wider than barbecue too, with hand-cut ribeyes, chicken fried steak and burgers, and there are meringue pies by the slice or whole. It also publishes a student menu Monday to Wednesday, which is the SFA detail nobody else bothers with.

CC's stays open 90 minutes later than Brendyn's and Butcher Boy's, which in a town where barbecue counters shut at seven makes it the default dinner option. It is a plates and sandwiches operation on the west side, and the city's own tourism listing names the three things it is known for, which are barbecue, stuffed taters and homemade beef jerky.

The jerky is the part worth planning around, because it is made on site and almost nothing else in Nacogdoches makes its own. The plate pricing is the lowest of the sit-down options here, with one, two and three meat plates and a sirloin at the top of the menu, and it carries a larger current review count than any barbecue business in the city except Brendyn's.

Mike's is the Sunday answer. Every other entry on this list is closed, and this one runs 11 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. seven days, which is both the longest week and the only weekend coverage in the city. It is run by Mike and Shannon McClellan on South Street, the road out toward Lufkin.

Its own description is specializing in heavy beef brisket, and it sells custom cooked meats by the pound and takes bulk orders, so it is the one to call for a family gathering rather than a competition plate. Review scores sit around 3.5, lower than anything above it here, and the complaints are about consistency rather than the pit, so we have ranked it on the strength of its availability and its by-the-pound trade rather than on the plate.

The Barbecue House claims the longest history of anything here and the only barbecue drive-through in Nacogdoches. Its own site says established 1959 and calls it the oldest restaurant in the city, while the Visit Nacogdoches listing credits 57 years of experience, so the two figures disagree by about a decade. Either way it predates every other pit on this list by a generation.

The menu is deliberately narrow, built on beef and sausage plates, and it does dine-in, take-out, the drive-through and catering. It is also the most divided entry here. Current public reviews run considerably lower than the rest of this list and the complaints are consistent enough that we have ranked it accordingly, but it is open, it is family run and the Sunday lunch window and the drive-through are things nothing else in town offers.

Chambers is the one to book rather than visit. It operates as a barbecue caterer out of Sundown Drive and runs a food truck to events, and it has catered as far afield as Gallery Furniture in Houston. The reviews that exist are strong on the brisket and the brisket quesadilla, and it has added a herb-crusted smoked prime rib to the catering menu, which nothing else in Nacogdoches offers.

We are ranking it last and we are not publishing hours, because it does not keep reliable walk-in ones. Its listings carry no confirmed schedule and the business has not claimed them, so treat this as a number to call for a party of thirty, not an address to drive to at lunch.