The Best Barbecue in Sherman, Texas

Aaron Vogel, called Big A locally, opened this in a converted fast food building on 17 March 2005, and two decades later it is still the barbecue people in Sherman name first. The pit runs apple wood rather than the post oak most of Texas defaults to, which is why the smoke reads sweeter and lighter than a Lockhart brisket.

The competition side is checkable. KXII covered the crew at the Hogs for the Cause charity cookoff in New Orleans in April 2026, where Vogel was one of sixteen cooks in the pork categories and the team helped raise 35,000 dollars. KXII and KTEN both covered the 2023 taping of America's Best Restaurants here. A Texas state championship and a run of Best BBQ of Texoma wins appear on the restaurant's own site and nowhere independent, so treat those as the house telling its own story.

Anthony and Vanessa Bouie run this trailer at Westwood Village, and the name is the Mississippi spelling chant, M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I. That is the whole pitch. The meat is smoked Texas style and the plate around it comes out of a Hattiesburg kitchen, which is a combination nobody else in Grayson County is attempting.

Two cautions. The published hours disagree across every platform, with some listing a short weekday lunch and others a Friday evening window, so call before you drive over. Some directory profiles also file the business under a Bells address on State Highway 56 rather than the Sunset Blvd trailer, and both appear on live ordering pages.

This started as a mobile unit working events and now occupies a small drive-up building on North Travis with a window and two tables out front. It is listed in the Sherman Economic Development Corporation's business directory, which is the kind of record a pop-up does not usually have.

Worth knowing that Yelp files it under Southern rather than barbecue, and the loaded potatoes get as much attention in reviews as the brisket does. Treat it as a lunch stop rather than a sit-down barbecue meal.

Not in Sherman, and worth the ten minute drive anyway. KXII and the Herald Democrat both covered the June 2025 opening. Owner Dante Ramirez spent about thirty years in Dallas-Fort Worth restaurants and, per KXII, previously owned a barbecue joint in Celina before moving north toward his wife's hometown of Sherman.

The 8 a.m. open is the practical detail. Nobody else in the county sells brisket that early, which makes this the one option if you want barbecue before a work shift or on the way to Lake Texoma.

The Doyle family has owned and operated this since 1975, which makes it the oldest continuously running barbecue pit in Grayson County by a wide margin. The meat cooks in an enclosed pit on indirect heat from slow burning hickory, an older method than the offset smokers most new joints use, and it produces a softer bark and a deeper smoke ring.

It carries a Texas Monthly restaurant listing and a spot in the Denison tourism office's business directory. The building also houses Shawn's Soda Shop, so the dessert counter is not an afterthought.

A small to-go stand run by Randy Johnson, covered by Texoma Living, which traced the line at that corner back through the Lew's operation that preceded it. The stuffed peppers are the item people drive for and they are not on anybody else's menu in the county.

Hours are the catch. Sources give weekday windows that disagree by hours and some list a Saturday, others do not. What every account agrees on is that it opens midday and sells out.

A backyard operation that went commercial, now carrying a listing in the Denison tourism directory. Turkey and brisketwurst are the reason to go, because both are hard to find done properly in this part of the state and neither is a throwaway line on the menu.

The public record here is thinner than everything above it on this list, roughly two dozen reviews across the major platforms, and the operating days are limited to about four a week starting Tuesday. Ranked accordingly.

A Tulsa-based chain founded in 1992 with more than fifty locations across eight states, which is exactly why it sits at the bottom of this list rather than off it. It is not going to beat the independents above on smoke, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

What it has is availability. Every independent barbecue operation in Sherman closes by early evening or sells out first, and this is the only place in town where you can sit down with ribs at 8:30 on a Sunday night. Listings split between 3205 and 3207 N Hwy 75, so use the phone number if a map sends you wrong.