Yes, they are a chain. But at the end of the day Pappas Bar-B-Q comes from the Pappas family of restaurants. Interestingly, the whole Pappas restaurants dynasty started from a single little BBQ shop in downtown Houston back in the 1960s. So it’s no surprise that their traditional Texas barbecue is solid. By the way — even though they are a chain, you can still only get their barbecue in Texas – so it really is a pure Texas barbecue play. Now to the food:

Brisket – The brisket had a good smokey flavor and good smoke ring. Being as it was lean, not surprisingly it was a tad dry. Fortunately, Pappas Bar-B-Q offers four different kinds of barbecue sauce – original, sweet, tangy, and my favorite – mustard. All are quite good.

Sausage – The sausage also had a good flavor, with a nice snap to the casing and decent grind.

Sides – the potato salad was a pretty-traditional mustard-based version. It had a good flavor – but felt a bit more mushy than I generally prefer (kinda like mashed potato salad if that’s a thing). The coleslaw was also good. The cabbage had a good crunch and the flavor was great. The pickles and onions are pretty standard. But the addition of pickled carrots was a very nice adder.

While Pappas Bar-B-Q is not craft barbecue that will end up on a Texas Monthly “Top BBQ” list, they do deliver solid barbecue that certainly scratches my barbecue itch…