What do you all say?

Cheapest may be coming to Uncle Dan's after all the publicity about his arrest.

A couple of points here.

Personally I think that is BS. What consenting adults want to do shouldnt be a crime but again I'm pretty libertarian on these matters. That said these are only class B misdemeanors so it seems ridiculous for law enforcement to go through 300 videos trying identify everyone for a minor offense. Seems like a waste of tax payer money and there are more serious crimes to be looking into.

Second point how stupid is it for the establishment to be making tapes of the occurrences paid for and saving them.

Rudy's, not debateable.

Agree Rudy's is the best.

No arby's Mentions???

BellCountyBear said:

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Rudy's, not debateable.

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rudys is meh...

Crash Davis said:

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PartyBear said:

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Agree Rudy's is the best.

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LOL...seriously? You need to get out more. Nothing wrong with Rudy's, but not in the conversation for best in Waco.

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I'm really curious what do you think is the best BBQ in Waco? Which one here is so much better that Rudy's isn't even competition? You neglected to mention that in your critique.

Never heard of this place. When did it open?

PartyBear said:

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Never heard of this place. When did it open?

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Not sure. Maybe 2016 or so. It is fantastic. Rudy's is solid, but not on Guess's level.

EDIT: here is a write up from last year - https://www.texasmonthly.com/bbq/guess-family-barbecue/

Crash I saw in the Trib today they are opening a brick and mortar restaurant on 6th and Columbus.

Guess Family BBQ and it's not close. Lots of accolades. They are Waco's version of Franklin's.

Honky Tonk Kid BBQ is second. His food is amazing but sometimes he can try a bit too hard on unique flavors.

Then Rudys.

Then a massive fall off.

Viteks - love the gut paks but everything else is "meh". Better than some but not in the upper levels.
Coach's - hit or miss for me. Sometimes great, sometimes bad.

Then another fall off.

DeMaria's
Jaspers
Uncle Dans
Dickey's

**I've never had Mama and Papa B's or Red Wagon in Gholson

I have never had Mama and Papa B's either. It has been there as long as I have been around Waco howeversince early 80s and it looked old then.

Honky Tonks again another one I had not heard of until this thread. Is that another food truck. Is that the one across from Fuzzy's? I never paid attention to the name of it? I admit I have never hit a food truck in Waco. They do all seem popular though.

Demaria's I went once after hearing raves about it and I did not think it was great. Uncle Dans is good but not great like Bill Millers in Sa. Gets raves from locals but frankly isn't near as good as billed. Though Dan's is better than Bill Miller's.

I certainly look forward to Guess opening. If it is Waco's Franklin's that sounds great! Although the Guess restaurant I can't imagine having the charm of Franklin's it is going into a sleek newly renovated building that up to 10 years ago housed the McLennan County Appraisal District.

PartyBear said:

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I have never had Mama and Papa B's either. It has been there as long as I have been around Waco howeversince early 80s and it looked old then.

Honky Tonks again another one I had not heard of until this thread. Is that another food truck. Is that the one across from Fuzzy's? I never paid attention to the name of it? I admit I have never hit a food truck in Waco. They do all seem popular though.

Demaria's I went once after hearing raves about it and I did not think it was great. Uncle Dans is good but not great like Bill Millers in Sa. Gets raves from locals but frankly isn't near as good as billed. Though Dan's is better than Bill Miller's.

I certainly look forward to Guess opening. If it is Waco's Franklin's that sounds great! Although the Guess restaurant I can't imagine having the charm of Franklin's it is going into a sleek newly renovated building that up to 10 years ago housed the McLennan County Appraisal District.

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Honky Tonk Kid opened a food truck back around 2014-15. His brick and mortar is opening on University Parks in a few months. He does regular bbq very, very well but is into fusion, so he incorporates additional flavors (hawaiian, asian, etc) from time to time. I stick to the basics but a couple of his fusion concepts are good. Good guy, passionate about BBQ. Hope he does well.

Guess Family BBQ opened in 2016 or so. Really fantastic. Best in Waco, in my opinion. I really go think it rivals Franklin in Austin. Maybe I'm setting the bar too high but I didn't expect much from it and was blown away. They have received a lot of accolades and are now opening up a brick and mortar on Franklin. Don't know when they are scheduled to open but I'd guess 6 months.

You are really missing out if you haven't tried any food trucks. A lot of restaurants are now opening as food trucks first to test the market before moving to brick and mortar. Milo is another one that is opening on Franklin in a few months and the food is phenomenal.

Guess Family is going in at Columbus and 6th. It looks almost done on the outside. The name is up on the windows etc. Again it doesn't look like it has the charm of a hole in the wall type of place like Franklin's (in fact looks a little high brow from the exterior for a BBQ joint) but if you say the food is as good as Franklin's I'm looking forward to it. Now I say that as someone who hasn't been to Franklin's but I have heard enough about it to know it is the best to many.

PartyBear said:

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Guess Family is going in at Columbus and 6th. It looks almost done on the outside. The name is up on the windows etc. Again it doesn't look like it has the charm of a hole in the wall type of place like Franklin's (in fact looks a little high brow from the exterior for a BBQ joint) but if you say the food is as good as Franklin's I'm looking forward to it. Now I say that as someone who hasn't been to Franklin's but I have heard enough about it to know it is the best to many.

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I meant Columbus and 6th. My brain was fried last night.

I guess I'm worried about overhyping them now!

Don't worry about that I'm not much of a food snob. I'm sure I'm going to like it and may love it. As I said I have never had Franklin's. But the idea of something as good as that does sound appealing and you are not the only person to say Guess is extremely good.

I agree on Guess Family Q. They are a little pricey though. $24 lb for brisket is pretty high but if the market is there....Franklin's is $20 lb by comparison. That aside, their food is excellent. Owner used to be at Lambert's in Austin

WacoKelly83 said:

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I agree on Guess Family Q. They are a little pricey though. $24 lb for brisket is pretty high but if the market is there....Franklin's is $20 lb by comparison. That aside, their food is excellent. Owner used to be at Lambert's in Austin

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volume for franklins... Guess is using premium grass fed beef which drives the price

The last two times I ate at Rudy's it was crap. Used to be pretty good. Looks like its really gone downhill.

Only other place in Waco I've been to in the past year is Vitek's. Some of the worst barbecue I've ever had. This place stays open because of beans and Fritos.

Dia del DougO said:

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Only other place in Waco I've been to in the past year is Vitek's. Some of the worst barbecue I've ever had. This place stays open because of beans and Fritos.

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I'm surprised you even went to Vitek's and ordered q. I've read enough of your food posts on various boards over the years to know you know what you're a savvy consumer. Pretty common knowledge that Vitek's is GutPak or bust.

I knew they weren't known for good barbecue. It was a case of just wanting to know for myself, and not wanting to wander around town looking for some place to eat. But I never expected it to be as terrible as it turned out to be.

I don't do carbs, so no gutpack.

Crash Davis said:

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Dia del DougO said:

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Only other place in Waco I've been to in the past year is Vitek's. Some of the worst barbecue I've ever had. This place stays open because of beans and Fritos.

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I'm surprised you even went to Vitek's and ordered q. I've read enough of your food posts on various boards over the years to know you know what you're a savvy consumer. Pretty common knowledge that Vitek's is GutPak or bust.

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And if you want to change it up a little get a SpudPak, but yes if you go to Viteks for anything other than a Pak you're doing it all wrong.

If I ever did want something like a gut pack, which a lot of barbecue places have under different names, I would choose to go some place that actually makes good barbecue that goes in it, rather than just covering up bad barbecue with Fritos and beans.

I have to confess to never having eaten at Viteks nor that Cupp's Diner joint over there even though I lived literally only blocks from both back in the 80s.

Dia del DougO said:

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If I ever did want something like a gut pack, which a lot of barbecue places have under different names, I would choose to go some place that actually makes good barbecue that goes in it, rather than just covering up bad barbecue with Fritos and beans.

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To each his own, but you're missing the beauty of Vitek's. For me, the GutPak concept only works at a place with ****ty q. If I'm at a place that makes good q, I'm not going to let them shred and mix it up in a box with sauce, cheese, beans, and Fritos, etc.

Rog said:

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Crash Davis said:

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Dia del DougO said:

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Only other place in Waco I've been to in the past year is Vitek's. Some of the worst barbecue I've ever had. This place stays open because of beans and Fritos.

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I'm surprised you even went to Vitek's and ordered q. I've read enough of your food posts on various boards over the years to know you know what you're a savvy consumer. Pretty common knowledge that Vitek's is GutPak or bust.

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And if you want to change it up a little get a SpudPak, but yes if you go to Viteks for anything other than a Pak you're doing it all wrong.

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Guess I'm old school but I've never had a gut pak and I've been eating there since 1967. It used to be just sandwiches. They had ham and turkey and such and their lean brisket on plain white bread was outstanding.

The real secret to the place was homemade sausage made by Billy and his Dad. Nobody makes Czech sausage as good as that.

Ask Billy or Julie to wrap that sausage in a piece of white bread and smear mustard or barbecue sauce on it and make a meal of that. Billy calls it a Gringo Kolache. Who needs a gut pak?

It's the best thing in the place. Besides, they are nice people.

I've never had a gutpack, either. It just doesn't appeal to me.

I don't like when people put beans in chili and ruin it. A frito pie use to be cool with a can of wolf brand chili, and I haven't had one of htose since my 20s at least. That's about as close as I've ever gotten to a gutpack. If you're going to smoke meat for hours, make it good and don't bury it in cheap crap and sticky sweet sauce. I don't even put sauce on my barbecue unless it is just dry or not very good.

When I was in junior high school we used to walk down the a little snack shop and get Frito pie where they put a scoop of chili in the Fritos bag with cheese and onions. You could also opt for a different chip, sometimes went for baked Chee-tos for a chance of pace.

OK, I have the answer to this thread. This right here:




That rib was absolutely legit. Smoked perfectly on a steel offset pit with oak wood.

After the scrimmage I decided to see if Guess Family bbq was open. However, it appears that it is virtually inaccessible to those not already assimilated into the Chip and Jo Borg collective. There was just no way I was going to fight through that crowd to get to the little trailer stashed in the middle of all that, that was probably already closed anyway, as usual.. Squeezing in there would be like trying to extract a needle from the interior of a haystack. Screw that. I wasn't hungry anyway just curious, since I had been shut out three times in a row in my previous attempts to sample Guess BBQ.

So from now on I don't even consider Guess as existing in Waco. It's in a foreign fantasy land in another overlapping dimension called Chip & Jo World. I have determined that I will probably never make it there, unless he moves someplace else.

So I caught up with a friend of mine and we made a few stops around town. He told me there was a guy who sells barbecue he had tried before a year or two ago that was setting up at a new place. So we went there just so I would know where it was. The smoke from the places smelled legit, so I went up to get a sample. They were out of sliced brisket, so I just ended up with that rib. It was delicious, the real deal. I couldn't tell you exactly where it is because I don't know those streets well, but his number and facebook address is printed right there on the truck in my photo.

Ain't nothin' else around comes anywhere close to that in REAL regular folks dimension Waco. It makes Rudy's seem like licking an armpit.

I had already torn into that rib viciously before even thinking about taking a photo, so it doesn't look that great. But it was damn good.I think he said he's open Thursday through Saturday.

Keep in mind Guess is putting a restaurant in an old building downtown that is being renovated. So you wont have to go to Magnolialand for long to try it. I didnt realize that is where the truck is when the other poster was mentioning it.

As to this other BBQ you tried, where was that?

PartyBear said:

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Keep in mind Guess is putting a restaurant in an old building downtown that is being renovated. So you wont have to go to Magnolialand for long to try it. I didnt realize that is where the truck is when the other poster was mentioning it.

As to this other BBQ you tried, where was that?

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Waco Drive and around 9th or 10th.