Pork ribs and a stuffed potato are barbecue comfort food at Big Al s Smokehouse BBQ in Dallas.
Photograph by Daniel Vaughn
This year will mark twenty years that I’ve lived in Dallas, and I’ve been going to Big Al’s Smokehouse BBQ for most of them. My early visits were long before I became an official barbecue editor, and mostly happened on Tuesdays for the pork rib special (which they now offer daily). Signed concert T-shirts lined the walls along the wood fence that corralled customers toward the counter at the old location, which is just a stone’s throw from the current location on Inwood Road near Dallas Love Field airport. Back then, the place was always packed for lunch, and you could count on seeing pitmaster Pedro Garcia working the cutting block.