The barbecue joint in three Deep Ellum locations started in 1955 By Sarah Blaskovich | The Dallas Morning News • Published 4 hours ago • Updated 4 hours ago NBC 5 News Billy McDonald threatened to close his family’s 66-year-old Dallas barbecue joint, Mac’s Bar-B-Que, a handful of times in the past decade. In late July 2021, he finally will. Our redesigned local news and weather app is live! Download it for Apple or Android — and sign up for alerts. McDonald might miss the company that his dad, Bill Hubert McDonald, started in 1955 — a place that served no-nonsense smoked meat decades before craft barbecue was cool.