Houston’s Grant Pinkerton, 30 Under 30 Honoree, Plots Texas Barbecue Empire With San Antonio Expansion
Chloe Sorvino Forbes Staff
I lead Forbes coverage of food and agriculture.
One of Texas’ youngest and most celebrated pitmasters is about to hit a new milestone. Grant Pinkerton, the 30-year-old owner behind Pinkerton’s Barbecue in Houston, will soon become the first craft barbecue entrepreneur to open up a location in a second Texan city—a feat even Austin’s Aaron Franklin has famously avoided. But Pinkerton, who fed thousands of first responders during Hurricane Harvey, isn’t easily deterred from a good challenge.
“We have this huge barbecue renaissance going on here in Texas. But nobody’s made that leap yet,” Pinkerton says. “Most people who are in this business are barbecue cooks that run a business. They’re not businesspeople that cook barbecue because it has the element of art and craft to it.”
Pinkerton’s formal foray into the barbecue business started in 2014, when the University of Texas at Austin alum was sleeping on his parents’ couch. He decided to sell his saxophone to buy a trailer and turned it into the barbecue pit of his dreams. The small catering business he started took off two years later when Pinkerton smoked three 6-foot alligators whole at the Houston barbecue festival. After the meat went viral, investors came forward, ready to help Pinkerton open a standalone joint. His namesake, 130-seat restaurant opened in December 2016. Within its first nine months, revenue hit $2 million. Pinkerton then became the first pitmaster ever honored on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 food and drink list. He ended last year with revenues of more than $3 million.
Pinkerton’s 2,000-square-foot Houston flagship remains a classic barbecue joint, while also pushing traditional boundaries. It sells only all-natural, hormone-free beef and prides itself on a craft cocktail program. Pinkerton lives above the restaurant, which comes in handy when he stays up through the night to check on the brisket smoking. It also comes with probably the most important recommendation in Texas barbecue: a spot on the much-coveted Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ list.
He’s been getting asked about his next location pretty much ever since.More than two years since opening in his hometown of Houston, Pinkerton is now ready to expand. A new Pinkerton’s Barbecue restaurant in downtown San Antonio will be unveiled by 2020.
More than double the original’s size with 250 seats and 5,000 square feet of space overall, the restaurant will be part of a major 20-acre development by San Antonio real estate firm Weston Urban, founded by the former chairman of New York Stock Exchange-traded Rackspace Holdings, Graham Weston. It’s about a four-minute walk from the city’s much-trafficked River Walk and about a mile from The Alamo.
“They want it to be the showcase and anchor,” Pinkerton says, adding a joke: “The guys who are running this project are huge barbecue people. It’s always been a dream of theirs to have a high-end, craft-style barbecue place down there. So they’re making their dream become reality as well.”
While Texan Hill Country is known for great barbecue, Pinkerton says San Antonio’s downtown consists mostly of subpar barbecue chains, though there’s huge demand from local offices and conference tourism, in particular. Of the potential, he does simple math: “In a 10-minute walk of our location, there’s 3,500 hotel rooms.”
Some experts say where an entrepreneur opens their second location is more important than the first. Forbes spoke with Pinkerton to discuss what the deal means for his budding brand and how to franchise a craft like barbecue. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
