I visited the new location of Pinkerton’s Barbecue, in Houston, at night so I could witness the neon show in full effect. “Beef – Pork – Links” glowed orange on the towering sign that was reflected in the windows of the cars filling the parking lot. It was Wednesday, so the “Hot Whole Hog” (available only on Saturdays) portion of the sign remained dark. That beacon on Farnham Street is just a preview of the vintage vibes Grant Pinkerton has curated within.
“I’ve always been a neon junkie,” Pinkerton told me as we conversed in the dining room. He giddily described the collaborative design process with local artist Don Jones of Industrial Neon Sign, who puts pencil to paper for his layouts instead of using a computer. Another sign of his marks the front door with “Pinkerton’s” in script, and a third is mounted above the screened windows of the pit room and reads “Briskets On.” The latter is manually dimmed when the brisket pits are empty, which is rare, since the joint is open for lunch and dinner six days a week.
Many of Pinkerton’s other design choices are intentionally analog. “I don’t let LED beer signs in the restaurants,” he said, pointing to the collection of vintage Budweiser signs hanging in the bar area. Rather than installing a jukebox with an infinite digital playlist, he wanted to design a musical mood that reflected “multiple eras and multiple genres” and included albums from Willie Nelson and the Talking Heads. Pinkerton wanted a jukebox that played actual CDs, just like the one in the dive bar where he would hang out while skipping high school football practice. Way before that, back in 1980, Pinkerton’s father attended Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic in Austin and brought back a T-shirt and a concert poster. Both are hanging on the wall in the restaurant next to some framed snapshots his father took that day. “Everything here is based on little memories I had growing up,” he said.
The bar area.Photograph by Daniel Vaughn
The knotty pine paneling on the walls and ceilings reminds Pinkerton of Houston cafeterias and restaurants, such as Blanco’s Bar & Grill and the Stables, that, he said, “have been bulldozed for progress.” The nostalgia tour continues into the men’s room, where pinup posters line the walls like in his childhood bedroom. “Having a place with old-school vibes kind of fits with the food we offer,” he said.
By old-school food, Pinkerton means barbecue in general, though his menu has featured many modern twists since the first Pinkerton’s Barbecue opened on the north side of Houston a decade ago. Note the Prime-grade brisket and sweet-glazed “candy paint” pork ribs, for example. Or the duck-and-sausage jambalaya and the mac and cheese with bacon and rosemary. Pastry chef Ria Smith makes the bread pudding and smoked blueberry cobbler, among other treats. I didn’t need to revisit any of the above, having covered Pinkerton’s extensively since it opened (honestly, I felt some relief when the brisket sold out minutes before I reached the counter), but I did want to try new dishes offered only at this location.
The prime rib, priced at $28 per pound, isn’t the victim of a misprint—but it isn’t beef either. The pork prime rib is a whole piece of loin with the spinalis, or cap, still attached. The cooks season it liberally with a sweet rub and smoke it until the pink is cooked out of the center. My slice was intensely juicy throughout, and the smaller section of pork prime rib (compared with beef) meant that every bite included some of the crust. A trio of new house-made sausages is also available. I was too late for the ring-shaped beef sausage, but I enjoyed the red-tinted hot link, which was thankfully spicy, as advertised.
Six new sides also make their debut here. While they aren’t standard barbecue fare, all feel nostalgic. The creamed spinach is so rich you’ll forget it’s a vegetable, and the crunchy corn flakes and marshmallow cream that top the bourbon mashed sweet potatoes evoke Thanksgiving. The humble combination of okra and tomatoes was so dense with flavor I swore it must have some meat stock, but Pinkerton said it’s strictly vegetarian. “It is cooked down for a very long period of time,” he explained, and the finished product is worth the effort.
The meaty flavor of the beef-tallow fries is self-explanatory. To keep them fresh, the kitchen uses a timer, and when it goes off, the cooks replace the thick batons of potato under the heat lamp with a fresh batch. “They have to be crunchy, and they have to be hot,” Pinkerton said, and mine were both. The seasoning on them doubles as one of his barbecue rubs, and it has more than a dash of sugar.
I fell in love with the biscuit at Pinkerton’s. It’s served with whipped butter, although it needs none. I split mine in half—the multiple layers made it easy—and planned to eat just the top. But I devoured the whole thing. Smith bakes several batches throughout the day, using a family recipe with a few tweaks. It leaves the more traditional white bread barbecue accompaniment in the dust. I also enjoyed Smith’s desserts, including her apple pie cheesecake. The squat column of cheesecake is tart, so the sweetness comes from the loose graham cracker crust on the bottom and the generous mound of apple topping.
Some of the new menu items. Photograph by Daniel Vaughn 
From left: Louie Gonzales, Grant Pinkerton, and Joseph Hernandez. Photograph by Daniel Vaughn
Instead of eating in the packed dining room, I carried my tray to the bar, where I met Rae, the kind of affable bartender who is as likely to recommend a new television show (if you’re reading this, Rae, I promise to watch From) as a wine from the list of thirteen by-the-glass options. None are generic picks, as Pinkerton assumes anyone ordering wine at a barbecue joint is probably into wine. The bar had run out of Bordeaux, so I went the other direction with a Châteauneuf-du-Pape blanc from Château La Nerthe, at $25 a glass (it retails for around $80 per bottle). The whiskey selection is also plentiful, and Pinkerton’s offers a few beers on draft and many more by the bottle.
If I had sat at one of the long tables or the wooden booths, whose proportions Pinkerton carefully calibrated for ideal ergonomics, I could have requested a sauce refill or more pickles from the dining room attendant. It’s a new position the restaurant created to counteract a trend Pinkerton has noticed. “Barbecue is getting way away from the service element and hospitality,” he said. Because the typical counter-service or cafeteria-style model can feel purely transactional, Pinkerton attempts to stave that off here.
One of the not-so-retro (as least for Texas) touches at Pinkerton’s is whole-hog barbecue, an import from the Carolinas and western Tennessee. The cooks use a dedicated Ole Hickory smoker and pull the meat to serve. I’ll have to visit on a Saturday, when it’s on the menu. Several more Ole Hickory rotisseries, as well as four 1,000-gallon Mill Scale offsets, fill the cavernous pit room. Their smokestacks encroach on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, where you can feel the heat emanating from the oak and mesquite fires. To smoke pork, pitmaster Louie Gonzales and his crew fuel the rotisseries with hickory because of the success it’s had on the competition circuit.
I don’t often write about the third location of a budding barbecue empire. The first Pinkerton’s Barbecue opened in 2016, and a second followed in San Antonio five years later. Both have made our Top 50 BBQ list. This third location, which opened in January, already feels like the flagship. It was designed with nostalgia in mind, but it also feels like a step forward in providing a unique experience.
Pinkerton’s Barbecue
3801 Farnham, Houston
Hours: Tuesday–Thursday 11–9, Friday–Saturday 11–10, Sunday 11–9
Phone: 713-802-2000
Pitmasters: Grant Pinkerton and Louie Gonzales
Method: Post oak, hickory, and mesquite in offsets and rotisserie smokers
Year opened: 2026
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