Ever since Guy Fieri visited Pecan Lodge in Dallas and featured it on his Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in 2012, Pecan Lodge has been a legendary barbecue spot in Texas.
Interest in the restaurant spikes every time Triple D airs re-runs, with people visiting the restaurant from all over the world, the owners have said. The flames were stoked once again when the website Mashed made a list of the best Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives restaurants in each state — and Pecan Lodge beat out all the other Texas businesses in late 2022.
Perhaps it’s the restaurant’s “bomb barbecue brisket at The Pee-cahn Lodge,” as Fieri refers to it.
When the show was filmed, Pecan Lodge was one of the best barbecue joints in the state. It was a poorly-kept secret among meat-loving Dallasites who would stand in line at its original location, a small stand at the Dallas Farmers Market. The restaurant has since moved to a bigger space in Deep Ellum, where there’s a bar, a patio and more room for a line that still sometimes wraps around the building.
On the Food Network show, Fieri joined Pecan Lodge co-owner Justin Fourton in the kitchen to make East Texas barbecue sauce with ingredients like guajillo peppers, chipotle powder and soy sauce. Watch a 3-minute, 30-second video to find a younger Fieri gushing over a restaurant that, at the time, helped define the new wave of barbecue in Dallas.
“You’re a pro, dude. Listen:” Fieri tells Fourton. “I go to Hawaii, I better get great sushi. I go down to California, I’d better find some bomb Mexican food. What you should be finding, when you come to Texas, is rockin’ brisket.
“That’s rockin’ brisket.”
Now: This list of each state’s best Triple D restaurant was not created by Fieri, it was dreamt up by the editors at Mashed. In Dallas alone, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives has visited Cane Rosso, Twisted Root, One90 Smoked Meats, CrushCraft Thai and more. The show has visited over 50 restaurants across Texas.
But we have to wonder if Pecan Lodge’s line was longer after Mashed’s list in late December 2022.
In recent years, the company has stayed relevant even outside the barbecue-obsessed set. New Knox Street restaurant Pizzana has a pizza topped with Pecan Lodge brisket and coffee shop Foxtrot Market uses its smoked beef in breakfast tacos. When Shake Shack made its flashy debut in Dallas, it sold a cheeseburger topped with a Pecan Lodge jalapeño sausage link.
Pecan Lodge is at 2702 Main St., Dallas.
