In a town that already has stiff barbecue competition, another highly anticipated contender is about to open its doors in Funkytown. After purchasing a building in Fort Worth’s sparky Fairmount-Southside district a year and a half ago, Brix Barbecue owner Trevor Sales will open his first brick-and-mortar restaurant with a crowning rooftop bar next month in March 2023, just in time for patio season.
Unlike some pitmasters, Sales doesn’t come off as a highbrow barbecue brainiac, but he’s confident that he makes some of the best brisket in the state. In Texas, a well-smoked brisket is “a prerequisite for owning a barbecue joint,” he says. He calls it an art form that many classically trained chefs can’t pull off. He’s upfront, however, that his brisket is stellar because he started by making a lot of bad barbecue. “My first brisket could have killed somebody,” he jokes.
Sales says Brix Barbecue, which is named after his “pound dog that went from concrete to pillows,” began as a passion project. He realized he had to turn it into a business when his Airstream food truck began drawing two-hour wait lines.
The passion project started in 2017 after Sales played football at the University at Buffalo and moved to Fort Worth to work for a manufacturer of power line towers. He began by staying up all night to smoke briskets for the office. But a lot of barbecue people have a similar story, he says, “so I won’t act like I’m the only one that’s ever done that.”
The office briskets led to Sales showing up at breweries around Fort Worth with his wife and “hoping for the best. That progressed to the Airstream that’s been parked across from HopFusion Ale Works since February 2020. He says he “can’t think of a crappier way to open” a business, at the start of the pandemic, a time when owners had to consider moral issues along with their bottom line. But he says he found a way to get through it, and it led to confidence in continuing the side hustle.
According to Sales, the type of wood he feeds the thousand-gallon offset smoker and all the other details surrounding barbecue theory and methods don’t matter much.
“Many people say, ‘Oh, the pecan wood matters,’ or ‘the post oak matters.’ I don’t think that’s the case,” he says. “I think it’s just making good food, having a hospitable environment and good service, and making people feel welcome.”
Brix Barbecue hits all of those marks. Lunch service at the new restaurant will focus on smoked meats, including fatty or lean brisket, spareribs, Akaushi beef belly burnt ends that are basically meat candy, and cheesy jalapeño sausages that Texas Monthly’s barbecue editor named among his best barbecue bites in 2022.
If there’s any barbecue remaining after each day’s lunch service, it’ll be available for dinner, along with a “Brix After Dark” menu featuring “barbecue-adjacent” eats, like smoked and fried wings and a hot chicken sandwich that will have canines and humans alike licking their chops.
Additionally, there’ll be smash burgers made with fat trimmed from the briskets, as well as tallow beans swimming with thick chunks of the prized meat (more brisket). Brix’s smoked chicken corn “chowda” is spicy and thick, almost a dip, and the beef cheek tacos on pliable Sonoran-style tortillas (also made with fat) from Caramelo pack in the flavor, as well.
When the restaurant opens, Sales intends to keep his day job, even though he says a lot of people think it’s weird. “If you like what you’re doing, and it provides for you, and gives you a good life, why would I want to stop that if I’m able to do both?” he says. He notes that the reason he’s able to do both is because his staff is just as passionate as he is, including his co-pitmaster, Jeremiah “J.” Jemente.
Brix Barbecue doesn’t just hit the food marks, though. Sales knows that making people feel good is a big part of his success. He fulfills special requests and often adds them to a secret menu, like when a friend from his bourbon club wanted the chicken sandwich in taco form. Also as evidence of his rapport, a regular approached during this interview, telling him, “Thanks for making life worth living every weekend.” Sales thanked him by name with a hearty pat on the back.
Until the restaurant opens and the pit is transported to the new pit room, Brix Barbecue will keep its regular schedule on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 215 S. Main St. in Fort Worth.
Brix Barbecue is scheduled to open in March 2023 at 1012 S. Main St., Fort Worth. brixbarbecue.com.
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