The great East Texas BBQ ramble of 2014

Sampled June 19-22, 2014

Scott and I had each eaten at a few joints out in East Texas before but we had never done a dedicated trip.  The stars finally aligned and we managed to finally get 'er done this past weekend.  It is certainly a target rich environment so we will have to do it again soon.  We had a lot of average Q with the highlights being Riverport in Jefferson, Stanley's in Tyler, and Crazy Bob's in Kilgore.  We ate at 7 different joints on both Friday and Saturday and a total of 17 over the 3 days.   We found 4 other joints closed and pulled up on another place just as a bus full of boy scouts filled it up.

I added this trip onto one of my many Lake Fork fishing trips so I had to pick up Scott at the Amtrack station in Mineola at 5:15 on Thursday, June 19.  The train was 45 minutes late, but it was just a short trip down the highway to our base in Tyler for the next 3 nights.  That required a bit more driving than moving around, but it also meant I did not have to load and unload my fishing stuff multiple times.  We carried around a cooler for leftovers and stored them in the mini-fridge overnight.  I think we each came home with about 5 pounds of meat.

Scott's goal is to try to eat at all 50 of the recent Texas Monthly picks.  Mine is less ambitious, I just want to eat a lot of good BBQ and try every spot we come across on our travels.  

What follows is a joint by joint travelogue with lots and lots of pictures.  As always, you can click on any photo for a larger view.