DALLAS — Imagine this: You come across a study of the best U.S. cities with barbecue. Out of curiosity, you decide to look and see how the cities in Texas rank overall.
At top of the study, you read, "Texas is the best state for BBQ," and think, "Of course! No doubt about that."
Then, you look at their top two BBQ cities not only in Texas, but in all of the U.S.
According to a 2022 study by Clever, the top two BBQ cities in Texas – and all of America – are San Antonio and Austin.
Yes, you read that correctly. San Antonio and Austin, in that order.
Dallas, on the other hand, isn't seen on the list until you get to spot No. 12. Houston's the last Texas city on the list. You find a it a little lower at spot No. 18.
If you're like us at WFAA, three things are probably happening right now:
- Your neck's probably hurting from how badly you're tilting your head in confusion.
- You want to roast the entire company behind this list.
- You've decided to calm down and least figure out the criteria behind their choices.
Take a deep breath and get ready to sink your teeth in.
The first thing we should make clear: Almost none of the factors of this study have anything to do with taste.
Their metrics basically focus on how easy it is to find barbecue in each city. And each of those metrics have a different level of importance. The top two heavy-weighted criteria are the number of BBQ restaurants per capita and the average Yelp rating for those BBQ restaurants.
Other criteria include major BBQ events, regional price for a pound of BBQ meat, and Google Trends for BBQ-related search terms.
In addition to the Yelp ratings, the closest metric related to taste is whether a resident from the city was inducted in the American Royal Barbecue Hall of Fame.
So with those metrics in mind, let's look at the rankings again. San Antonio is ranked by Clever as the best BBQ city for America.
The study found the city had an average Yelp rating of 4.0 for their barbecue restaurants. They also an average of 4.2 barbecue restaurants per 100,000 residents and a distance of 4.6 miles between each of those restaurants.
There are barbecue events scheduled in San Antonio within the next year, and they did have at least one resident inducted in the Barbecue Hall of Fame.
How does San Antonio compare to Dallas?
According to the study, what really shot us down on the list was our amount of BBQ per capita, the distance between restaurants and our Google Trends score.
Researchers at Clever found an average of 1.1 BBQ restaurants for every 100,000 residents (compared to 4.2 in San Antonio) and a 5.9-mile distance between those restaurants (in comparison to 4.6).
Our Google Trends score is 89.2, versus San Antonio's sitting at 94.5.
When you look at the other metrics, Dallas' are pretty similar to San Antonio's, if not better. We're only 0.1 lower on the average Yelp rating, and we spend 0.04% less of our income on barbecue.
Also, between Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Dallas is the only city that has hosted a Kansas City Barbeque Society Master Series BBQ competition in the last 10 years. And Austin doesn't even have a BBQ event scheduled in the next year.
So take this list with a grain of salt and a whole lot of BBQ sauce.
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