Cattleack Barbeque is a genuinely hard place to get into, and that’s the whole point.
It only opens Thursday and Friday, plus the first Saturday of each month, from around 10:30 in the morning until they run out of meat — which, on a busy day, can happen before noon. The address puts you in a nondescript commercial strip off Midway Road, near the northern edge of Richardson bleeding into Farmers Branch. There’s no sign you’d notice from the street. You just have to know.
I first went on a Thursday, got there at 10:15, and there were already a dozen people ahead of me in a line that snaked through a small waiting area. By the time the doors opened, the crowd had doubled. Nobody seemed annoyed. People were just talking about what they were going to order. That’s the kind of line this place draws.
Todd and Misty David opened Cattleack in 2013 after Todd spent years perfecting smoked meat as a serious hobby, and you can taste the obsession in every tray. The brisket — fatty, always fatty, if you know what’s good for you — has the kind of deep bark and render that takes fifteen or more hours to achieve. It’s the kind of brisket where the smoke ring goes almost to the center and the fat layer practically dissolves when you press it. I’ve had brisket all over Texas. Cattleack’s belongs on any short list.
The pork ribs are worth serious attention too. They’re firm enough to have real structure but pull clean without effort. The jalapeño cheese sausage snaps when you bite it and has a heat that builds slowly rather than hitting you upfront. If they have burnt ends that day — sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t — get them. No question.
Sides are solid but secondary, as they should be. The jalapeño cheese grits and the creamed corn both do their job. Bread comes with the tray. Sauce is available but unnecessary. Pickles and onions are on the table. It’s the full Texas roadhouse setup, but the quality of the protein is several levels above what that setup usually implies.
Pricing runs roughly what you’d expect for top-tier Texas BBQ in 2024 — figure $25 to $35 per person if you’re getting a full tray with a couple of sides and a drink, maybe more if you go heavy on brisket. It’s not cheap, but you’re not paying for atmosphere. The space is functional, with cafeteria-style seating, picnic tables, and BBQ memorabilia on the walls. The people who run it clearly love what they do, and the staff is friendly in a way that doesn’t feel performed.
The limited hours are a real constraint. You have to plan. If you show up Friday at noon hoping to wing it, there’s a reasonable chance the brisket is already gone. Check their social media before you go — they’ll sometimes post when a particular item is running low. Arriving by 10:00 on a Saturday is a reasonable play if you want the full menu.
Cattleack doesn’t have a website that pushes promotions or a loyalty app. It doesn’t need any of that. The people who know about it come back, and they bring people with them. That loop has kept this place consistently ranked among the best BBQ spots in all of North Texas for years, and the food still backs it up.
