Halal Barbecue Redefines Texas Smokehouse Tradition

At 9 a.m. on a scorching summer Saturday, nearly 100 people were already lined up outside Goldee’s BBQ, a small wooden-shack restaurant in Fort Worth. First in line was 30-year-old Thanh Huynh, who had been sitting in a lawn chair on the joint’s rustic porch since 6:30 a.m., ready to spend generously on a long list of meats and sides.

The restaurant, opened in 2020 by a group of friends, was named the No. 1 barbecue spot in Texas by Texas Monthly a year later and has since won a Bib Gourmand award from the Michelin Guide. It serves classic Texas barbecue like craft pork belly, sausage, and ribs. But it also offers halal brisket, turkey, and lamb — meat raised and butchered in accordance with Islamic guidelines.

Goldee’s is part of a growing movement across Texas, where at least a dozen barbecue spots now serve halal meats. Muslim pitmasters are gaining recognition for putting their own spin on one of the state’s most iconic culinary traditions, even as Republican leaders increasingly target Texas’s growing Muslim communities.

A New Generation of Pitmasters

Zain Shafi, a pitmaster and co-owner of Goldee’s, previously ran Sabar Barbecue, a food truck that offered Pakistani-infused halal dishes such as brisket with a rub incorporating bay leaf and coriander. He brought tandoori smoked turkey to Goldee’s menu and says sourcing halal cuts was a natural choice because they are “the highest quality” meats.

Sabar BBQ earned a spot on Texas Monthly’s Top 50 Barbecue Restaurants of 2025 before closing in December 2025 when Shafi returned to Goldee’s. Texas Monthly BBQ Editor Daniel Vaughn described the experience: “Every bite served out of this colorful trailer—tucked into the corner of a small parking lot next to an elevated highway on the edge of downtown Fort Worth—is a revelation. The brisket was flawless, and the seekh-kebab sausage was spiced to perfection.”

At Kafi BBQ in Irving, owner Salahodeen Abdul-Kafi brings halal Wagyu beef and Iraqi spices to classic Texas barbecue, challenging what he calls the “traditional old guard of Texas barbecue.” A former Silicon Valley tech worker who moved to Texas six years ago in search of a Muslim community, Abdul-Kafi spent months testing and perfecting recipes before opening in December 2024. He attributes his obsession with crafting a standout menu to the Islamic concept of Ihsan — doing something with excellence for the sake of God.

“My goal at Kafi BBQ is to make the best barbecue in Texas,” Abdul-Kafi said. “I have not been shy about that at all, and making the best barbecue in Texas does not necessarily have to include pork.”

His menu draws diners from across the Dallas-Fort Worth area with items like the 13-spice Wagyu brisket, pomegranate-glazed beef belly burnt ends, and Iraqi-inspired spicy beef sausage. Eater Dallas named Kafi BBQ to its Best New Restaurants 2025 list.

Other halal barbecue ventures are thriving as well. Yearby’s Barbecue & Waterice, run by Black Muslim couple CJ and Sabrina Henley, relocated from Pilot Point to Plano, with the Dallas Morning News reporting on the move as the couple expanded their Texas Monthly Top 50 barbecue joint. Levant Mediterranean BBQ operates locations in Houston and Frisco with an all-beef menu featuring a brisket shawarma sandwich.

Halal Food Goes Mainstream

For Muslim Texans, the expansion of halal barbecue options represents a significant shift. Haris Ghaffar, who drove an hour from Celina to Goldee’s and stood in 90-degree weather for nearly two hours, recalled growing up in the 1990s when a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich was one of the few halal meals he could eat while dining out.

“Now there are so many options, and for us to have highly rated barbecue, it’s a blessing,” Ghaffar said.

Halal food has grown from a niche market into a multibillion-dollar industry that is part of the American culinary mainstream, according to food writer Farhan Mustafa, a James Beard Award winner who wrote about the rise of American halal barbecue for Bon Appétit magazine in 2025.

“Halal food is American food,” Mustafa said. “It belongs on your plate. It belongs in the casual chat. It belongs in hip-hop tracks. It’s the most American thing there is.”

Mustafa noted that Muslims are part of a growing list of communities putting their stamp on Texas barbecue. “Whether they’re first, second or third-generation Muslims or Muslim Americans or just Americans, they’re bringing what they know and what excites them,” he said.

The appeal extends well beyond Muslim diners. Jonathan Tate, a Fort Worth resident who visited Kafi BBQ after reading about it on a Facebook foodie group, praised the sausage as “the top sausage I’ve ever had.” His friend Jon Sklar added, “I don’t necessarily have to have it halal, but it’s nice to know they took good care of the food, the meat.”

Areeba Ali, a Dallas native of Indian heritage dining at Kafi BBQ with 10 relatives, said the restaurant’s appeal cuts across communities. “If you look around in the restaurant, you see everybody in there — it’s not just one demographic in there,” she said.

Barbecue as a Counterargument to Islamophobia

The rise of halal barbecue comes at a moment of heightened political tension for Texas Muslims. The Dallas Morning News reported in August that some GOP lawmakers have discussed banning halal foods, restricting hijabs in public schools, and defining Islam as a political ideology rather than a religion. The Republican Party of Texas adopted a “Don’t Sharia My Texas” resolution at its summer 2026 convention, and 95% of GOP primary voters supported a ballot proposition asking if Texas should prohibit Sharia law.

Gov. Greg Abbott declared the Council on American-Islamic Relations a terrorist organization in November 2025. CAIR received 8,683 civil rights complaints in 2025, the highest in its nearly three-decade history, and called Texas a hotspot. The Texas Tribune reported that Muslims make up roughly 2% of the Texas population, with estimates ranging from 300,000 to 500,000 in a state of about 32 million.

For pitmasters like Abdul-Kafi, the success of halal barbecue serves as an effective counterargument to anti-Muslim rhetoric.

“It’s an example of exactly the opposite of what the Islamophobes talk about, right?” he said. “They say, ‘Oh, Muslims don’t integrate, they stay alone, they don’t help society and all this stuff.’ And it’s like, I’m sitting here contributing to the most well-known cuisine of Texas.”

A Culinary Legacy in the Making

Texas barbecue has always been defined by salt-and-pepper brisket and pork ribs, but this new crop of halal pitmasters is adding inventive twists based on their own family heritages. At Goldee’s, chef Nupohn Inthanousay blends his Laotian heritage with a smoked Lao “sai oua” sausage served with sticky rice and fiery dipping sauce.

For Mustafa, the success of halal barbecue is ultimately a testament to the resilience of Muslim American communities.

“No matter how much they try to erase us, our food is here to stay,” he said. “You will see the power of just good food and the fact that most people really seem to understand that this is just as American as anything else.”

As Texas’s culinary landscape continues to evolve, halal barbecue represents more than just a menu option — it embodies the fusion of tradition and innovation that has always defined American food. For the growing number of Muslim pitmasters across the state, it is also a statement of belonging: this cuisine, like the communities creating it, is unmistakably Texan.