1,500 pounds of brisket! Texas Rangers’ BBQ wins for Fort Worth, Arlington restaurants

Bud Kennedy
·2 min read

Maybe the Texas Rangers made Hurtado Barbecue famous.

Or maybe it was the other way around.

Either way, Brandon and Hannah Hurtado have become a legendary part of a memorable Rangers season, and that will continue as the Rangers go up against the Houston Astros in the greatest baseball showdown in Texas history.

Hurtado Barbecue’s stand in the left field corner at Globe Life Field has drawn half-hour-long waiting lines all season, much like the lines that form Saturdays at Hurtado’s flagship location in downtown Arlington, 205 E. Front St.

Lately, the lines at Section 101 have formed 100 deep at opening and stretched up to an hour long for Hurtado’s playoff concession items, including a family-sized beef rib ($45) and a pico-and-queso poblano sausage “Oaxaca Dawg” ($12.29).

The Hurtado Barbecue poblano sausage “Oaxaca Dawwg” with queso and pico. It’s a special item for a 2023 playoff sites.
The Hurtado Barbecue poblano sausage “Oaxaca Dawwg” with queso and pico. It’s a special item for a 2023 playoff sites.

Final count from a recent playoff game: Hurtado sold 20 racks of the giant beef ribs, along with 150 poblano sausage dogs.

Hurtado also sold 1,500 pounds of brisket.

That’s nearly three-fourths of a ton in a single game.

The barbecue alliance has been good for the Rangers — they also have their own barbecue concession stands serving commercial brisket with Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce — and also for Hurtado Barbecue’s restaurants in Arlington and in Fort Worth, 1116 Eighth Ave.

The playoffs “definitely had an impact,” a very busy Brandon Hurtado wrote in an online message.

“We saw huge uptick,” he wrote.

It was the latest breakthrough for a barbecue empire that started in 2018 from a truck outside an Arlington brewery, then expanded to a restaurant in the former Arlington city bus station in February 2020. That was the same day No. 1-rated Goldee’s Barbecue opened south of Kennedale.

Brandon Hurtado, left, of Hurtado Barbecue in Arlington with Casey Rapp of concessions company Delaware North.
Brandon Hurtado, left, of Hurtado Barbecue in Arlington with Casey Rapp of concessions company Delaware North.

The restaurant is known for “Mexicue” such as the poblano-queso-pico sausage and has expanded the menu to include brisket birria tacos, brisket tostadas, Spanish rice and Mexican cornbread.

Other new side dishes on the winter menu include a kale salad, cabbage and “loaded” mashed potatoes.

The Fort Worth location near Baylor All Saints hospital is the only Hurtado that serves breakfast, and that morning menu is now very taco-forward.

Hurtado’s morning offerings on Eighth Avenue include tacos with brisket, sausage, migas or potato for $3.50-$5.50.

The Fort Worth location has also added one of the city’s first smoked brisket burgers.

For dessert, Fort Worth has exceptionally good mini-pies. They come in peach, pecan or Key lime.

The Arlington location serves lunch and dinner daily; 682-323-5141, hurtadobbq.com.

The Fort Worth location serves breakfast, lunch and dinner daily; 682-499-5913, hurtadobbq.com.