For all-you-can-eat barbecue at this Fort Worth restaurant, raise the ‘More Meat’ sign
Here’s a new way to beat the high cost of Texas barbecue.
Cousins BBQ is offering a 40th anniversary special: all-you-can-eat platters for $30, Mondays through Wednesdays from lunch until it’s all sold.
If $30 for six meats and and eight sides doesn’t sound like a deal, check the prices at contemporary “craft barbecue” restaurants.
Most charge $30 for a basic three-meat combo. Some charge $50 for a full sampler.
“It’s our anniversary, and everything is so expensive these days we wanted to do something special for our customers,” pitmaster Jason Cross said.
Cousins’ original location, 6262 McCart Ave., is an old-guard 1980s Fort Worth barbecue favorite.
Back then, founder “Boots” Payne shipped brisket and ribs to Washington for President George H.W. Bush and trained cooks at what is now Disneyland Paris.
Today, Cousins also has newer Hill Country-style locations at 5125 Bryant Irvin Road, Fort Worth, and 910 S. Crowley Road, Crowley.
The menu now features prime brisket, custom sausage and upgraded side dishes such as Texas poblano street corn or bacon-potato salad.
At the Texas Monthly BBQ Fest, Cousins retains a statewide following. But some newcomers try a taste and ask, “Now — where is this place?”
Cousins managers saw the popular all-you-can-eat deal that Hutchins Barbeque formerly served in Frisco and McKinney, Cross said.
“This seemed like a great way to celebrate our anniversary and also reach out to folks who don’t already come to Cousin’s,” he said.
For $30, you get a choice of three meats and two sides to start. Then you hang a “More Meat” sign at the table for unlimited helpings.
So start with a typical Texas platter of prime brisket, ribs and sausage. But then ask for the chicken, pulled pork and jalapeno sausage.
For side dishes, have a choice of collards, street corn, fried okra, mac-and-cheese, slaw, potato salad and either pintos or sweeter “cowboy beans.”
If that’s just too much, a regular three-meat plate is $21.
Don’t miss the scratch banana pudding ($4) or giant fresh-baked chocolate chip-pecan cookies ($2.50).
Cousins tested the special the last two weeks and sales have been better than projections, Cross said.
The deal starts at 11 a.m. at all three locations and lasts until Cousins is sold out, but so far that’s been well into the evening.
The special is offered Monday through Wednesday. Cousins is open for lunch and dinner daily except Sunday; cousinsbbq.com.
