American Muslims are giving Texas barbecue a halal makeover

Halal Pitmasters Are Reshaping Texas Barbecue’s Identity

Ecorescuezone.com – The sweet, woodsmoke-tinged air outside a weathered wooden shack in Fort Worth, Texas, carried the unmistakable aroma of low-and-slow barbecue on a blistering summer Saturday. By 9 a.m., a queue of roughly 100 diners stretched along the roadside, eager for plates of smoked meat from Goldee’s BBQ. At the very front of that line sat 30-year-old Thanh Huynh, who had claimed a lawn chair on the restaurant’s rustic porch at 6:30 a.m. and was already scrolling through a lengthy order of meats and sides stored in his phone’s Notes app.

“I have, like, a whole list, and I’m going to spend lots of money here. It’ll be worth it,” Huynh said, laughing as the scent of nearby pits drifted past.

Goldee’s opened in 2020 when a circle of friends pooled resources to launch the small operation. Within a year, Texas Monthly crowned it the state’s top barbecue destination, and the restaurant subsequently earned a Bib Gourmand distinction from the Michelin Guide — an honor reserved for establishments delivering exceptional food at accessible prices. Its menu straddles two worlds: alongside the expected craft pork belly, sausage, and ribs, the shack plates halal brisket, turkey, and lamb, all raised and butchered under Islamic dietary law.

A Growing Halal Presence Across the State

Goldee’s is no longer an outlier. At least a dozen barbecue establishments across Texas now incorporate halal meats into their offerings, a trend that has accelerated as Republican leaders in the state increasingly spotlight its expanding Muslim communities. For many diners, the availability of certified halal barbecue has shifted from a niche accommodation to a mainstream expectation.

In Plano, Black Muslim couple CJ and Sabrina Henley operate Yearby’s Barbecue & Waterice, blending traditional pit-smoked cuts with halal preparation. In Houston and Frisco, Levant Mediterranean BBQ runs an entirely beef-based menu that includes a brisket shawarma sandwich, fusing Levantine sandwich culture with Texas smokehouse technique.

Haris Ghaffar, who drove an hour from Celina and endured nearly two hours of 90-degree heat in line with a friend, described the shift in availability. Growing up in the 1990s, he recalled that a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish was among the handful of restaurant meals he could eat without breaking dietary rules. Halal food, he noted, was then treated as catering to a small, insular community. Today, food writer Farhan Mustafa — who chronicled the rise of American halal barbecue for Bon Appétit in 2025 — describes it as a multibillion-dollar industry firmly embedded in the American culinary mainstream.

“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.”

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

Family Heritage Meets the Pit

Texas barbecue has long been defined by salt-and-pepper brisket and pork ribs, a formula codified over decades of ranch cookouts and roadside joints. The new generation of halal pitmasters is injecting inventive variations rooted in their own family heritages, expanding the genre rather than merely substituting one cut for another.

Zain Shafi, a co-owner and pitmaster at Goldee’s, previously ran Sabar Barbecue, a food truck that served Pakistani-infused halal dishes, including brisket rubbed with bay leaf, coriander, and other South Asian spices. At Goldee’s, he introduced tandoori smoked turkey to the menu. On sourcing, Shafi explained that halal cuts were a natural choice because they represent “the highest quality” meats available.

Further west in Irving, Salahodeen Abdul-Kafi operates Kafi BBQ, where halal Wagyu beef meets Iraqi spice blends in classic Texas barbecue formats. Abdul-Kafi, a former Silicon Valley technology worker who relocated to Texas six years ago seeking a Muslim community, spent weekends smoking brisket for friends in his backyard before investing in a dedicated smoker and opening the restaurant by 2024. He credits months of recipe testing and local producer sourcing with producing what he calls a stand-out menu, and he frames his obsessive attention to craft through the Islamic concept of “Ihsan” — performing any act 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.”

On a packed Sunday afternoon this summer, Kafi BBQ’s red booths overflowed with diners drawn by items such as a 13-spice Wagyu brisket, pomegranate-glazed beef belly burnt ends, and an Iraqi-inspired spicy beef sausage. Jonathan Tate, a Fort Worth resident who eats barbecue frequently, offered a verdict on the sausage:

“That sausage, I’d probably put it at the top sausage I’ve ever had, and we eat barbecue a lot. This place is unique.”

What the Trend Signals

The proliferation of halal barbecue in Texas is not merely a menu adjustment; it reflects a broader redefinition of who gets to author the state’s most iconic food tradition. Mustafa observes that Muslims join a long list of communities — Black, Mexican-American, Korean, Vietnamese — that have each stamped their own identity onto Texas barbecue over the past century. Whether first-, second-, or third-generation, whether Muslim American or simply American, these pitmasters bring what they know and what excites them into the pit, challenging the “traditional old guard” while expanding the genre’s vocabulary. For diners like Ghaffar, the practical upshot is simple: a Saturday afternoon of smoked meat no longer requires a compromise on faith, and the queue outside the shack says enough about how quickly that compromise has become unnecessary.