Before opening Texans BBQ and Catering, husband-and-wife team Danny and Gayla Williams did not have any prior restaurant experience. Danny had worked as a mechanic in the service department for Ford, and Gayla was a full-time medical transcriptionist.

When Danny suggested opening a barbecue restaurant, Gayla said she believed he was experiencing a mid-life crisis.

“He came home one day and said, ‘I think I want to open up a little barbecue stand,’” Gayla said. “I said, ‘No, we’re not.’”

However, Danny indulged his whim building the small restaurant from the ground up on FM 830 in Willis. The petite building offers just enough room for a substantial kitchen area, a back patio for the large smoker pit and a few tables in the dining room. The walls are adorned with metal welding, also made by Danny and sold through his other Willis business, Smok’n Metal Works.

Fifteen years since starting the eatery, the Williams have a system: Gayla runs the financial aspect of the business; Danny builds the pits and is the pitmaster. One of their daughters, Alexis, also works at the restaurant when she is not attending Sam Houston State University.

These days, Texans BBQ’s menu is smaller, and the hours of operations are condensed. Even with select hours, clientele continue to fill the dining room and create drive-thru lines that back up to the street for Danny’s brisket, ribs, chicken, sausage and potato casseroles.

For the briskets, Danny puts the meat on his handmade pit between 6 and 7 a.m. the day before it is sold, and they cook for approximately 15 hours. Rather than seasoning the meat, he depends on the flavors created by wood combinations—such as post oak and hickory or post oak and pecan—to add complex flavors.

Danny said although he enjoys being his own boss and he loves seeing generations of customers return to Texans BBQ, it is sometimes difficult to take time away from the restaurant and catering business.

“If we are not here, it is not open,” he said.

On the days the restaurant is not open, Danny and Gayla are often catering weddings, parties and corporate events.

“If it was all about the money, I probably wouldn’t be here,” Danny said. “You know, we could have both went out and had other jobs and probably made more money, but we have been here with our kids, friends and family, and it’s been really neat.”

12097 FM 830, Willis
936-890-2100
www.texasbbq.com
Hours: Thu.-Fri. 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 11 a.m.-3 p.m. (drive-thru), closed Sundays-Wednesdays