Owner Allen Rhoden said he opened the restaurant in 2018 after wanting a change of pace from his job in the real estate industry. He said the New Caney area had nothing like his restaurant at the time.
“You have a bunch of Mexican food restaurants; you have a bunch of fast-food restaurants; but there’s nothing else,” Rhoden said. “It’s either Tex-Mex or fast food, so I said, ‘Let’s offer them some barbecue.’”
The most popular dishes the restaurant serves include its brisket, the Rusty Buckle Taco and the Dirty Mac and Cheese, which combines macaroni and cheese with chopped prime brisket, Rhoden said.
Rhoden said the smoking process for his meat starts a day or two in advance to prep the meat and trim the fat and imperfections. The meat is then seasoned with a special sweet pepper rub, which Rhoden said is not the traditional “heavy salt, heavy pepper” Central Texas style.
“We want to put out the best product we can, so we believe if we start with the best product, it makes our job a little easier,” he said.
The meat then rests before going into the smoker, which can take anywhere from 12 to 16 hours. This amount of time is ideal because if the meat cooks for any longer, it becomes “too tender” and will not hold together, Rhoden said. But even though he has been cooking barbecue for so long, he said he is still learning and changing his approach.
“Every pitmaster is different; they’re not going to share all their secrets,” Rhoden said. “The learning curve is still straight up; we’re still learning new things every day.”
Rhoden said he hopes to build new patio seating and expand his parking in 2020.
He also said he plans on attending the Houston Barbecue Festival on April 5 at Humble Civic Center at 8233 Will Clayton Parkway, Humble. Rhoden said the festival is a place where barbecue masters can experiment with “something creative, something eclectic, something different.”
Although the restaurant often has lines out the door, Rhoden said once people get the food and get in, it is all worth the wait.
“With it being a family-friendly kind of deal, and people just feel at home here; if they’re not friends when they get here, they’re friends when they leave,” Rhoden said. “You’ve already got something in common—you want to eat good food.”
The Rusty Buckle BBQ Co.
22664 Community Drive, New Caney
281-354-0447
www.rustybucklebbq.com
Hours: Wed.-Sat. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. (or until sold out), closed Sun.-Tue.
Correction: Allen Rhoden's name was incorrectly listed as Al Rhoden in the original version of this article.
