When driving out west, it’s difficult not to get that sense of freedom. The wide open sky, mountainous landscape can be so breathtaking you may find yourself thinking, you know what, I should pack it all up and move out here.
And if you have family ties to that area, the decision to move is likely that much easier. In fact, that’s exactly what happened with Jason and Simone Dominguez, who decided to move to Fort Davis and pick up where Jason’s great-uncle Raul left off.
Raul was an accomplished pitmaster in the region, having been written about in the Texas Observer as having the best barbecue in the state once upon a time.
Daniel Vaughn, the barbecue editor for Texas Monthly, did some investigating.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Tell us about Raul Dominguez. Who is he, and what about his legacy? Did you know about Raul?
Daniel Vaughn: So I didn’t know about Raul really until doing research for the story. Well, really I had spoken to Alex Manley, who once upon a time had written for the paper in Marfa, and she had told me a story about going to Raul’s BBQ and that she had parked in his parking space without knowing it while he was out on an errand; he hit her car, coming back to the restaurant.
And instead of apologizing for it, came into the door, complained about the car being in the wrong parking place and said, “fire awaits for no man,” and went back to his barbecue pit without an apology, without anything.
You should have that done as a patch and put on the back of your jacket or something, right?
It’d be a great pit master slogan.
Okay, so that was Jason Dominguez’s what?
Great uncle.
Great uncle. All right. So Jason and Simone were what, living in Arizona or something?
They were living in Arizona and California. They were moving all around really in search of a good life where, you know, they could be in the restaurant business and still be able to to have a good life.
And so Jason decides, hey, let’s go back home, because what – what had happened to that old barbecue place that his great-uncle had?
Well, really they were back home visiting family as they had done many times, but the building itself had become a barbershop and probably a few other businesses in between after Raul had closed the barbecue business. But when they returned, the building itself was for sale.
» WHERE THERE’S SMOKE: The latest barbecue news from across the Lone Star State
Okay, so they looked around, thought this will work … but you gotta have a pit.
Yeah, well, that’s the thing. Like, even though it was a barbershop, they didn’t really touch anything that had been in the kitchen/pit room. It was like this giant concrete pit.
I mean, you have this huge pit that they built. It wasn’t anything on wheels. So you couldn’t move that thing out of there. So the pit still remained. And essentially, it looked like Raul’s BBQ from as far as Jason could remember.
So what did Jason decide to do? Did he reset things as Raul’s Barbecue? I mean, you know, that’s got a brand.
Right, well, they call it R&R BBQ or Rock N Raul’s Smokehouse. So it’s an homage to Raul.
The menu is quite a bit different than Raul’s, because really the only thing that Raul served was brisket. That was the main thing that he did. So they’ve got the old family recipe for the brisket, for the barbecue sauce, and this incredibly spicy green salsa. This salsa verde is fantastic. But those are really the only three family recipes they’ve got, all the rest of it is stuff that Jason and Simone have come up with.
Had they been doing it before?
They hadn’t really cooked, no, they had never worked in a barbecue joint before. They were certainly professionals as far as the restaurant business goes, but they were barbecue amateurs.
» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters
That is fascinating. So did you get a chance to taste the wares?
I did. They started off on a good foot with homemade bread. Like that’s just a rarity with so much cheap white bread found at barbecue joints.
And then they do these potato cakes topped with chopped brisket, some of that salsa verde. It was sort of their take on a stuffed baked potato. I mean, the food was good. I really like that the sausage itself was served with grilled onions and this homemade mustard.
Oh my gosh, that sounds so good. But you’re in a pretty remote area, aren’t you, in Fort Davis?
Yeah, I mean, Fort Davis, you know, it’s 30 minutes from Alpine, 30 minutes from Marfa. You got a ways to drive to any other spot for barbecue.
So how’s business?
Business is good from what I could see. They certainly weren’t complaining about it. They feel like the people of Fort Davis have really come around to them taking over Raul’s spot, and the fact that it remains in the family I think means a lot to the folks in town.
