The Best Barbecue in Paris, Texas

The Scholl family ran this shop from 2003 until they were ready to retire. Justin Lewis left a career in health care to buy it with his wife Erin, whose hometown this is. Pitmaster Josh Hignight started here as a dishwasher at sixteen in 2006 and worked his way up, and the new owners sent him out on a tour of the region's better joints before he came back to the pit.

Texas Monthly, which had been let down by Paris barbecue on earlier trips, ran its visit under the headline that Paris finally has a contender. The writeup found the lean brisket admirably tender with a good dose of pecan smoke, and the St. Louis cut ribs tender and well seasoned under a sweet glaze, while wanting more bark on the brisket, which the owner said new smokers would fix. That is the most honest published read on this kitchen, and it is still the best barbecue in the city limits.

Fireside runs from an Airstream trailer on FM 195 with a casual outdoor setup built around it. The pitch on its own site is more specific than most trailers bother with. Choice cuts, pecan and oak, sixteen hours, and the results show up in the brisket and the pork ribs rather than in the sauce.

The menu goes past the standard plate, with a sandwich called the Land Yacht and street tacos built on smoked meat alongside one, two and three meat plates. It is a Lamar County Chamber member with a working website and a listed street address, which sounds like a low bar until you try to pin down the rest of the barbecue in this county.

Gringos operates at 1343 South Church, the address Phat Phil's BBQ held, and both the Lamar County Chamber directory and Visit Paris Texas now point that location at Gringos. Old Phat Phil's listings are still floating around the internet, so search by the address rather than the name. The chamber files Gringos under food trucks, which tells you what to expect, a small operation with a short week and no dining room.

The ribs are the reason to go. Public reviews here consistently put the ribs ahead of the brisket, which is the reverse of the usual Texas order and worth knowing before you get to the window.

A barbecue and Tex-Mex trailer downtown, and the crossover is the point. What people order here is the brisket mac and cheese, the loaded baked potatoes and the brisket burgers, plus brisket nachos and chopped sandwiches. If you want a sliced plate on butcher paper, go to Scholl Bros. If you want smoked brisket doing something else, this is the one.

Visit Paris Texas lists it, and it caters weddings and festivals, which in a town this size is the clearest signal an operation is stable rather than seasonal. Exploring BBQ describes an offset smoker running post oak, and singles out the pulled pork.

This one is not in Paris and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Garner Street sits in Detroit, a small town east of Paris on US 82 on the way to Clarksville, and it is a meat market with a pit attached rather than a restaurant with a dining room.

The brisket is prime grade, which almost nothing else in this radius commits to on the menu, and Texas Monthly carries a restaurant listing for it. The service window is narrow, roughly the middle of the day Tuesday through Saturday, so this is a lunch plan and never a dinner one.

This is a catering operation, not a counter you walk up to at noon. The Lamar County Chamber files it under caterers, it has a Pine Mill Road address and a listed phone, and it turns up around local events and on venue vendor lists.

It is on this list for one reason. If you are feeding thirty people in Paris and you want barbecue, this is the confirmable local option, and that is a genuinely different problem from finding lunch.