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Last December, Steve and Donna Smith announced they’d be closing Big Smith’s Bar-B-Q, in Sulphur Springs, after 36 years in business. It was time for the couple to retire, but some locals thought the place still had plenty of good years left in it. “We hated to see it go,” Jarred Pickett said. When his friend Walt Gamblin called him after seeing the news, they decided to purchase the business—which he estimates is the oldest restaurant in Hopkins County—from the Smiths. After the building was renovated, deep cleaned, and outfitted with a new painted sign, Big Smith’s reopened in April.
Both men were born and raised in Sulphur Springs, about an hour and a half east of Dallas, and Gamblin remembers traveling to the joint with his family as a boy to get ten barbecue sandwiches for ten bucks. Back then the restaurant was in a different spot, about ten miles farther down Texas Highway 154. It was there in 2003, when Big Smith’s made it onto the list of honorable mentions in Texas Monthly’s Top 50 BBQ issue for its famous beef ribs. Inside that old building, empty Tabasco bottles lined the rafters. When the restaurant moved, the Smiths had them repurposed into a chandelier that still hangs in the center of the dining room.
“We kept everything,” Gamblin said, including the decor and the Smiths’ recipes. Free roasted peanuts are still on every table, but the new owners added buckets for the shells to keep folks from throwing them on the floor. “I loved the novelty of it, but the cleanliness, not so much,” Pickett said. The restaurant is also full-service, so you’ll be shown to your table instead of waiting in line to order.
The newly painted sign on the restaurant’s exterior.Photograph by Daniel Vaughn
My meal began with a half order of golden onion rings. Each massive loop is hand-battered and fried to order. The breading crackles with each bite, which brings forth the generous seasoning and reveals the thick, tender onion inside. I had to question what Big Smith’s considered a half order when the platter arrived at my table—but yes, it is supposed to include thirteen rings. Gamblin said they added an option for a smaller portion size due to customer requests. He described the full order as a mountain. “The servers have to hold a bowl over the top to get them to the table,” he said. When artist Gary Panter, who grew up in the area, professed his love for Big Smith’s in a 2011 Lucky Peach article, he described the towering basket of onion rings as “the acme of the theater of excess.”
The deep fryers see plenty of action at Big Smith’s, especially Thursday through Saturday evenings, when all-you-can-eat fried shrimp and catfish are on offer for $25. I was there for lunch and added a single catfish filet with a crunchy cornmeal coating to my barbecue platter for $3.95. A single beef rib is $7.50. I guess the kitchen determined my rib was too small and added a second one to my basket. “The beef ribs are the top seller,” Gamblin said. “Brisket comes in second.” These aren’t the gigantic beef short ribs most Texas barbecue lovers are used to, but rather smaller beef back ribs. There’s still plenty of meat on the bone and a salty bark. The tender beef required little work to get it off the bone, and it paired nicely with the house-made barbecue sauce.
The sauce is an original recipe from the Smiths. “That’s the last thing we pried out of them,” Gamblin said. It’s thick and tomato-based but not too sweet. It helped amp up the commercial smoked sausage, but it couldn’t rescue the pitifully dry slices of turkey breast. That poultry and the soupy mac and cheese—oddly garnished with unmelted shredded cheese—were the only big misses of the meal. Go for the fried okra as a side instead.
Even though the beef ribs are the top seller, Pickett prefers the smoked brisket. Slices from the lean side were a bit dry, but the meat was seasoned nicely and had a well-rendered fat cap. It would have been great on a saucy sandwich. I didn’t try the pork ribs because I would’ve had to commit to a $19 half rack, and I was dining alone.
Gamblin and Pickett have tried to keep everything as close to the old version of Big Smith’s as possible. The old Oyler rotisserie smokers are still in place, though they’ve improved the exhaust system. Much of the staff stayed on, and the duo brought in Jace Anglin as the pitmaster. Tony Harry, the new general manager, also helps on the smokers, which have a mixture of oak and hickory wood.
The owners are still fresh in the barbecue business, and both run separate construction companies as well. I wondered about the differences they’ve noticed when it comes to running a restaurant. “The profit margins aren’t exactly what we’re used to, but we’re having a great time doing it,” Pickett said. Gamblin agreed. “If it makes a little money and does well, we’re ecstatic about it,” he said, adding, “We put the Lord first, and family second, and everything else seems to work out well.”
Big Smith’s Bar-B-Q
4858 Texas Highway 154, Sulphur Springs
Hours: Wednesday 11–8, Thursday–Saturday 11–9, Sunday 11–2
Phone: 903-438-1547
Pitmasters: Jace Anglin and Tony Harry
Method: Oak and hickory in wood-fired rotisseries
Year opened: 1989
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