A Texas barbecue joint acclaimed as one of the best in the state is pulling brisket off its menu after wholesale beef prices jumped, saying it can no longer afford to serve the state’s signature cut.
Andrew Soto, owner and pitmaster of Butter’s BBQ in Sinton, decided to drop the item after his wholesale brisket costs rose by $1 a pound in a single week. To offset the hike, he calculated he would have to charge customers $51 a pound — up from $37.
“That was the final straw that broke the camel’s back,” Soto told The Washington Post. “I’m not charging that.”
Soto announced the move on social media, explaining that brisket was accounting for more than 70 percent of his total inventory bill.
“Not a post I’d ever thought I had to make, guys,” Soto wrote in the Facebook post. “We apologize tremendously, we’ve done all we can to combat the constant price hikes, but we can no longer sustain our current business model.”
Butter’s BBQ is the first establishment on Texas Monthly’s top 50 smokehouse list to drop brisket entirely, according to the magazine’s barbecue editor, Daniel Vaughn.
The decision reflects a broader crisis across Texas, where rising input costs and inflation are squeezing margins and forcing independent operators out of business. Recent closures include Fiasco BBQ in Austin, Kelly’s Hill Country BBQ in Wimberley, Lenox Bar-B-Q in Houston, Brett’s BBQ Shop west of Houston, Sabar BBQ in Fort Worth, and Wright On Taco & BBQ in East Texas.
Several factors are driving up costs across the supply chain. U.S. Department of Agriculture figures show average retail beef prices hit a record $9.64 a pound in April, up 13 percent from a year earlier. Industry experts point to drought conditions that have shrunk the national cattle herd to a 75-year low, coupled with higher post-pandemic operating costs, meatpacker pricing and tariffs imposed under President Donald Trump.
For small-town businesses like Butter’s BBQ, located in a town of 6,000 people roughly 20 miles north of Corpus Christi, passing those costs onto consumers has already proven damaging. Soto said sales last weekend were down 60 percent compared to the same period last year.
Rather than closing, Soto plans to introduce smoked beef cheeks on Thursday as a cheaper alternative — a tactic other Texas pitmasters have also adopted. Still, he acknowledged how hard it is to sell a barbecue menu without its anchor item.
“It’s a gut punch,” Soto said. “It really does hurt.”
Other owners across the state describe similar conditions. Shawn Jones, who runs Kirby’s BBQ in New Caney, announced he would close his doors at the end of 2025, citing unsustainable beef prices.
“With brisket being our biggest seller here in Texas, that is really weighing on our profit margins,” Jones told his followers on YouTube. “When brisket costs $36 a pound for the consumer and then you got ribs and sausage and sides and desserts and all that … you can easily be spending $70 to $100 for barbecue.
“That's just not something that most of middle America can do as often as they would need to to support most barbecue joints.”
With costs continuing to climb, operators say the margin for survival has virtually disappeared.
“This is as bad as it gets,” Russell Roegels, who owns two Houston barbecue spots, told The Washington Post. “Everybody’s at risk these days: You’re one bad week from closing.”
