Whether it's the jalapeno sausage or the brisket elote cup, Panther City BBQ in Fort Worth infuses every plate with a Tex-Mex twist. Inspired by flavors from their childhood, owners Chris Magallanes and Ernest Morales crafted a six-ingredient brisket rub with a bit of heat. You'll find those same spices throughout the menu, including in the smash burgers, pork spare ribs, and prime brisket.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00The barbecue here in Fort Worth was kind of styled after Austin-style barbecues, but then
00:07it's morphed a little bit.
00:08I think what you see a lot is people putting their backgrounds into it, whatever ethnic
00:11heritage, kind of bringing what you had in your childhood to the table and mixing that
00:16with the Texas-style barbecue, and what we do is a Tex-Mex flavor.
00:30We've got Sammy here trimming briskets.
00:40Sammy comes in three days a week for us, sometimes four days a week, and he's a trimming machine.
00:47He'll trim about anywhere from 265 to 300 briskets a week.
00:51Pretty aggressive on our trim, and then we use all this trim in-house for other dishes.
00:56We do all-beef sausages.
00:57We also do our brisket guisada and our brisket smash burgers with all this trim.
01:01He's usually got a helper, too, but we're in transition.
01:05So if you guys are handy with a knife, we are looking.
01:10Our goal with this trim right here is to try to get the best slice out of every single
01:13slice of brisket.
01:14We could be a lot less aggressive, but our goal is to have that brisket cook as evenly
01:19all the way through and get the best slice out of one end to the other.
01:24So these things are all trimmed up.
01:26Now it's time to season them.
01:27Eric touches every brisket that goes through our restaurant.
01:30He is really strict on what passes through here.
01:33We're going to put a little binder on here.
01:35The binder is just yellow mustard cut down with a little pickle juice.
01:40People ask why pickle juice.
01:41Well, because we have a ton of it from pickles sitting around.
01:43Our seasoning starts with a really heavy dose of coarse black pepper, 16-mesh pepper.
01:49We'll follow that up with some kosher salt.
01:51It's about a 60 to 40 mix.
01:54After the pepper and salt, we put on a good dose of our in-house made brisket rub.
01:59It's six ingredients, but what we do with that is we can tweak it to the flavor profile
02:03that we like.
02:04We always like a Tex-Mex spin on everything we do, so we do put a little bit of heat in
02:08that.
02:09But it's just a different twang.
02:10It's six ingredients that you can find in your pantry at home.
02:13Nothing exotic, nothing special.
02:15These briskets don't go on until tomorrow, so we always find that seasoning the day before
02:19makes that extra flavor difference.
02:22We're not trying to hide anything.
02:24We want every single slice to be the best slice that we can serve.
02:29That's why we pay so much attention to it.
02:37Ernie and I started this back loosely around 2014.
02:40We both worked together.
02:41He was actually one of my technicians.
02:42We worked for an audio-visual company.
02:44Ernie and his cousins got in a competition barbecue, and eventually they would ask me
02:48to come along if I wanted to come join them.
02:50The story was the same every time.
02:52We partied a little too much, got a little too drunk, and didn't turn anything in and
02:55burned it up.
02:56But when I went out to cook with them, being a project manager, my mind was to put together
03:00a timeline and actually turn something in.
03:02Then we could have a good time.
03:04So first time out, all together, that we did the competition, we hit reserve grand champion.
03:08So we were hooked at that point, and then the barbecue just took off.
03:15I know these briskets are ready to wrap.
03:17So whenever I'm wrapping, I normally look for how the bark looks, and also how the fat is.
03:23If that fat's real squishy, then it's ready.
03:26There's times where a few of the briskets are lagging a little bit, like this one where
03:30you kind of push in and it's a little bouncy.
03:33But with how long we cook it, that fat's going to render anyway, so I'm not really too worried
03:38about it.
03:39He hits it with a little margarine, a little more of our homemade brisket rub, and then
03:44throws it back on for probably another couple hours.
03:48We do take a few of the tips and tricks from our competition world to mix in that flavor,
03:52explosion, that wow, but leave it subtle enough to where you can actually enjoy the whole
03:56plate of it, if that's what you choose.
03:57One of the tricks is a liquid margarine that we use.
04:00Right now, a big thing is using liquid tallow, but for us, the liquid margarine just brings
04:03a whole other different flavor.
04:05And then one of the things we did in competition was actually re-season our brisket during
04:09our wrap process.
04:10So we take the liquid margarine for a flavor and moisture booster, and then we re-season
04:14our brisket with our in-house made brisket rub to give it one last pop, because such
04:19a long cook, a lot of those seasonings actually do cook off and burn off, so we'll actually
04:24apply another layer during our wrap.
04:26It's like everyone uses the same concept, but everyone has their own little finishing
04:29touches that they do.
04:30We really try to buck the trends and pay more attention to what the final outcome is instead
04:35of what everybody's doing.
04:40So here's our pork butts.
04:43We don't really do anything special with our pork butts.
04:45We just spray them with the apple cider vinegar and just wrap them.
04:49The full cooks them faster because it's just, man, it's just a big ball of meat.
04:55Bark snot is important for us on the pork because the paper is permeable.
05:00It lets some of that steam escape, so it still, what we call the Texas crutch, it still steams
05:05the brisket on the butcher paper, but allows some of that steam to escape to create a good
05:10bark, and it's still a crunchy bark.
05:12On the pork butt, we've already got that set in.
05:14It's not as important to us.
05:16We're pulling it apart.
05:17We're not doing the perfect slices.
05:18As far as volume, we probably do 12 to 1 brisket to pork butt, you know?
05:24Yeah, it's just where we're at.
05:26They want the brisket.
05:27They want it.
05:28These foil wrap briskets for our other shop.
05:32So these get a little bit different rub, not the fancy stuff.
05:35We're not giving it the margarine treatment, the old competition style trick and that twang.
05:39It's more of an old school taste and old school flavor, just basic salt and pepper and a little
05:43smoke on it.
05:44We recently just purchased a second barbecue location.
05:47We weren't looking to open up a second Panther City, but it kind of fell into our laps where
05:51this barbecue restaurant that has been around in Fort Worth since 1931 came up for sale.
05:56We really wanted to preserve the building and the barbecue and the history of that Fort
06:00Worth, so we came up with a plan to keep the old school barbecue flavors of feel, and not
06:05only that, but also help keep the price down the way it's been for years and years.
06:09Want some of that chopped beef?
06:10I got it.
06:11Now, you're not going to get 1931 prices, but we will keep it cheaper than what you
06:15see on the Kraft barbecue menu.
06:17A lot of the things that separate new school and old school are, for one, the cuts of meat.
06:20Right now, everybody's using a prime meat.
06:23It's expensive and it's driven the price up in the old school, using cheaper cuts of meat.
06:28The processes, the sauces, the seasonings, keeping it simple to getting complex.
06:32Here at Panther City Barbecue, we use a prime brisket.
06:36For downtown, we use a choice brisket.
06:38Different fat content, so we want to break that down a little bit differently, so we
06:41use the foil just to tenderize it up a little bit more.
06:44There is a different audience for old school barbecue.
06:46Some people really don't like Kraft barbecue because they want the older school flavors,
06:50so we're trying to be mindful of that since we have two locations within close proximity.
06:54All right, so we'll check this last rack on here for the other location.
06:58This one was a little bit stubborn, so it stayed back, but it looks like we got some
07:02good pull on that sucker.
07:03We're going to take this over to the other location and get them put in the warmer and
07:06get them ready for service.
07:07All right, here's your last rack for the day.
07:13All right, man.
07:14This business, what was known as Bailey's Barbecue, has been in Fort Worth since 1931,
07:19so you'll be able to see the building.
07:20It's like stepping into a time capsule.
07:21It's still old school.
07:23We want to keep that feel.
07:24We did rebrand the name as Fort Worth Barbecue Company.
07:27We wanted it simple, but we wanted it about Fort Worth, not about us.
07:31Right now, everything, as you see it, is as it is as we bought the building out.
07:34We're stepping back into the 30s when we walk back in here.
07:37You actually have the smoke from years and years and years accumulated on the walls.
07:42There's actually a pretty interesting story back here.
07:45I asked the previous owners, what's going on with this door right here?
07:49The way it was explained to me that this door actually had a sign above it that said Negro
07:53Serving Door.
07:55It was an alleyway.
07:56So as late as mid-1960s, any African American had to come to this door and was not allowed
08:02in the building.
08:03So we're actually talking to a group right now to donate it to a museum that's going
08:07to go here in town about African American history.
08:10In our eyes, kind of symbolic, saying the door's out, everybody's welcome to the front
08:14door, but it is a piece of history that actually happened, so we want to be able to share that
08:17with people.
08:18We need another chop.
08:19Chop.
08:20Chop B.
08:22It's extremely important for us to remember where we're at, remember where our roots are
08:27and what was here before us.
08:29Old school barbecue gets a knock.
08:31People say it's not so good anymore, it's no good, the flavors, the quality.
08:34You have to know what you're going for.
08:36We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for those guys, the old school styles of cooking.
08:40They were taking cheap cuts of meat and making it edible, and that's where it started, preserving
08:44meat by smoking it.
08:45There was a reason for it, it came out of necessity, and we need to remember that.
08:50So it's really important for us to kind of preserve that history, and so we want to pay
08:53homage to that through our food and our processes.
08:59The brisket elote is a dish that we do that kind of happened by accident.
09:03Back in the food truck days, we had a customer, one of the bar patrons walked up and asked
09:07if we had lotis.
09:08We're like, what are lotis?
09:10He said, you know lotis, corn in a cup.
09:13We're like, elotes.
09:15So we actually doctored up a cup of creamed corn to mimic a cup of elote, and the guy
09:20liked it, and Ernie just one day said, let's put some brisket on it.
09:23It's not a traditional elote or esquite, but it's just a morph of our creamed corn base
09:28with chopped brisket on it, queso fresco, cilantro, lime, hot sauce, and a jalapeno
09:34on top.
09:35But it's become one of our most popular dishes.
09:41This is Angel Rodriguez, Angel is Ernie's younger son.
09:44We've got a ton of brisket scrap.
09:47So what Angel's doing is grinding that scrap down here, getting ready for sausage making.
09:51So we make all of our sausages in-house.
09:54Angel will grind this stuff down, mix it with some fat content, season it up, and then he'll
09:59get it ready to stuff our two in-house blends, which are a jalapeno cheese and a beef garlic
10:05sausage.
10:08I add water just to make it slurry.
10:10Since it's all powdered, really you want to mix it as well just to make sure I mix it
10:13like thoroughly and evenly.
10:14It kind of works across the board for our customers.
10:17Our one jalapeno cheese blend, it's a really, really spicy sausage.
10:21So we use a high-temp cheddar and a high-temp pepper jack, so two different cheeses.
10:25And then we use dehydrated jalapeno.
10:27Fresh jalapeno for us sometimes releases the oil and then your heat goes all over the place.
10:32Sometimes hot, sometimes not.
10:39Yeah, so Angel's linked up these jalapeno cheese links.
10:42He's going to go ahead and get them in cold storage in the walk-in, and then we'll hold
10:45these for a while, let them dry out.
10:48We'll end up cold smoking them, give them a good ice bath, and then they'll be ready
10:52for service at that point.
10:56Yeah, all I do to know when the pork butts are ready is that they go in like butter.
11:01Man, like no resistance at all.
11:05They just go straight through.
11:06It's about 8 a.m. on Wednesday, which is our first day of service for the week.
11:11So getting the week started, Eric just pulled off a batch of ribs.
11:15I just pulled the ribs off, and I have a little bit of honey mixed in this barbecue sauce.
11:20And we're just going to re-glaze the ribs, make it saucy again.
11:24The little honey and glaze is something that I throw back to our competition style.
11:28It's just a really sweet bite, a really pop on it.
11:30So we like to put that into the ribs here.
11:33A little bit different than a traditional pork, whereas our downtown location, it's
11:37more of a just salt and pepper and no sauce.
11:39We like that more of an old school, just a kiss of smoke.
11:41Once they rest, they'll pack up so they're not just dripping with sauce.
11:45And it's just a really sweet, sweet bite.
11:51It's Wednesday, just after 11 o'clock.
11:53We've got service pumping, a full line out the door right now.
11:57Got Christian, who happens to be my son, on the cut block.
11:59But you've got the whole team here serving it up.
12:01So Eric's here on some sides.
12:04We've got the griddle going, tacos and burgers.
12:07Everyday barbecue, that's what we've got going on right here.
12:09On any given day, we may go through 60, 70 burgers in the lunch service.
12:13We keep it a simple burger.
12:14It's two smash patties, special sauce on there, pickle and onion, cheese.
12:18Very, very simple.
12:20It's just an enjoyable burger.
12:21I think the mission statement is just to bring people together.
12:24That's why we do it.
12:25And, you know, you hear it a lot, but it really is seeing people happy when they eat.
12:30Trying to blow somebody's mind with the flavors you put out there.
12:32When we look around and see people sitting at the table
12:35and seeing them nod and shake their head and a smile on their face.
12:38But bringing groups of people together, that's really what it's about.