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Fifty Years of Angelo’s Great Texas Bar-B-Que “No better BBQ can be found in Texas!” is an opinion held by many experts in the barbeque-eating field. For Angelo’s the number of “Best Barbeque” awards is now past counting. Diners began expressing that opinion when Angelo’s opened March 17, 1958 and continued over the next fifty years. Angelo George, after leaving his job as butcher for a local meat company, opened Angelo’s Great Texas Bar-B-Que on St. Patrick’s Day. Fifty years later, ribs and brisket are still prepared and cooked the way he did them. George created a dry rub of herbs and spices called Angelo’s Seasoning Rub that is available in several Fort Worth area grocery stores. The founding restaurateur’s son Skeet George grew up in the business and still over sees the day-to-day process making sure things are still being done according to Angelo George’s original processes for seasoning and smoking the meats they serve. Roasting temperature in the pits is accomplished with hickory wood. Angelo’s grandson Jason George is pit master. He and his experienced crew hand rotate the ribs and briskets as they cook making sure the meat is not overcooked. The pork ribs take three to four hours and briskets 8 to 12 hours to cook. Meats are put on the pit at 6 a.m. everyday except Sunday. Angelo’s barbeque experts smoke around 2,000 pounds of pork ribs and 2,500 pounds of beef in a normal week along with 180 to 200 chickens. They also make forty-five gallons of BBQ sauce every day. After Angelo George died in 1997, his son Skeet George carried on the traditions of his father’s creation. Skeet George’s son Jason came into the business in his early years and soon took over as pit master. He attended Tarrant County Junior College to be near his work. In 2005 when Fort Worth officials went to New York to promote the Texas city’s attractions, Jason George and his crew representing Angelo’s were invited to go along. In mid-2004, Bobby Fray’s FoodNation, on a national tour of the USA’s best barbeque places came to Angelo’s, which he labeled “real cowboy cuisine.” In April 1997, the New York Times did a story titled “What’s Doing in Fort Worth.” Angelo’s was one of two restaurants listed in the piece under “Where to Eat.” Perhaps that’s why New York is the most popular destination for Angelo’s overnighted barbeque orders. Before the 1997 New York Times article, however, a native Fort Worthian, Rosalin Rogers, who lived in the New York area during the 1980s and early 1990s was already calling Angelo’s for barbeque. She says, “I used to order brisket and ribs to be overnighted to New York. When my friends heard I was ‘shipping in BBQ from Texas,’ they all wanted to [come to] dinner.” She ends with the opening sentence of this article. The longest distance Angelo’s barbeque has covered was when some Carswell Airforce Base pilots decided the French should be introduced to the Texas delicacy and flew a thousand pounds of barbecue to a Paris air show. Regular customers and a long list of celebrities make up Angelo’s clientele. Among the famous are football players, actors, singers, politicians, news people, golfers and city leaders who make the trip to Angelo’s for brisket, ribs, chicken, turkey, Polish sausage or hot links with sides of beans, potato salad, and cole slaw accompanied by the coldest beer in Fort Worth. And they keep on coming. Angelo’s Bar-B-Que Current
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