Texas barbecue is getting more expensive, and the latest round of price hikes is landing with no apology attached. Houston-based Roegels Barbecue Co. is paying $5.56 a pound for brisket and has already raised its menu price 6% to $35 a pound. Burnt Bean Co. in Seguin has lifted brisket to $38 a pound and may soon limit sales to one day a week.
The pressure is coming from the supply side first. A historic cattle shortage has pushed wholesale beef to record levels, and the U.S. cattle herd has fallen to a 75-year low. Wholesale brisket in Texas is up roughly 28% year-over-year, a jump that has left restaurants trying to decide how much of the pain they can absorb before customers walk away.
The numbers at the counter are already telling the story. Steak prices spiked 17% to $13.02 per pound in one year, while ground beef hit a record $6.90 per pound in April, up 19% from the prior year. At the same time, 801 Chophouse's Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April hit eight restaurants from Virginia to Colorado, a reminder that higher beef costs are not just a Texas problem, even if they feel most visible there.
For Texas barbecue operators, the squeeze has been building for years. Daniel Vaughn, who has long tracked the state’s smokehouses, has described brisket pricing as artificially low for a long time, and he says today’s prices are getting to the point where they are “now not a crazy number to see on a menu.” That shift matters because barbecue joints were already fighting rising labor costs, packaging inflation and higher prices for side dishes before beef began setting records.
The broader restaurant industry is feeling the same change in customer behavior. Michael Bailen said consumers have been shifting to cheaper value menu items including pork, chicken and lower-cost beef cuts, a pattern that helps explain why chains can still post growth even as premium beef gets pricier. Bloomin' Brands beat earnings estimates on May 6, and Texas Roadhouse reported 12.8% revenue growth past $1.6 billion, with same-store sales up 7.1% and traffic rising 4.5%.
That resilience has not protected barbecue shops from closures. This year’s Texas list already includes Brett's BBQ Shop, Kirby's BBQ, Sabar BBQ, Wright on Taco & BBQ and Sweetie Pie's Ribeyes, a five-spot warning that the business model is getting harder to defend as brisket prices move up and customer tolerance moves down.
The politics around beef have not helped stabilize things. In February, Trump signed the 'Ensuring Affordable Beef for the American Consumer' proclamation, temporarily quadrupling tariff-free Argentine beef. Earlier this month, the White House paused two executive orders Trump was expected to sign aimed at bringing down record beef prices and rebuilding the U.S. cattle herd, including one that would temporarily suspend the tariff-rate quota across all beef-exporting nations and another that would expand rancher loans and roll back endangered wolf protections and cattle ear tag rules.
The tension is that beef is getting more expensive at the same time demand is not going away. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s revised federal dietary guidelines center red meat, and protein-heavy diets are adding to consumption just as drought, labor shortages, dwindling ranch land and high operating costs keep the herd at a 75-year low. That mismatch is why brisket that once seemed untouchable on a barbecue board is becoming a price customers now have to think about before ordering. The next question is not whether Texas barbecue will keep raising prices; it is how many places can do it before brisket stops being the easy sell it used to be.
