Cattleack Barbeque
The Wagyu brisket comes off post oak, but Daniel Vaughn says the plates that shine here are the direct-heat ones, a chicken quarter with crisp skin and a pork steak dripping with mop sauce.
Why go
Todd and Misty David opened this in 2013 and covered an outside wall with murals of Aaron Franklin, Wayne Mueller and Tootsie Tomanetz.2 They sold the business in 2023 to Andrew Castelan, a former accountant who had prepped food and cleaned the kitchen here for six months before anyone let him near a pit.3 Castelan got into barbecue after a thirty-minute conversation with Aaron Franklin in Austin, which sent him home to buy a five-hundred-gallon propane tank and build an offset smoker in his garage.3 David stayed on the meat-cutting station and still works it.3 The room holds a Bib Gourmand from the MICHELIN Guide's first Texas selection, one of two barbecue rooms in this metro to take one.5 Everything runs on post oak through offset and rotisserie smokers, plus a direct-heat section.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the chicken quarter or the pork steak. Vaughn:
it's the direct-heat proteins that really shine. You'll be reaching for a paper towel after a bite of juicy chicken quarter with crisp skin or pork steak dripping with tangy mop sauce.
1 - Order: the Texas Wagyu brisket, which Vaughn reported in 2025 is
as good as ever.
1 - Order: the Wagyu bologna and the brisket-pastrami special, the two things Vaughn credits with making the room
a creative force.
1 - Avoid: coming late. The specials go first and the barbecue sells out.3
What locals & experts say
- Texas Monthly, Daniel Vaughn, 2025:
The smoked Texas Wagyu briskets are as good as ever, and the sausages, such as one with Hatch chile and cheese, have improved.
1 - Texas Monthly, 2021, number 6 in the state: the Wagyu pastrami ribs are
so big that the bright red meat seems to wave from the bone like a flag.
2 - Todd David, founder, on selling to his own employee:
I didn't sell it to go do something else: I sold it to protect the future and the growth.
3 - D Magazine, number 3 in North Texas (Brian Reinhart): Reinhart also names this and Smokey Joe's as the two he sends visitors to.47
Good to know
- It trades a short week, weekdays plus the first Saturday of the month, and the barbecue usually runs out early in the afternoon.3
- Wednesday is the quiet day, which is Texas Monthly's own tip for avoiding the crowd.1
- The pulled pork came off a North Carolina whole hog cooker the Davids bought, served with cracklins on top, as Texas Monthly described it in 2021.2
- Three pitmasters work here, Andrew Castelan, Todd David and Jacob Karns.1
- The ranking has moved. Number 6 in Texas Monthly's 2021 edition, and on the 2025 list in the unranked block.21
Verdict
should-visit — Post oak in offset and rotisserie smokers is the ordinary part. The reason to come is what Vaughn says shines, which is the direct-heat cooking: a chicken quarter with crisp skin and a pork steak under a tangy mop, both cooked over live fire rather than held in smoke. That is transformation done two ways in one room, and it sits beside a Wagyu brisket and a bologna nobody else is making. Order the chicken quarter and the pork steak before the brisket, and come early enough that the specials are still on.