Award Winning Texas Brisket in the Smoky Mountains
September 27, 2026 – Haywood Smokehouse
The award winning barbecue in the Smoky Mountains starts with a Texas brisket, and that is on purpose. Joe Beasley could have opened a Carolina pork house in Waynesville and nobody would have blinked. He built the place around brisket instead, because he believes Texas brisket is the best barbecue there is, and because doing it right in the mountains of western North Carolina is harder than doing it easy.
Thirteen years later, Yelp ranked our brisket number one in the United States and Canada. Here is how it gets made.
What makes Texas brisket different from other barbecue?
Texas brisket is beef, seasoned with a dry rub, slow-smoked over wood, and served without sauce. That is the whole philosophy. No mop, no glaze, no sauce to hide behind. What you taste is beef, smoke, salt, pepper, and time.
Most American barbecue traditions grew up around pork, and ours does too. We serve Carolina chopped pork and St. Louis cut ribs alongside the brisket, because we picked the best from everywhere instead of picking a side. But brisket is the cut that tells you whether a smokehouse knows what it is doing. It is unforgiving. Rush it and it is tough. Push it too far and it falls apart into something that is not brisket anymore.
How long does a brisket take to smoke?
As long as it needs, and that is the honest answer. Nobody is in the dining room for most of it. The fire gets lit long before the doors open, and it stays lit through the night.
But the hours are not the point, and this is where a lot of barbecue goes wrong. We do not cook by the clock. We cook by temperature. Every single brisket is probed by hand, and it comes off when it is ready, not when a timer says so. Two briskets that went on at the same time can come off an hour apart, because they are different pieces of beef. A schedule cannot tell you that. A probe can.
Joe says it plainly: temperature, not time. It is the rule everything here runs on.
What kind of wood do you use?
Real hickory. The fire is gas-ignited and wood-fed, which lets us hold a steady burn through an overnight cook without babysitting a stick fire all night. The smoke comes from the wood. The consistency comes from the system. You get both.
Hickory is a heavier smoke than the post oak you would find in central Texas, and it suits the mountains. It is what grows here, and it is what our people have cooked over for generations.
Why no sauce on the brisket?
Because a good brisket does not need it. Sauce complements barbecue. It should never cover for dry meat.
We have eight sauces on the table, and they trace the east-to-west evolution of American barbecue, from the vinegar of eastern North Carolina through to the thicker, sweeter styles out west. Use them on whatever you like. Put them on the pork. But taste the brisket first, the way it came off the pit, and then decide.
Where did a Texas brisket house in North Carolina come from?
The Beasley family opened the first smokehouse in Georgia in 2010. Waynesville followed in 2013, Dillsboro in 2015, and Franklin came later, run independently by the Hunt family. Joe's sons RJ, Wyatt, and Will work the pits today.
It is a family operation, and it has stayed one. Quality barbecue at a reasonable price, made the old-fashioned way, which is another way of saying the hard way. There is no shortcut version of a brisket done right.
Has the brisket won anything?
In 2023, Yelp ranked Haywood Smokehouse brisket number one in the United States and Canada.
In 2024, we landed in the top 10 of Yelp's Top 100 BBQ Spots and were the top-ranked barbecue restaurant in North Carolina, with Waynesville named on the list. That same year, Dillsboro placed 11th on Yelp's Top 100 U.S. Restaurants, across every kind of restaurant in the country.
We did not enter anything. Those rankings came from people who ate here and said so.
Come get some, and join the club while you are at it
Brisket is served daily at all three locations. You can see the full menu and order ahead for pickup on your location's page:
While you are here, join the Get Smoked VIP Club. Members get 10 percent off for themselves and a guest on their next visit, weekly deals by text, and our weekly newsletter. Join the Birthday Club at the same time and we will mail you a real card the week of your birthday, good for a free dessert with your meal.
One more thing, and it is a big one
On November 1, we start shipping nationwide.
We will ship to all 50 states plus Canada and the United Kingdom. The same barbecue, off the same pits, slow-smoked the same way, headed to your door.
We have had folks driving in from other states for years. Now they will not have to. Here is what is coming.
VIP members hear first. That is reason enough to sign up today.