This Unassuming Texas BBQ Joint Off the Backroads Serves Some of the Best Brisket in the State

I have a theory about Texas brisket: the best of it almost never sits on a busy street. It hides at the end of a two-lane highway, in a small town you would blow right past if your stomach were not paying attention.

Chasing smoke down farm roads has taught me one thing. The harder a barbecue joint is to find, the more likely it is worth the drive, and that hunch keeps pointing me toward the backroads. It keeps being right.

Which brings me to Victorian’s Barbecue, a small brick joint on the main street of Mart, about fifteen minutes east of Waco. Pitmaster Joey Victorian slices a brisket with such a deep, burnished bark that people plan whole road trips around it.

Below, let me walk you through the brisket, the sides you did not see coming, the pit named El Jefe, and the winding road that took a Houston competitor all the way to a Netflix screen and a tiny Central Texas town.

The Brisket That Earns the Detour

Start with the brisket, because that is what everyone drives out here for. Joey smokes it low and slow over post oak, the classic Central Texas way, and the results speak for themselves.

Picture a thick slice laid on butcher paper. The bark is dark and peppery, the fat has rendered soft, and there is a pink smoke ring underneath that tells you the meat was treated with real respect.

One reviewer called it “moist and delicious with a nice bark,” and that plain praise gets to the heart of it. Great brisket does not need adjectives piled on. It needs time, fire, and a pitmaster who refuses to rush.

There is a quiet honesty to how it is served, too. No sauce drowning the meat, no gimmicks. Just clean slices of beef that spent all night getting acquainted with oak smoke, cut to order in front of you.

It sells whole or by the pound, and like every good barbecue joint, it goes until it is gone. When the brisket sells out, the day is done. That is your first clue that this is the real thing.

That daily sellout is not a marketing trick. It is what happens when one pitmaster smokes a limited amount of meat each morning and refuses to stretch it. Get there early, and you get the good stuff.

Beyond the Brisket: Ribs, Sausage, and a California Surprise

Brisket may be the headliner, but the rest of the tray keeps up. The spare ribs come in full racks, pull clean off the bone, and carry the same patient smoke as everything else here.

The sausage has a nice zing to it, offered as straight pork or a pork and beef blend. Order it as your wild-card link and let it round out the plate between the richer cuts. A good link is the sign of a pit that sweats the details.

Chicken shows up two ways, half smoked or cooked over live fire, and folks say it practically falls off the bone. It is proof that Joey treats the humble bird with the same care he gives the brisket.

Then there is the tri-tip, and this is where Joey shows his cards. He calls it “the California brisket,” and he has earned the nickname Texas Tri-Tip King for the way he cooks this West Coast cut. Look for it as a Saturday special.

Tri-tip is still a rarity on Texas barbecue trays, which makes finding it out here a small thrill. It is leaner than brisket, beefy and tender when handled right, and Joey handles it about as well as anyone in the state.

My advice is to order a little of everything the first time. A few slices of brisket, a rib or two, a link of sausage, and a wedge of tri-tip make a tray that shows off the full range of what this pit can do.

The Sides That Try to Steal the Show

Here is a friendly warning: the sides deserve your full attention. At a lot of barbecue joints the sides are an afterthought. At Victorian’s, they show up ready to fight the brisket for your attention.

The Cajun corn nods to Joey’s Louisiana roots, all warmth and a little kick. The purple mashed potatoes are exactly as fun as they sound, a splash of color on a tray that is mostly brown and beautiful.

The gouda mac and cheese is creamy and rich, the kind of side that kids inhale and adults quietly go back for. It is comfort food that knows what it is doing.

Save room, because the banana pudding is waiting at the end. Cool, sweet, and old-fashioned in the best way, it is the perfect soft landing after a tray of smoke and salt. Pro tip: order it before it sells out too.

Put it all together and you get a plate with real personality. The Louisiana kick of the corn, the playful purple potatoes, the rich gouda mac, and that homestyle pudding say this kitchen is having fun. You can taste it.

Meet El Jefe, the Pit Behind the Magic

None of this happens without the fire, and the fire lives in a smoker Joey named El Jefe, “the boss.” It is a custom rig built from a thousand-gallon tank, and it is the beating heart of the whole operation.

Joey cooks Central Texas style, which means offset smoking over oak and a whole lot of patience. There are no shortcuts back there, just wood, heat, and a pitmaster reading the smoke.

Offset smoking is the hard way to cook meat, and that is the point. The fire sits in a separate box and the heat drifts across the brisket for hours, so someone has to tend it constantly. The reward is that deep, clean smoke flavor.

He brings more than three decades of barbecue experience to that pit. Did you know he has been chasing this craft since he was a kid, cooking beside his mother in Louisiana? That head start shows up in every slice.

Those Louisiana kitchens taught him more than technique. They taught him that feeding people is a kind of love, which is why the Cajun corn and the warm welcome feel of a piece with the smoke. The food carries where he came from.

The recognition has followed. In 2026, Victorian’s landed at number ten on the Texas Barbecue Top 50, sharing a statewide list with joints far older and far easier to find. Not bad for a spot in a town most maps forget.

From a Houston Trailer to a Netflix Screen

Joey Victorian did not arrive here overnight. His barbecue story starts in 2005, when he launched a competition team called the Dirrty Swamp Cookers and began hauling smoke to festivals around Texas.

The venture grew into Dirrty’s BBQ Company, and in June 2017 he renamed it Victorian’s Barbecue and set up a food trailer in Houston’s Heights neighborhood. The trailer built the following, one plate at a time.

Then came the big break. Joey earned a spot on Season 2 of Netflix’s “Barbecue Showdown,” sending in videos of his tri-tip technique to land the audition. Suddenly a competition cook was on screens nationwide.

He competed on the show back in the spring of 2022, matching his backyard-honed skills against cooks from all over. The exposure introduced a wider audience to a name that Houston barbecue fans already knew well.

His philosophy stayed grounded through all of it. “Expect to fail, be okay with failing,” he has said, “and the great thing about failing is it shows you what not to do.” That humility is easy to taste in the food.

What he wanted all along was simple. “I love cooking and I love serving people and I love the smell of barbecue cooking,” he has said. In Mart, on a quiet main street, he finally got the room to do exactly that.

How a Waco Day Trip Landed Him in Mart

The move to Mart happened almost by accident. In 2021, Joey and his wife Kelli drove out to Waco to see the Magnolia silos, and the two-lane highway carried them straight through this quiet little town.

He had already been researching old buildings, and on the main street he spotted one he recognized. After some back and forth, he bought it in 2022 and opened Victorian’s Barbecue in May 2023.

Mart itself is worth knowing. Settled after the Civil War as Willow Springs, it took the name Mart when its post office opened in 1880, then boomed once the railroad rolled through just after 1900.

By 1910 the population had jumped to nearly 3,000, fed by cotton gins, an oil mill, and two newspapers. Today about 1,748 people call it home, and a Netflix pitmaster gave them a reason to be on the barbecue map again.

There is something fitting about it. A railroad once put Mart on the map, then time moved on. A century later, a slow-smoked brisket is pulling travelers back down the same quiet roads, and the town feels alive on a barbecue weekend.

What to Know Before You Go

A few practical notes will make your trip smooth. Victorian’s is open Thursday through Saturday, from 11 in the morning until the food sells out. Come early on a weekend if you have your heart set on brisket.

The dining room is rustic, western, and thoroughly Texas, with a front ramp for easy access. Joey himself often greets customers, even after a pre-dawn start at the pit, and that welcome is part of the charm.

It is a genuine value, too. A family of four can eat well here for around $60, drinks included, and still leave with leftovers. That is a lot of championship smoke for the money.

Bring the kids, bring your appetite, and bring a little patience. The line moves at small-town speed, and that is part of the pleasure. You are not grabbing fast food here. You are waiting for something a person made by hand.

How to Get There

Point your car toward Waco, then keep going east on US Highway 84 until the traffic thins and the fields open up. Mart sits about fifteen minutes past the city, and the joint is right on the main drag.

Where: Victorian’s Barbecue, 419 E Texas Ave, Mart, TX 76664

Start Planning Your Backroads Brisket Run

The best barbecue in Texas has a way of hiding in plain sight, down a highway you have no reason to take unless someone tells you what is waiting at the end. Now you know.

So clear a Saturday, gas up the car, and point it toward the backroads east of Waco. Get there before the brisket sells out, order the tri-tip while you are at it, and save just enough room for that banana pudding.

Featured image: @ Victorian’s Barbecue