Terrance Smith was good enough with a grill to make some spending money while attending Texas A&M-Commerce. He sold chicken and links from the parking lot of his dorm, and when he went back home to visit his parents he’d normally grill them some steaks. One day he decided to level up and try to smoke a brisket. “I got too big for my britches. The brisket was so tough, I couldn’t cut it,” Smith recalled with a laugh. Even worse, his mother, Odell, called him out. “You’ll be a real barbecue man when you learn how to cook brisket,” she told him, and he took on the challenge.
Smith didn’t smoke a brisket he was happy with until after getting his degree in psychology. He fell asleep in his Dallas apartment, leaving a brisket unattended in the smoker outside. He woke up in a panic. “I ran outside and lifted up the grill,” he said. “My brisket was black.” Smith thought he had burnt it. “I went to go grab it, and it just fell apart,” he remembered. He finally had a tender brisket, and that “burnt” stuff was just a good bark.
Accolades from his friends and family persuaded Smith to quit his job in the mortgage industry to pursue barbecue. He admits that it was too soon to have given up his day job, but he learned quickly as an entrepreneur that “if you don’t work, you don’t get paid for those days,” he said. By 2019 the Dallas Farmers Market invited him to set up a tent to sell his brisket-loaded nachos and baked potatoes. The following year, he upgraded to a trailer and booked events and catering gigs. “It got kinda crowded after a while,” Smith said of the mobile rig, so he searched for a permanent place. In March of this year he opened the doors of Smith Spot BBQ in Garland.
I stopped in last Sunday, the only day Smith Spot BBQ currently operates. (Smith said he will soon add more days and hours.) I was the fourth person in line when the doors opened at 11:05 a.m. Smith’s mother worked the register while his sister, Kieva McGlothon, and cousin, Tonya Jimmerson, prepared trays and brought them out to customers. Smith said his father, Terry, was in the back, ready to run out for supplies when needed.
Smith did all the cutting at the counter, but most of his attention went to working the griddle where he builds his signature sandwich. The Lady Mel, Smith Spot’s best-seller, is no ordinary brisket grilled cheese. He melts shredded cheddar directly on the griddle and places thick slices of Texas toast on top. When the cheese is melted, Smith flips the bread to toast the other side and layers chopped brisket, a sprinkle of his secret Magic Dust seasoning, green onions, and a squirt of barbecue sauce onto the cheese that holds it all together. The flavor is a mix of savory, smoky, and a unique sweetness from the pineapple juice in the house-made barbecue sauce. It’s hefty and rich, so thankfully the bread isn’t soaked with additional fat. “I don’t want margarine or butter flavor to overtake the bread,” Smith said.
Slices of fatty brisket with rub sprinkled in them just before serving were perfectly tender on a platter. They had that dark bark that a younger Smith would have called burnt. Outside of Memphis dry-rubbed ribs, I’m normally turned off by the use of a rub as a garnish, but Smith’s Magic Dust didn’t have a gritty texture or the sharp flavors that could have ruined the brisket. Glazed pork ribs are the norm these days in Texas, but not the way Smith does it. There were chunks of maraschino cherries along with plenty of the cherry juice in the glaze. They were quite sweet, but also well smoked and plenty tender.
No one who has tried the sides at Smith Spot could accuse Smith of underseasoning his food. The sweet beans are fortified with smoked meat and garnished with fresh cilantro; the potato salad gets a visual pop from yellow and diced red peppers. I couldn’t nail down exactly what was making the mac and cheese both sweet and unusually creamy until Smith divulged that he adds sweetened condensed milk, an ingredient usually reserved for desserts. Although I’ve used evaporated milk in my own mac and cheese, I’ve never heard of using its canned cousin. Thankfully, there was enough cheese in the mix and baked on top to balance it out.
Choosing one of the two desserts means selecting one relative’s contribution over another, so I went with both. McGlothon’s 7Up cake was a sweet and buttery classic. Jimmerson usually makes banana pudding but opted for strawberry crunch pudding the day I visited. I loved every scoop.
I told Smith as I was leaving why I thought his barbecue is memorable. I eat lots of great barbecue, but after a while much of it tastes similar. New pitmasters learn from ones with previous success and emulate their methods and seasonings. Smith didn’t have that type of mentor, so his own voice comes through. Sometimes it results in a home run like the brisket grilled cheese, and other times the reach makes an otherwise great mac and cheese a little too sweet.
When I talked to Smith later he said he didn’t start off with a foundation of barbecue knowledge. Instead, he chose to learn on the job. When he was serving at one of his first events, a wood vendor approached him and asked if he used seasoned wood. Smith didn’t know what that meant but didn’t want to sound uninformed, so he said, “Of course it’s seasoned.” He then stocked up on Lawry’s to throw into his fire. He now understands that seasoned just means properly dried wood, but he can’t quit the habit.
Like Cinnabon pumping the aroma of cinnamon and sugar into food courts and airport concourses, Smith still slings seasoned salt into his firebox every few hours. “When I throw some of that Lawry’s seasoned salt in there, the smell that comes out of there is so delightful it’s just going to get your attention,” he said. So follow the smell of Lawry’s smoke in downtown Garland, but it’s the barbecue you’ll find inside Smith Spot BBQ that will hold your attention.
Smith Spot BBQ
823 Main, Garland
Phone: 214-422-7266
Hours: Sunday 11–5
Pitmaster: Terrance Smith
Method: Hickory in an offset smoker
Year opened: 2024
