San Juan – When it comes to finding food down in the Rio Grande Valley, there’s so much great seafood and South Texas cuisine that BBQ might not be on your radar. But when you get your first whiff of the wood smoking meats at GW’s BBQ, you won’t want to miss out. George Watts runs this place with his family in tow and that includes his Dad George Jr., One in a long line of guys with the initials GW. “My dad, Junior, my grandpa, Senior, and now my son’s the fourth,” said George.
Now George wasn’t always big into gourmet food. In fact, his first love was football. “I always wanted to play football,” said George. “I was big on sports, baseball, football. My family’s really big in sports. And then once we, my junior year of high school, I tore my ACL and I was a lineman. I was a bit on the heavy side and I decided I wanted to lose weight. So I started cooking for myself and I started eating healthy, but I started liking the cooking part of it.”
Cooking turned into his passion but to support his family, George spent three years serving and protecting before firing up the pits at GW’s. And he started this with zero restaurant experience. “I knew this was what I wanted,” said George. “I always wanted to cook. So it’s been fun.”
While people line up now, it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing showcasing Central Texas style BBQ to a population that wasn’t too used to seeing it. “People are coming in and they were like, ‘Let me get a pound of fajitas,’” said George. “And I was like, ‘We don’t got fajitas’. “What do you mean you don’t got fajitas?’ And then like, ‘Well, let me get some rice and beans.’ ‘We don’t have rice. So we got beans, but they’re baked beans.’ ‘What?’ So yeah, it took a while for people to figure it out.”
Figure it out they have, and it’s not just your typical smoked meats. There’s duck, pork loin, and lengua. There’s also a showcase of unique sides and these didn’t come out of a can. These handmade sides take a whole crew to create. “Right now on staff we have five, including me,” said George. “For where we want to be, that’s what we need to do.”
After watching George prepare a few things on the pit, it’s time to sample a tray that could feed a family of 8. “Yeah. We’re going to put all the meats for you guys right here,” said George. “A little bit of lingua, a little bit of brisket, ribs. Show you our sausages. So we’ll start with the king, which is brisket. These cook on average of 12, 14 hours.”
Next, George moves on to some more fan favorites. “Well these will be the burnt ends right here,” said George. “It’s what everybody likes. Super soft. That should be butter.” This is our lasagna Bolognese sausage. Every element of a lasagna is in this sausage; mozzarella, Parmesan, red wine, everything. It’s all in here.”
Up next is some lengua served up in a special way. “Normally they take off all that outer membrane and you just get the meat on the inside,” said George. “We want it to have a bark and seasoning on it. So we take all that off beforehand. We smoke it, we get a bark on there, and then it gets confited, which means cooked in its own fat, like braised in fat. And then we do that until it’s sliceable. We want to slice it. We don’t want it shredding apart. It’s super juicy. But this is very soft still.”
Pork lion, Cajun turkey, and pork ribs are piled on before we get to another unique offering. “Something new this month that’s on the menu is our char siu duck,” said George. “So these are duck leg quarters. They’ve been marinated in a char siu sauce that we make here ourselves, and right before we come off, we dunk them in that char siu glaze so it could tack on there. It has Chinese five spice, different hoisin sauce. Very, very different. But it’s good.”
Throw in a dino rib and that closes out the massive meat tray, but we’re not done yet. “You still need a tray of some of our scratch-made sides,” said George. “Yeah, you have to. You can’t come to GW’s and not get sides.”
8 sides later and you’ve got your meal, and it’s sure to be one of the most beautiful you’ve ever seen. Dubbed “The Texas Bucket List Special,” there’s plenty here to try, but that lengua just calls your name. It’s tender, flavorful and fine, and it puts trust in the rest of the creations on the plate.
Up next is the duck, and it’s absolutely amazing. Smokey like Texas BBQ with an Asian kick, it’s simply delicious. The next unique offering is the lasagna sausage, which combines two of everyone’s favorite food groups into one spectacular sausage.
Moving onto the sides, the mac & cheese is impressively tasty. Their golden beet slaw is also super flavorful and coated in a vinaigrette. Both of these dishes work great with all the incredible meats that share the plate.
Well, if you’re looking for one the best barbecue joints in Texas, coming to San Juan and trying GW’s barbecue is definitely well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List. “So we want people to come in and to be able to sit down with the tray and eat it and be like, ‘Wow, this is good barbecue,’” said George.