HOUSTON – The Barbecue Inn’s closing date is almost upon Houston, but the feeling of it still lands the same when you pull up to 116 W. Crosstimbers Street: another Houston institution preparing to turn out the lights.
After 80 years in business, the restaurant’s final day of operations is Saturday, Aug. 1, co-owner David Skrehot confirmed. The reasons, he said, are practical and personal — rising costs, yes, but mostly a family decision for his father.
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“There’s a lot of factors. Some of it’s food costs, you know, energy costs,” Skrehot said. “But mainly … he’s ready to retire and it’s just time.”
Still, the Barbecue Inn was never just a place you grabbed lunch. The business has spanned the Houston food scene since 1946, and over those decades, it became a kind of neighborhood landmark that helped define what “going out to eat” looked like for thousands of families — a warm, retro dining room where regulars didn’t need a menu, and first-timers were treated like they’d been coming for years.
The restaurant calls itself “a legendary retro BBQ spot” with “retro interior, red booths, and time-honored recipes,” a description that sounds like branding until you realize it’s simply accurate. Those booths and those plates turned into memory markers for generations of Houstonians.
A family story that stretches back to 1946
Skrehot traces the restaurant’s roots to his grandfather — a man who loved to cook and learned in the family kitchen before turning it into a business.
“My grandfather liked to cook … he learned from my great-grandmother, and he opened this restaurant in a smaller building back in 1946,” Skrehot said.
After his grandfather died, Skrehot said the restaurant stayed in the family.
“Eventually my uncle and my dad took it over. They ran it together for over 50 years,” he said. “And 15 years ago, my uncle Lewis was ready to step down, and my dad and I had the opportunity to work together, and so it’s been a good 15 years.”
That kind of continuity matters in a city that reinvents itself quickly. Houston is famous for growth — new subdivisions, new restaurant districts, new skylines — but it’s also a place where people quietly hold onto what feels constant. For many longtime residents, Barbecue Inn has been one of those constants.
“At every table, a story” — and some of them get passed down
Ask Skrehot what the restaurant meant to customers, and he doesn’t talk about receipts or reviews. He talks about stories.
“I’ve had young couples walk in and want to sit in the same booth that their grandparents got engaged in,” he said. “Countless numbers of stories like that over the years.”
That’s the kind of legacy you can’t build on social media alone — it takes time, repetition, and a room that makes people want to return.
Customer Scott Kubeczka said his connection to Barbecue Inn started before he could drive.
“This was our Friday outing whenever we went out to eat. My dad and mom would bring us here,” Kubeczka said. “In fact, there’s a booth that my parents sat at. My mom sat at it right before she passed away.”
He said those details — where you sat, who you sat with, what you ordered — become the emotional geography of a family.
“So it brings back a lot of memories,” Kubeczka said.
Comfort food — and the patience that comes with it
The name on the sign says barbecue, but regulars will tell you the same thing Kubeczka did: the staples are the comfort classics.
“You don’t really come here for the barbecue. You come for the fried shrimp, the crab, the chicken fried steak,” he said, adding that his daughters go for the “chicken fried chicken.”
Skrehot echoed that reputation, saying guests often come in with a specific favorite.
“People come here, you know, they want the best shrimp, or the best chicken fried steak, or the best fried chicken,” he said. “And they’re going to get that first.”
There’s also something increasingly rare about the pace of it.
Regular Nelda Billescas said the Barbecue Inn isn’t built for a quick bite — it’s built for a meal.
“The meals they cook fresh, this isn’t something that they have prepped, and they just throw on. You sit down and you wait,” she said. “And while you’re waiting, the servers, their personalities, it’s incredible.”
That wait has long been part of the identity, not a flaw. Skrehot remembers when it was almost a weekly ritual for the neighborhood.
“Years and years ago, every Friday night, we had a line around the building … every Friday night,” he said.
And on the way out, customers didn’t just leave with leftovers — they left with the sense they’d participated in something.
The people behind the plates
Skrehot credits his staff for being the connective tissue between the food and the feeling.
“They provide excellent service. They care about their customers,” he said. “They want to make sure that the customer is number one and gets the best service they can provide.”
Billescas described that relationship in personal terms.
“Not seeing this corner, not sitting down in these booths, not visiting with the servers, and, of course, Mr. Skrehot and David, is gonna be tough,” she said. “They’re really good people. They’re an icon, they’re an institution here in Houston.”
She also pointed to something longtime patrons often mention: the family’s presence in the community beyond the dining room.
“The dedication they’ve had to this community, not just what they’ve done here to feed us and love on us, but what they do, philanthropically for the community, they’re constantly giving back,” Billescas said.
A Houston restaurant, in a Houston food city
Skrehot said the Barbecue Inn’s story is also a Houston story — one that fits inside a city where food is part of the identity.
“This is the greatest city in the country. Lived here all my life, traveled, you know, traveled around the country. We’ve got some great food. You can get any kind of food you want in this city,” he said.
For decades, the Barbecue Inn has been one of the places where Houstonians didn’t just eat — they gathered. A place where families got their “Friday outing,” where couples asked big questions in familiar booths, where people drove across the region because a fried shrimp plate tasted like their childhood.
The Barbecue Inn is ending service on Aug. 1, but the stories inside those red booths — the ones Skrehot calls “countless” — will keep living in Houston kitchens, family albums and Friday-night conversations for years to come.