Smoke & Bone BBQ Diversifies with Brisket and Candied Bacon Smash Burgers

Recently a big burger waltzed through the tap room at Division Brewing. I hustled outside to see what was happening as if I were 7 and thought I'd heard the ice cream truck. I found something better: Smoke & Bone BBQ owners Ross and Katherine Marquette had their heads down over a grill, smashing burgers and scooping out macaroni and cheese.

We first met the Marquettes while reporting on food truck regulations in Dallas. After losing their jobs in the restaurant industry when the pandemic hit, they started Smoke & Bone BBQ as a way to forge their own smoky entrepreneurial path. They were trying to figure out how to run a food truck with Dallas' then-heavy-handed restrictions.

Now they have a regular touring schedule that lands them at several North Texas breweries each week. Find them at Rahr Brewing in Fort Worth on Wednesdays, Oak Highland Brewery on Thursdays and Panther Island Brewing on Fridays. They rotate spots on Saturday and Sunday, which is how we found them at Division.It was a nice surprise that on that hot day to see they were making burgers. Diversifying your portfolio is always a safe bet.

"It’s too hot for us to expect that customers want heavy trays of smoked meats day-to-day," Michelle says. "Fun items like our fresh sausages and signature sandwiches — avocado smash burger — birria tacos, nachos and such help with loyalty."

Smoke and Bone also dabbles in brunch now; in May at Rollertown Beerworks it served an avocado toast topped with poached eggs, pickled onions, candied jalapeños and chipotle hollandaise.

We felt fortunate to catch them on a smash burger day. Michelle explained they're using new sausage-making equipment to grind an 80/20 brisket blend for the patties. The $16 burger is a double with cheddar, avocado and Not-A-Secret sauce (a spicy chipotle mayo with brown mustard) on a toasted brioche bun. It also had one other thing, but it shouldn't just be clumped together with all the other ingredients:

Candied bacon gets a line all its own.

The burger came with small piles of pickled onions, jalapeños and house-made pickles. There's also a choice of a side. We went with a light macaroni and cheese, "light" meaning it had some fluidity; it wasn't clumped together. Stabbing your fork into it didn't get you a thick-as-glue blob of elbow pasta, but it wasn't soupy. It landed in the Goldilocks belt between those two extremes.

Other menu highlights includes a pulled chicken chipotle melt with spicy slaw and avocado, and a brisket French dip.

Keep up with Smoke & Bone on Instagram.