Cousins Bar-B-Q closed its Crowley Road location Saturday night after 23 years in business, with a worker saying the restaurant sold out of its popular pork ribs and budget-friendly smoked chicken before locking up for good. The closure ends a run that began in 2003 in Stone Gate Plaza near Farm Road 1187, even as the 43-year-old Fort Worth barbecue brand keeps its two other storefronts running.
The Crowley Road shutdown was first reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which noted that Cousins BBQ's original location at 6262 McCart Avenue and its Cityview location at 5125 Bryant Irvin Road remain open, with the McCart Avenue store sitting about seven miles north of the now-shuttered Crowley outpost. According to the same report, brisket at Cousins now runs $34 per pound, a price tag that reflects just how sharply beef and labor costs have climbed for the chain in recent years.
A Brand Built on Presidential Pedigree
Cousins Bar-B-Q traces its roots to 1983, when founder Calvin “Boots” Payne III opened the original McCart Avenue location after learning the craft from Walter Jetton, the pit master famously favored by President Lyndon B. Johnson, according to historical reporting from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at the time of Payne's death in 2013. Per the Star-Telegram's original report on the Crowley closure, the brand has also shipped brisket and ribs to Washington for President George H.W. Bush and saw Payne train cooks at Disneyland — a legacy that dovetailed with Euro-Disney's decision in 1990 to hire Payne to build out Texas barbecue concepts at its European theme park. Cousins has landed on Texas Monthly's list of the state's top 50 barbecue joints twice and was chosen for the magazine's annual barbecue festival, the Star-Telegram reported.
The brand's reach extends beyond its sit-down restaurants, too. Cousins BBQ also operates inside Terminal B near Gate B43 at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, giving the barbecue brand a steady stream of travelers passing through one of the country's busiest transit hubs, according to 6AM City.
Craft Barbecue Competition and Rising Costs Squeeze Margins
Per the Star-Telegram's reporting, the arrival of Hill Country-style small-batch craft barbecue in Fort Worth around 2015 gave commercial barbecue restaurants like Cousins tough new competition, prompting the chain to remodel and retool both its food and its decor. But just as that adjustment took hold, beef and labor costs started skyrocketing, squeezing margins across the industry. Delivery menus for the surviving Cousins locations still show a three-meat plate at $28 and a single-meat plate at $22.50, while the chain rolled out a $27 “All You Can Meat” dine-in special and buy-one-get-one deals in August to keep customer volume up, per pricing reviewed on Uber Eats.
That cost pressure is not unique to Cousins. The national cattle herd fell to 86.2 million head in early 2026, the lowest count since 1951, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture inventory figures cited by Hoodline's earlier reporting on Texas barbecue operators. The USDA's Economic Research Service reported in September that wholesale beef prices remained 3.1% higher than a year earlier and projected an 8.5% wholesale price increase for the full year, following record average retail beef prices of $9.64 per pound in April. The National Restaurant Association's 2026 State of the Restaurant Industry report found that over 90% of operators view labor and food costs as significant challenges, with food costs up 34% compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Burleson's Restaurant Turnover Mirrors a Regional Pattern
The Crowley Road closure isn't happening in isolation. Per the Star-Telegram, On The Border, The Rim, and Rio Mambo have all closed their Burleson locations in recent memory, even as new restaurants have opened in Burleson's Old Town. Hoodline's own reporting on Rio Mambo's suburban pullback found that chain shutting locations in Burleson, Colleyville, and Weatherford in mid-2026 while keeping only its original Fort Worth Cityview restaurant open. Other Tarrant County dining landmarks have followed a similar path this year, with Westland Restaurant Group closing its Hurst Pulido's location and La Playa Maya shutting its Stockyards storefront to make room for Panther City BBQ.
Cousins' decision to close its 23-year-old Crowley outpost while holding onto its McCart Avenue and Cityview locations fits that broader retrenchment among long-standing Tarrant County chains. Food and labor costs continue to rise across the local restaurant industry, the Star-Telegram reported, leaving operators to bet that consolidating around their strongest, most established locations is the surest way to keep the lights on.
