Got a call last month from a guy running a mid-volume operation outside of Houston. He'd been doing brisket and pulled pork for eleven years. Same menu. Solid numbers. But his ticket average had been flat for two years running, and he was watching newer places down the road charge $28 a plate for things he'd never even considered smoking.
His question wasn't really about recipes. It was about whether his equipment could handle proteins he'd never run through it before — and whether those proteins were worth the headache.
Fair question. I've been watching the same shift he noticed. Brisket's still king in Texas, always will be. But operators who want to push margins are looking at cuts that used to seem too fussy, too expensive, or too unfamiliar for a BBQ menu. And three of them keep coming up in conversations.
The Smoked Pork Chop Renaissance
Pork chops disappeared from serious BBQ menus for a while. Too easy to dry out. Too close to what people's grandmothers made on a Wednesday night. Not exotic enough.
That's changing. Double-cut bone-in chops — we're talking an inch and a half, sometimes two inches thick — are showing up as premium items at places that know what they're doing. The bone matters. It's not just presentation. It insulates the meat during longer cooks and gives you more margin for error on timing.
Here's what most people get wrong: they treat pork chops like they'd treat a pork butt. Low and slow, same temps, same times. But a chop doesn't have the fat content to survive that. You're looking at a shorter cook — somewhere around 225°F to 240°F internal smoker temp, pulling when the chop hits 140°F internal. Maybe 90 minutes total for a thick cut.
The money is in the smoke window. First 45 minutes, that meat is taking on flavor. After that you're just cooking. So your smoker needs to hit target temp fast and hold it without swinging. I've seen guys try to run chops on cheaper cabinet units that can't maintain temp when you open the door to rotate racks. By the time the box recovers, your smoke window's closing.
This is where the rotisserie systems earn their keep. Running chops on an SP-1000 or MLR-850, you're not opening doors constantly to check. The rotation does the work. Consistent heat exposure, consistent smoke, and you're not bleeding temp every time you want to eyeball the product.
A restaurant group in Beaumont switched their Thursday special to a double-cut smoked chop about eight months ago. They're charging $24 for something that costs them maybe $6 in raw product. Their brisket plate is $19. The math works.
Lamb Ribs: The Sleeper Cut
Lamb ribs are weird. I'll say it. Most American customers don't think of lamb when they think of BBQ, and most pitmasters don't think of ribs when they think of lamb. But that disconnect is exactly where the opportunity sits.
Denver ribs — that's the lamb equivalent of a beef short rib, cut from the breast — have been gaining ground for about three years now. They're smaller than beef ribs, which actually works in your favor for portion control and plate presentation. A three-bone section looks substantial, cooks in about four hours at 250°F, and has enough fat marbling to stay moist through the process.
The flavor's different. Lamb has that grassiness, that slight gamey note that some people love and some people don't. You're not going to convert everybody. But you're not trying to. You're adding a premium item for customers who are already curious about it — and those customers will pay more.
I ran lamb ribs at a competition in Lockhart back in 2019. (Didn't place with them, for the record. Judges weren't ready.) But what I learned was about wood selection. Oak overwhelms lamb. Pecan works better — sweeter, lighter, lets the meat taste like itself. Cherry's good too if you can source it consistently, which around here you can't always do.
And this is where I start rambling, so bear with me. Wood management for lamb is different than wood management for beef. You want less total smoke exposure because the fat in lamb carries flavor differently — it amplifies whatever's in the smoke. Too much hickory and you're eating a campfire. Too little smoke and why bother, just roast it in an oven. The sweet spot is narrower than with brisket, which means your smoker needs to let you control the smoke independent of the heat.
The SP-700/M handles this well for smaller operations. You can dial back the wood chunks without losing your cook temp. Bigger volume, you're looking at an SPK-1400 where you've got more chamber space and better airflow control.
One thing I'll say for Ole Hickory — they've got decent capacity on their larger units. But I've talked to two operators in the last year who switched away from them specifically because they couldn't get consistent results with lamb. Too much temp variance between the top and bottom of the chamber. Fine for brisket where you've got a 20-degree margin. Not fine for lamb ribs where you don't.
Wagyu Katsu: The Expensive Experiment
This one surprised me when I first heard about it. Wagyu katsu is a Japanese preparation — breaded, fried wagyu beef cutlet. What's it doing on a BBQ blog?
Turns out some operators are smoking the wagyu first. Light smoke, short exposure, then breading and frying to finish. The smoke adds a layer of flavor that cuts through the richness of the beef and the heaviness of the fried coating. It's fusion in the truest sense, and it's showing up on menus in Austin and Dallas at price points that would make your eyes water.
The challenge here is temperature control at the low end. You're not trying to cook the wagyu through during the smoke phase — you're just flavoring it. Maybe 180°F to 200°F smoker temp, pulling the meat at around 115°F internal before it goes into the breading station. That's a 30-minute smoke window, tops.
Most commercial smokers aren't designed to hold temps that low and still produce good smoke. The fireboxes are built for 225°F and up. Run them cooler and you get incomplete combustion, bitter smoke, creosote buildup on your product.
The electric SC-300 actually handles this better than the gas units for this specific application. Easier to maintain those lower temps with consistent smoke generation. I wouldn't use it for my brisket program, but for a specialty item like this where you need precision at the low end, it's the right tool.
Is wagyu katsu going to become a standard BBQ menu item? Probably not. The product cost is too high for most markets, and you need a kitchen setup that can handle the frying component. But it's an example of how operators are thinking differently about what smoke can do for a dish.
What This Means for Equipment Decisions
If you're running the same three proteins you ran ten years ago, your current equipment probably handles it fine. But if you're looking at menu expansion — and margin expansion — you need to think about versatility.
Can your smoker hold temps below 225°F without producing garbage smoke? Can it hit target temp fast enough to take advantage of short smoke windows on quick-cooking cuts? Can it maintain consistent temps across the full chamber so you're not rotating product constantly?
These aren't theoretical questions. They're operational questions that affect your food cost, your labor cost, and your ability to charge premium prices for premium products.
The Southern Pride rotisserie systems — SP-1000, SP-1500, SPK-1400 for high volume, SP-700/M and MLR-850 for mid-volume — are built around temp consistency. That's not marketing language. That's 30 years of watching equipment perform under actual commercial conditions. The rotisserie action eliminates hot spots. The insulation holds temp when you open the door. The burner systems recover fast.
Parts availability matters here too. You start running premium proteins, you can't afford three days of downtime waiting for a thermocouple to ship from overseas. Southern Pride of Texas keeps stock on hand because that's our whole business — getting you running again. I've seen operators with import smokers waiting two weeks for basic components. That's two weeks of lost revenue on a menu item you just trained your staff to execute.
The guy from Houston I mentioned at the top? He ended up adding smoked pork chops to his weekend menu. Running them on his SP-1000. First month, they outsold his pulled pork. He's looking at lamb ribs now.
The menu's changing. Make sure your equipment can keep up.
Resources: Southern Pride of Texas | Southern Pride commercial smokers | Restaurant Business
#BBQBusiness #CommercialSmoker #SouthernPrideSmokers #BBQEquipment #KitchenEquipment #RotisserieSmoker
Photo by Kari Alfonso on Pexels.
About the Author: Earl has been competing in sanctioned BBQ events since the early 1990s and operates a commercial catering operation in Southeast Texas.