Four Texas Cities in Top 10 For Worst Places To Get BBQ

May is National BBQ month and if there's one thing Texans know about it's BBQ. Right? Well ...

According to Chef's Pencil four Texas cities ranked in the top 10 for Worst Cities for BBQ in the U.S. How can that be?

When it came to Worst Cities for BBQ Plano came in next to last at #2, bested only by Anchorage, Alaska! Other Texas cities in the top 10 worst were Fort Worth at #10, Houston at #7, and San Antonio at #4.

It's not that the BBQ is bad in cities like Houston and San Antonio, it's just that there are so many BBQ places you're likely to step into one that's more or less average and not great. Houston and San Antonio are actually first and third when it comes to the sheer number of BBQ joints. With that many options, it's best to do some research before making your choice.

Meanwhile, Austin and El Paso did make the top 20 for Best Cities for BBQ at 18th and 12th respectively.

The list of Best Cities was topped by New Orleans, followed closely by Oklahoma City.

To get to the meat of the matter (sorry) as to who has the best and worst BBQ places Chef's Pencil analyzed giant platefuls of TripAdvisor restaurant reviews. When they were done, New Orleans had an average rating of 4.31 out of 5 stars and Oklahoma City was close behind at 4.26. With 33 BBQ joints in Oklahoma City two of them actually got a full 5 star rating.

When it came to cities with the highest number of top rated (4.5 stars or more) BBQ restaurants Texas did well, nailing down three of the top ten. More than any other state.

Chicago came in first with 31 top rated restaurants, Los Angeles had 30, and Austin had 29. Nashville came in tied with Houston for 4th at 27, and Dallas had 26.

The Chef's Pencil survey only considered the 75 largest cities in the United States. Had they included some of the incredible BBQ restaurants in Wichita Falls the results would probably have been much different.