The shutter is down. But a line has already formed in front of the food truck, and people wait patiently to eat some of the best barbecue in Texas.
Inside the food truck, Chef Arnulfo “Trey” Sanchez pulls a brisket out of the smoker. Goodness, I think. It’s beautiful. Sanchez places it on the block and begins slicing. Juice dribbles out. Brisket perfection.
It’s February 2024, slightly chilly, and in the distance, the Grapevine clock tower strikes noon. The truck’s shutter goes up, and at the chopping block, Sanchez begins chatting, slicing and serving. Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q is now open for delicious memories.
“It shocked me when it happened,” Sanchez says. His friends had made the James Beard list, but he never thought he’d be among those nominated for the culinary world’s version of the Academy Awards. But there he was, a James Beard semifinalist for the best chef in Texas — hot on the heels of The New York Times listing Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q as one of the best in the state.
It’s morning, a week earlier, and we’re in the taproom of Grapevine brewery Hop and Sting. Sanchez is decked out in all black, and the place is empty and quiet. The public won’t be in here until 3 p.m. The Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q truck is parked where it usually is, out back.
All the praise and accolades are no beginner’s luck. Sanchez is not new to the barbecue world — it’s the family business. His dad, Arnold Sanchez, made his name on the barbecue and chili cook-off circuit during the late 1970s. “My dad would roll up with a full-blown Western town and everybody all decked out in 1880s gunfighter attire, putting on a hell of a show,” says Sanchez. The other contestants would write Sanchez senior off as all hat and no cattle — but then, the elder Sanchez would win all the flavor awards.
At age 16, a young Chef Trey began working for his father’s catering production company, where faux Western gunfights and delicious barbecue were on the menu. In 1989, his dad opened Arnold’s Texas Bar-B-Q in East Dallas. The younger Sanchez and pitmaster Don Glasco co-managed the restaurant. “I was this shy kid, and Don had this big smile on his face, joking around and just having fun when he was on the block,” Sanchez says. “He did influence how I work on the block — not to downplay my dad’s influence, but I did learn a lot from Don.” But by 1999, Sanchez was reassessing his life. “That’s when I left to go teach,” Sanchez says. “I didn’t know if barbecue was really what I wanted to do.”
Sanchez’s first love was art. “I was always drawing as a kid,” he tells me. “My mom worked in advertising, and during the summer, she’d take me to work.” One of her colleagues in the creative department set him up at the drafting table with pencils, t-squares and all the paper he’d ever need. He’d draw endlessly, page after page. And when he was home, he’d fill sketchbook after sketchbook. So when Sanchez left the barbecue world, he started teaching art and Spanish in McKinney, Denton and Arlington — and even coached soccer and cross-country. But the family business isn’t something you really leave. His dad would still call him to help with massive catering events. “My first year teaching, we catered John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth for 5,000 people.” Sanchez kept getting offers — enticements, if you will — to do barbecue. He grew up with barbecue. He did it well. No wonder his father-in-law even built Sanchez a pit as a housewarming present. “So, I had that pit over there at the house and I was cooking a lot — and that was good for all my neighbors.”
Brisket after brisket. Sanchez was getting back into his groove. The sirens of smoke were calling, and even a gas station down the street wanted him to cook barbecue. “I thought, ‘You know what? Let me take that guy up on his offer.’” It was August 2018. It was hot. And the pop-up barbecue restaurant opened at a gas station off Highway 121 and Hall-Johnson Road in Grapevine. But this wasn’t a plastic table and a red-and-white checked tablecloth. It was a full-on production, with a Western corral, old roadway signs, saddles and wagon wheels. From the highway, it was quite a sight. Looky-loos doubled back around, lined up and chowed down. An hour and a half later, the barbecue sold out. “So,” he says, “we did that again, next weekend.” And once again, everything sold out.
“Everything is an art form, even the way the brisket is prepared and trimmed,” says Sanchez.
Slowly, Sanchez started making a name for himself — so much so that the Cooking Channel came calling in February 2020 for an episode of Man Fire Food. “I was working at my wife’s dental clinic, helping out, and normally I don’t answer numbers I don’t recognize.” By chance, he picked up. “It was a lady from the Cooking Channel,” he says. “I asked her how she heard about me, and she said someone sent her a photo of my barbecue and she had to wipe the drool off her computer.” That fall, he set up his food truck at its current location at Hop and Sting, a skip and a jump from the Grapevine town square.
But now, Sanchez wasn’t just cooking because he was good at it. His food truck was an artistic expression of the food he made, whether that’s the Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q logo on the side or the way the brisket, tacos and sides are plated. “Everything is an art form, even the way the brisket is prepared and trimmed,” he says. "There is a lot of aesthetics," he continues, adding that the combination of flavors and colors in food is similar to the combination of textures and colors in art. His food, which draws on both Mexican and Texan influences, is beautiful and exceedingly well balanced. Barbecue sides can be heavy, but Sanchez uses fruits, veggies and dressings for acidity to balance out the barbecue and bring out even more flavor.
Later this January at Watters Creek Village in Allen, Sanchez is rolling out his first brick-and-mortar Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q restaurant with M Crowd Restaurant Group, the company behind Mi Cocina. Right place, right time, right food, and it all started at the Hop and Sting taproom. He was delivering a Thanksgiving turkey, and he struck up a conversation with the director of culinary operations for M Crowd. People from the company kept coming out to his food truck, a relationship was formed and now, an M Crowd-backed Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q is setting up shop. “It’s cool to think what we’re going to be able to do with the support and muscle that we’ve never had before,” Sanchez says.
The food truck is now closed. The next part of the Vaqueros BBQ starts in Collin County. The new Watters Creek Village location, Sanchez points out, is perfect for a growing city in a growing county with an endless hunger for smoked meat. But he doesn’t just want to cook barbecue in Allen. Given his art and teaching background, Sanchez is keen to talk with Allen ISD about possibly connecting with the district’s art program at the restaurant. The restaurant will showcase Sanchez’s love of art, right down to the two custom pits emblazoned with Huehueteotl, the Aztec god of fire, at the base. The setup is unlike that of any other barbecue restaurant in Texas — then again, so is Sanchez’s barbecue.
“It’s kind of weird,” he says, “because I still think of myself as the little guy at the gas station.”
"Slow Cooking" originally appeared in the May/June 2024 issue of Local Profile. To subscribe, click here.
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