New barbecue restaurant opens in Rexburg
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REXBURG — If you’ve been to the West Main Mall in Rexburg recently, you may have noticed a new restaurant that opened up.
The Pit Barbecue Co. opened on Jan. 6 in between the Red Rabbit Grill and Domino’s Pizza. The menu includes a variety of barbecue-themed items, such as barbecue nachos and tacos, sliders and brisket.
The tacos are the restaurant’s signature item, but the brisket is the most popular menu item, co-owner Tyler Hall tells EastIdahoNews.com.
“We use 100 percent USDA prime brisket,” Hall says. “As far as I know, no one else around is doing that for anything other than specials. I know no one can do it for the price we’re doing. So we’ve been really pleased with our brisket.”
Hall and his co-owner Austin Garza use two smokers to cook the meat fresh daily. They fill it to capacity and spread it as far as it will go for customers throughout the day. Hall says they often sell out.
“There are some things we can make if we get them on early enough in the morning. Brisket takes 10 hours, so if we sell out at 1 p.m., we can’t start another one,” says Hall.
The fact that they make all their food from scratch is one thing that makes The Pit unique from other similar restaurants, Hall says, combined with their commitment to quality.
“Right now, it’s just three of us,” Hall says. “We want to keep it small enough that we can keep the skill level high, pay them a little more and have a little more of a high-end product.”
The duo are originally from Washington, but they came to Rexburg several years ago to attend Brigham Young University-Idaho. They worked in the restaurant industry while attending school and fell in love with it.
After working at several local barbecue restaurants, Hall decided to venture off on his own to try and create his own menu. He chose barbecue specifically because he has the most experience with it and he likes it.
Hall says the response from the community has been great so far, and he’s enjoying being his own boss and having creative control over his product.
Though the menu is small, Hall wants to capitalize on that by experimenting with new specials periodically. He also wants to expand the catering service. Hall and Garza hope to open a bigger location in the future, but don’t want to get “too big too fast.”
“We’ve seen other places do that and the quality goes way down. They have to hire anyone they can get their hands on and they may or may not be as passionate or have the same skill level,” he says. “If it’s not perfect, we don’t want to sell it.”
The Pit Barbecue Co. is at 155 W. Main in Rexburg. The hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Visit the website or Facebook page to learn more.