East Idaho Eats: Food truck serves Texas-style pulled pork, brisket, coleslaw and baked beans

IDAHO FALLS — A local food truck is bringing smoky flavors with pulled pork, brisket and a new twist on barbecue sauce plus its coleslaw mixed with pineapple.

The business called Lost River Smokehouse is owned by Cody Killian and his co-owner Ryan Hootman. The business is located at 400 South Woodruff Avenue in the parking lot of Big Deal Outlet.

Killian opened up Lost River Smokehouse in June. He’s already got popular items on the menu like the pulled pork sandwich.

“It’s Texas-style with salt and pepper, smoked over post oak and a little apricot wood to give a little more sweeter kick to it. It’s cooked about 10 to 12 hours depending on the size of the pork butt,” he explained.

The pork is served with homemade sauce that’s made in-house.

“We went for a more sweeter sauce. It’s not a true Texas sauce because they are a more vinegar-based sauce, but we took recipes and did our own twist on it,” Killian said.

Another item he sells is the brisket. It’s simple but delicious.

“Our brisket is cooked for about 10 to 12 hours depending on the size of the brisket. Same wood. Slow-cooked over post oak and apricot wood and also only doing salt and pepper. So that way we are sticking with that true Texas barbecue and not doing any extra seasonings, nothing fancy. Just smoke flavor and salt and pepper,” he said.

Killian is local to the area and started cooking barbecue as a hobby until he decided to open up a business.

“I went off the Texas-style. I wanted to look up the different styles of barbecue and I tried Carolina and I tried Southern. I tried Texas and I really liked the Texas flavor so I stuck with that and kind of just started perfecting that as best as I could,” he said.

And let’s not forget the sides: coleslaw and baked beans.

“It’s a different coleslaw. It’s got a sweeter kick and it’s also got some pineapple in it. It gives a nice sweet taste to it and tang and also nice texture to it,” he said. “The baked beans are just simple baked beans. We do mix our brisket into it. So this is just a very simple recipe. All of our excess brisket, we mix into it throughout the day so we get a pretty meaty set of beans.”

Currently, Lost River Smokehouse is open two days a week on Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Killian hopes to expand to four days a week eventually.

Lost River Smokehouse is available for catering and events. Click here to ‘like’ the Facebook page to follow what they are up to.