Travis Bishop discovered his love for crafting Texas-style barbeque after experimenting with a backyard smoker making meals for friends on Sundays. “I really just connected with it,” he said. A self-proclaimed barbeque purist, Travis learned how to combine traditional methods of wood, spices, fresh meat, and smoke to get his “mother-nature made” Texas flavors. “The way our barbeque is prepared is a science,” Travis said.

Customer favorites include the dry-rubbed Texas brisket, pulled pork, and Travis’s favorite, the chopped chicken. He serves his barbeque true to Texas-style: with a choice of 10 different sauces—on the side. “We try to teach our customers to drizzle and enhance, not to cover it up,” he says.

The restaurant also offers a few surprises, like over 20 flavors of pickles, exclusive half-pound certified smoked Hereford beef burger, and a new twist on barbeque with burrito bowls and Texas-style cheesesteaks topped with green peppers, cheese, mushrooms, onion, and jalapeño. Their most unique dish? That would be the Louisiana-raised gator, served about every 8 weeks during their “Gator Grab,” which also features Louisiana-style smoked gumbo packed with shrimp, gator, andouille sausage, and okra.

In addition to smoking Texas-style barbeque, Travis and his team believe strongly in the value of service to others, particularly when it comes to veterans and first responders. The restaurant offers meal discounts for those service personal, and customers can donate to an “anonymous contributors fund” that pays for meals for service personnel in need. On Wednesdays, they host a gathering open to all veterans where they can share fellowship and camaraderie. At Thanksgiving, Mountaineer Meats smoked and donated more than 60 turkeys to feed the homeless of downtown Martinsburg. “It’s truly about serving people and using our business that God gave us to help our community. You can never lose by giving.”

– Excerpts from Wiyyn Magazine, Spring 2022

MOUNTAINEER MEAT SMOKERS TEXAS BBQ CAFE AND CATERING

Home of all your sauces, spices, lump charcoal, grilling pellets, and 23 flavors of pickles.