From Jobsite to Pitmaster: Sloan Rinaldi's 1909 Texas BBQ Legacy
On The Building Texas Show, host Justin McKenzie interviews Texas Q founder Sloan Rinaldi, a 4th-generation pitmaster whose family barbecue roots trace to Crockett, Texas in 1909. Recorded at the San Antonio Home & Garden Show, she details leaving construction, winning early competitions, and her new 8-country series.
San Antonio, TX (Newsworthy.ai) Tuesday Sep 22, 2026 @ 6:00 AM CDT
The Building Texas Show — She Left Construction to Become a 4th-Generation Pitmaster | Sloan Rinaldi
Photo: Justin McKenzie
“You can put the richest guy and the poorest guy at the same table, right? Having the same meal. You can't get that in any other cuisine. So it is the most uniting cuisine or culinary culture on earth is barbecue.”
The latest episode of The Building Texas Show, hosted by Justin McKenzie and recorded live at the San Antonio Home & Garden Show, features Sloan Rinaldi. She's the founder of Texas Q, a barbecue brand built on sauces, rubs, and a media business she's building around it. She's also a fourth-generation pitmaster: her family has been in barbecue since 1909, when they opened a shop in Crockett, Texas.
The Building Texas Show — She Left Construction to Become a 4th-Generation Pitmaster | Sloan Rinaldi
Photo: Justin McKenzie
“You can put the richest guy and the poorest guy at the same table, right? Having the same meal. You can't get that in any other cuisine. So it is the most uniting cuisine or culinary culture on earth is barbecue.”
Texas Q is based in Houston, where Rinaldi hosts private barbecue crawls and is building out the rest of her media ventures.
Rinaldi spent years in construction before walking away at 50, right as the industry moved from paper plans and cold calls to phone-based bidding and takeoffs. She'd already sold her business to a team of longtime employees and was still deciding what came next. Then a sliced brisket sandwich at Killen's Barbecue changed her mind about a cuisine she'd never much cared for. She'd never cooked a brisket in her life.
That one sandwich led to:
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Commissioning her own smoker from East Texas Smoker Company and teaching herself fire management from scratch, after noticing only one woman, Melissa Cookston, on the barbecue competition circuit
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A first competition at Bands, Brews and Barbecue, benefiting the Ronald McDonald House, followed by a 14th-place finish out of 250 teams at a Texas State Championship
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Landing a statewide deal with H-E-B for her original Texas Q sauce, then pulling it back off shelves to reformulate without high fructose corn syrup
Rinaldi has a simple explanation for why she thinks barbecue connects people like nothing else:
“You can put the richest guy and the poorest guy at the same table, having the same meal. You can't get that in any other cuisine. So it is the most uniting cuisine or culinary culture on earth.”
Hear Rinaldi's full story - watch on YouTube
That philosophy is the spine of her next project: From Texas With Love: United We BBQ, a nine-episode series filming across eight countries and three continents, including Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Argentina, and Japan. It looks at live-fire cooking traditions from Ibérico hogs to Japanese wagyu to Argentine gaucho asado. Every episode ends with a Texas barbecue collaboration, and the final episode brings every featured cook to Houston for one last cook-off.
Rinaldi's international reach is already further along than a TV pitch. She recently hosted two Taiwan-based venture capitalists on a private Texas Q barbecue crawl in Houston. They flew 15 hours and fasted for a full day beforehand to prepare. The itinerary included one of only three Michelin-starred barbecue restaurants in the world, plus two Top 15 stops, one of them Top 10. By the end of the day, the conversation had moved from barbecue to business. Rinaldi shares which cities are now in play in the full episode.
Back home, she's also filming Grillz on Grills, a new Houston culture series with Bun B, Slim Thug, Trae tha Truth, and Paul Wall. It digs into the city's food, music, and custom-grillz scene, which Rinaldi says has gone global. She and her co-host get their own custom grillz built during the series.
FAQ: Texas Q and Sloan Rinaldi's new projects
What is Texas Q?
Texas Q is Sloan Rinaldi's barbecue brand: sauces, rubs, custom cutting boards, and barbecue crawl experiences, built after she left a career in construction to become a competition pitmaster.
Where is Texas Q based?
Texas Q is based in Houston, where Rinaldi hosts the brand's private barbecue crawl experiences.
What is From Texas With Love: United We BBQ?
It's a nine-episode TV series filming in eight countries across three continents. Each episode pairs a Texas barbecue tradition with a different country's live-fire cooking culture, and the series ends with a finale cook-off in Houston.
Where can I watch Grillz on Grills?
It's expected to launch on YouTube. Rinaldi says she'd like to bring it to Netflix too.
Watch more from The Building Texas Show
This episode is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the entrepreneurs, tradespeople, and creators shaping Texas's economy and culture - from construction and home services to food and media. New episodes post 2-3 times a week.
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About The Building Texas Show
The Building Texas Show, hosted by Justin McKenzie, profiles the entrepreneurs, tradespeople, and creators shaping the state's economy and culture, from construction and home services to food and media. Recorded on location at industry events like the San Antonio Home & Garden Show, each conversation surfaces practical lessons and Texas-sized stories.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Who is Sloan Rinaldi and what is Texas Q?
- Sloan Rinaldi is a 4th-generation pitmaster whose family opened a barbecue joint in Crockett, Texas in 1909, reportedly the state's longest family-owned barbecue joint until recently. After selling her construction business at 50, she founded Texas Q, a multimedia barbecue brand offering sauces, rubs, custom heirloom cutting boards, private barbecue crawls, and forthcoming television projects, all housed at texasq.com.
- What sparked her transition from construction into barbecue?
- Rinaldi credits a sliced brisket sandwich at Ronnie Killen's Killen's Barbecue as life-changing, introducing her to prime, craft-style brisket with a simple salt-and-pepper bark. After selling her construction company and watching BBQ Pitmasters, she noticed only one woman, Melissa Cookston, competing, commissioned a pit from East Texas Smoker Company, and began teaching herself fire management at home.
- How did her Texas Q sauce end up in H-E-B, and why did she pull it back?
- About a year and a half after Rinaldi created her sauce, H-E-B called, made an offer, and stocked it statewide. She eventually pulled the sauce from shelves to reformulate, removing high fructose corn syrup and returning to premium ingredients that matched her original vision rather than the price-point version H-E-B initially wanted.
- What is From Texas With Love: United We BBQ about?
- It is a nine-episode series spanning eight countries and three continents, including Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Argentina, and Japan. Each episode explores local live-fire traditions, such as Ibérico hogs, wagyu, and gaucho asado, then closes with a Texas barbecue collaboration. The finale brings every featured cook to Houston for a quintessential Texas throwdown.
- Why does Rinaldi call barbecue the most unifying cuisine?
- She argues live-fire cooking has united friends, family, and community across every culture since the beginning of time, because no one lights a fire to cook only for themselves. She also notes barbecue uniquely seats the richest and poorest guests at the same communal table eating the same meal, something she says no other cuisine achieves.
- What is the Texas Q barbecue crawl, and how did it lead to Asia expansion talks?
- Rinaldi hosts private barbecue crawls bookable through texasq.com or Airbnb. Two Taipei-based venture capitalists flew 15 hours, fasted 24 hours at the Houstonian, and toured three joints with her, including one of the world's three Michelin-starred barbecue restaurants and two Top 50 stops. The experience prompted discussions to open Texas Q locations in Taipei, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.
- How has technology reshaped the construction industry from Rinaldi's perspective?
- Rinaldi describes a shift from binders of plans, manual digitizer takeoffs, spreadsheets, and cold calls to phone-based apps handling takeoffs, bidding, contracts, and negotiation. She warns that missing a call or deadline without tech leaves contractors behind, and urges professionals of any age to embrace new tools or risk becoming irrelevant in today's tech-savvy industry.
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