Churchrow Tejas BBQ Opens in Austin With Tejano-Inspired Dishes and Slow-Smoked Classics

Restaurateur Simon Madera and pitmaster Miguel Vidal had orbited each other for years — first as college students, later as budding dining-industry professionals. So when Madera found himself opening a new restaurant without a pitmaster to anchor it, the choice felt obvious, almost fated.

It was, as it turns out, a match made in barbecue heaven.

Long before customers step inside Churchrow Tejas BBQ, the scent of slow-roasting brisket meets them in the parking lot. The aroma drifts from the dark-brick dining room, where a full bar glows under warm light and an outdoor patio hums with conversation. The restaurant, tucked off West Anderson Lane between Crestview and Wooten, opened Oct. 22. For Madera — also behind Austin’s Taco Flats and La Holly — the mission is straightforward: barbecue built with craft and layered with Tejano soul.

A BBQ collaboration

Specialty dishes such as sweetbreads, empanadas and a cloudlike corn cake push the menu into new territory, promising a meal that’s both elevated and deeply familiar — the sort of food that feels like home whether or not someone grew up near a smoker.

While the first month has been “hands-on all day, every day,” Madera said, “there’s been a lot of love.” For him, the restaurant’s origin was less like an idea and “more like destiny.”

Both men once imagined different futures. Vidal trained for a career in professional soccer. Madera pursued investment banking. But life rerouted them. Madera walked away from finance during the 2008 recession and landed unexpectedly in restaurants. Vidal discovered his “natural gift for proteins” while working in Miami. Somewhere in the shuffle, Madera tasted Vidal’s barbecue for the first time.

“I respected his food,” Madera said. “I also thought he was badass.”

A partnership years in the making

About a year ago, a shuttered barbecue spot became available, and Madera’s former partners urged him to revive it. He agreed — but he needed a barbecue expert. He called Vidal.

The call reached Vidal at home, between contracts and still processing the closure of his last venture, Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ, about 18 months earlier. The timing, he said, was just right.

Returning to barbecue wasn’t without nerves, Vidal said. “I don’t feel like I have anything to prove about the quality I can put out, but I owe it to people and myself to learn, grow and become better,” he said. “I just want everything to be as good as it can be.”

For Madera, opening a barbecue restaurant felt different from his past projects — with higher stakes and slower rhythms. Trusting Vidal with the pit was a testament to his respect for Vidal’s skill. “I have to live up to the expectations people have for him,” Madera said. With a smoking process that takes more than half a day, precision matters.

Tejano roots

The turnaround was quick — only about six weeks — but Madera soon saw what set Vidal’s cooking apart: an uncompromising focus on quality. Both men believe a strong barbecue restaurant depends not only on the meat but on everything around it, including coleslaw, tortillas and beans.

“The beans aren’t just a side that accompanies the barbecue,” Madera said. “The beans have to stand up to what the brisket is.”

Both Madera and Vidal spent significant time in Mexico, and both felt a gap in the Austin restaurant scene — a lack of Tejano-focused food that Vidal took special care to address with his past ventures, including Valentina’s. While Tejano food has gained traction in the city, staying true to their roots is central to Churchrow’s identity. That includes traditional methods such as handmaking tortillas.

What’s on the menu

“I wanted to represent what Mexican Americans were doing in the backyard and bring a culinary level to it,” Vidal said.

Preparing for opening day sparked new ideas and dishes. Alongside classic barbecue — pork, chicken and beef by the pound — the menu includes housemade salsas, appetizers and a signature dessert: a fluffy, lightly sweet corn cake with whipped cream and smoked raspberry sauce. Drawing on Madera’s bar experience, Churchrow also offers an array of cocktails at its dedicated bar.

As for the name, Vidal said they wanted something that “spoke to the neighborhood.” The restaurant honors the historic corner of Woodrow and Anderson, once known as Churchrow for its concentration of churches in the 1950s — a nod to their goal of becoming a community fixture.

Now past the unpredictable first month, their long-term goal is simple: to be good — consistently, earnestly and with intention. And with Madera’s drive and Vidal’s instincts at the pit, that feels well within reach.

“What we’re producing here is something special,” Vidal said. “And I couldn’t have found a better partner.”

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