Bark Barbecue started as a pop-up in Queens, turned into a food stand in Brooklyn, and is now ready for a bigger stage — pitmaster Ruben Santana will open his first full restaurant in Bushwick at 25 Thames Street, between Morgan Avenue and Bogart Street, on Wednesday, July 1, where he focuses on Central Texan barbecue with Dominican touches, a nod to his own roots.
“Barbecue is headed in a way where people want a little bit more than what’s offered before,” Santana says of Bark. “New York is a melting pot for different cultures, different flavors, and a wider-ranging palate. This opens the door for a lot of people to do different things and attempt things they wouldn’t have before.”
The move comes at a time when American barbecue has been going through an evolution. Pitmasters are meshing American meat-smoking techniques with longstanding global traditions. Look at Puerto Rican Palmira Barbecue in South Carolina, Egyptian KG BBQ in Austin, Vietnamese-angled Khói Barbecue in Houston, and Mexican-influenced Barbs B Q in Texas’s barbecue capital, Lockhart (which is expanding into Brooklyn this year with Kirbee’s, a collaboration with Fort Worth joint Goldee’s). And Bark is continuing that movement.
Ruben Santana at one of Bark’s smokers. Cole Saladino…