Lysander, N.Y. — To find good barbecue, don’t follow your eyes — follow your nose.
The Angry Pig BBQ debuted as a food truck in 2019, marking owner Josh Reynolds’ foray into the professional barbecue world. The trailer grew into a brick-and-mortar restaurant this summer. After plans to open the restaurant in the village of Phoenix fell through, Reynolds instead opened the restaurant on the other side of the Oswego River in Lysander. The location at 2935 Lamson Road had most recently been home to Harper’s Pizza & Ice Cream and Henderson Dairy.
The restaurant is in transition. Soon, a permanent pit room will replace the mobile barbecue pit outside—the first step in a three-phase renovation. The old awning that once shaded the ice cream counter is gone, part of a facelift for the concrete block building. Without the roadside ‘open today’ signs and the smell of smoke, you might think the place was closed.
Not to be confused with Angry Smokehouse, the barbecue restaurant only a few miles down the road in the village of Baldwinsville, Angry Pig BBQ (which was there first, if you count the food truck) has earned its reputation for proper Texas-style barbecue, complete with canvas prints of Reynolds and renowned Texas pitmasters Aaron Franklin, of Franklin Barbecue in Austin and Tootsie Tomanetz, the nonagenarian pit boss at Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, hanging among other Texas memorabilia on the walls.
In Texas, barbecue is synonymous with brisket, and it’s featured in everything from chili to quesadillas at Angry Pig. The brisket is served chopped, though sliced brisket is also available on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. While chopped brisket is great for sandwiches, sliced brisket showcases the beef in its purest form, the skill of the pitmaster put on full display…