One of Houston’s most popular barbecue joints is ready to makes its Memorial debut. The Pit Room’s second location opens for lunch and dinner this Monday, April 29.
More than two years in the making, owner Michael Sambrooks tells CultureMap he’s excited to be in Memorial. The neighborhood residents he’s spoken to are ready for the restaurant to open.
“My kids go to school out there. They’re all our customers already. They’re like thank god someone’s coming to our neighborhood,” he says. “We’re leaning into being a family friendly hangout. I think it’s going to be spot on for the location, we hope.”
Located near Memorial City Mall at 10301-A Katy Freeway, the new Pit Room offers all of the same features as both the original Montrose location and its companion bar, The Patio at The Pit Room, combined into one expansive space that includes a 6,300-square-foot interior and a 2,600-square-foot covered patio. Two, 26-foot long bars — one inside and one on the patio — promise to keep diners hydrated, and 27 TVs mean everyone will be able to follow sports.
“It’s awesome,” Sambrooks says. “It’s super exciting. It’s huge. Everything we ever wanted at the original Pit Room we put into this one.”
In addition to being able to seat as many as 250 people, the new location’s larger space means Sambrooks has been able to expand the menu. A dedicated dessert station will allow pastry chef Alejandra Salas to make different flavors of ice cream and cookies that can be combined as ice cream cookie sandwiches. A dedicated retail area will sell sauces, rubs, merch, and meat to-go.
What won’t change is the Pit Room’s core menu that’s made it one of Houston’s favorite barbecue joints and earned it an appearance on a 2021 episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. When the restaurant opened in 2016, it was among the first in the Houston city limits to cook its meats on all wood-fired, barrel-style offset smokers, a practice that has since become the standard for new restaurants.
The Pit Room uses them for its menu that includes brisket, pork ribs, beef ribs, pulled pork, turkey, chicken, and three kinds of housemade sausage — Czech-style beef, jalapeño-cheddar pork, and black pepper garlic venison. They’re matched with sides that include macaroni and cheese, mustard potato salad, elote, charro beans, coleslaw, and green beans. Of course, the Pit Room’s signature tacos, wrapped in flour tortillas made with rendered brisket fat, are present and accounted for.
In addition to the core menu, the restaurant will roll out a separate dinner menu. Available in the coming weeks, it will include items such as burgers, steaks, fried pickles, brisket egg rolls, chicken wings, and chicken fingers for families with kids.
“I put together a hot line in addition to the prep kitchen,” Sambrooks explains. “We’ll do homemade french fries. You can get chili and cheese on them. I’m getting barbecue trained, then i’ll get that rolled out two or three weeks after we open.”
The new restaurant will have an expanded cocktail menu courtesy of consulting bartender Sarah Crowl, a CultureMap Tastemaker Awards Bartender of the Year winner who’s worked at Coltivare, Rosie Cannonball, and Better Luck Tomorrow. In addition to buckets of beer and bottles of wine, diners will have the option of classic cocktails such as an Old Fashioned or negroni as well as margaritas taken from Candente, Sambrooks’ Montrose Tex-Mex restaurant.
Speaking of Candente, the restaurateur would like to open a second location somewhere nearby.
“I’d love to put a Candente in the neighborhood. We’ll focus on that and see what happens,” he says. After all, the Memorial area is booming with a wave of a recent restaurant openings.
“I tried to go to Bar Bludron. They didn’t have a table until 10:30,” Sambrooks says with a laugh. “Goode Co. Kitchen & Cantina was slammed on a Tuesday. I think there’s a market for [Candente].”
Photo by Alex Montoya
The Pit Room's Memorial City location is now open for lunch and dinner.
