Red Bryan's Smokehouse

610 W. Jefferson, phone Y 2-2350

The first Bryan smokehouse was started by Elias Bryan in 1910. His son, William Jennings "Red" Bryan brought the family business to Oak Cliff about 1935. Red's son, William Jennings Bryan Jr, or "Sonny", continued the tradition when he opened his own smokehouse in 1958. Red died in 1973, but you can still get Sonny Bryan's barbecue today. Oh, and you may recognize this building; it's now El Ranchito Restaurant.


COMMENTS lifted from the old web site:

Jon   12-14-2009
jgk5557 at aol.com
I can remember eating many a meal there as a kid. Sometimes at lunch when my Dad what stop in the Jones-Blair paint store next door or the evening and we would walk across the street to the big Sears store.

Robert Bullard   9-22-2010
anbwelding.com/
wd3t  at  msn.com
I don’t remember Red’s at that location , never went there , however went to the one he had on Webs Chapel extenison in north Dallas! Fine food And like his brother Sonny!

bill k   9-28-2011
clmbk  at  sbcglobal.net
My folks took me to eat barbecue at Red Bryan’s on west Jefferson starting in the late forties when oak cliff was still wet and red Bryan’s had a beautiful bar with a collection of old west pistols and rifles behind glass on the back bar. Deer and Texas long horns were mounted on the walls and the sweet smell of barbecue hung heavy in the air. At Christmas time the Sears and Robuck, just across the street, had a corner display window full of toys, a must see for kids at the time.

Garth   10-8-2011
garth.5  at  tx.rr.com
I grew up in Ennis & in the mid-fifties my folks would go to Dallas, visit cousins, shop on Jefferson & eat at Red Bryan’s. My two most vivid memories include that of the round lobby settee, covered with cowhide with the hair still in place. All the kids loved to sit there. Secondly, beef dinners were served on a two level serving tray with a dollop of burning gel on the bottom to keep the meat warm on the top. Very impressive back then. I fondly recall the Sears, Smitty’s Gun Shop, & Wynnwood Village Toy Store several miles away. BBQ was the best anywhere.

Betty Wright   7-23-2012
wrightboops  at  yahoo.com
My husband and I ate at Red Byrans old smoke house many times as young kids and then when we started dating it was one of the first places he took me on a date after church ever Sunday night , we loved to have the sandwich and top it off with the wonderful peach tart with the sweet whipping cream on top and if we were lucky in the winter to get s table close to the beautiful fireplace OMG so romantic ! He was nineteen and I was sixteen My Mom thought it was just to far to go as we lived on Fleming off of Ewing St. and attended Gospel LIght House Church and the drive to the Pig Stand was only just three blocks down from the church . We loved all the shops along Jefferson and my date loved to drag down Jefferson and I will say he won most of the drags… he always needed new tires on his ford . Great memories . We will always love OAK CLIFF .

Glen Waggoner
glenwaggoner  at  gmail.com

66.234.232.210

Submitted on 2012/10/13 at 8:54 pm

Lordy be, does that postcard evoke fond memories!
A Sunset High School grad (Class of 1958), I lived in Oak Cliff from 1951, when my father died and my mother and I moved into the then-new Clearview development near Keist Park (2218 McAdams, until 1960, when I got married and went to live in married students’ housing at SMU, from which I graduated in 1962. I left Dallas for good in 1962 to go to graduate school at Columbia University in New York, where I now live.
For my generation of Sunset Bisons, Red Bryan’s was where you took a special date after the Sweethearts Dance. (Or with your parents: too pricy for a kid like me operating on paper route money and the 50 cents an hour I made at the Wyatt’s Grocery Store across the street from Red’s place.) Even today, I can close my eyes and smell the sweet, spicy aroma—and well-chilled air—that greeted you when you walked through the door on a hot summer night.
But while we’re waxing nostalgic let’s not forget Sivils, that wonderful monster of a drive-in way out west at the triangle where Jefferson and West Davis merged to form (if memory serves) Fort Worth Cutoff. (Help me here, people. I’m 71, and I haven’t lived in Big Day for 50 years.) At Sivils on Saturday, four guys to a vehicle would spend the evening cruising round and round and round, stopping only to talk to a carload of girls waiting for us to play suit. Oh, now and then, we’d empty the car except for the driver, and he’d pull up to a station and ask the car hop for “a six-pack of Schlitz, please.” That assignment went to whichever of us could sit taller behind the wheel ((I was 6’2″ and often was the designated to try to make the buy) and/or had the best fake ID. We didn’t fool any of the veteran carhops, but we often got our beer, possibly through our charm but more likely because the car hops knew they could hold out for a sizable tip.
So, let’s salute Red Bryan’s, a true Oak Cliff icon, but let’s also remember another, Sivil’s.
PS: The mention of Sonny Bryan and his place years later will remind certain of us of his sister, Brenda (Sunset Clas of 1957, I think), and herbrand-new white 1955 T-Bird, the first year that other American icon hit the streets.