Darrell Byers
Ashley and Dayne Weaver’s barbecue joint in Aledo made "Texas Monthly’s" top ‘cue list.
There’s a notion that exists in Texas barbecue circles that once your favorite ‘cue joint makes Texas Monthly’s Top BBQ Joints list, there’s no way you’ll be able to eat there again, the crowds will be so huge.
That’s definitely true for some places. Goldee’s, for instance. Snow’s. The lines are still ungodly long at Franklin’s.
But in the case of Dayne’s Craft Barbecue — the Aledo-based ‘cue joint that not only landed on the recently released 2025 edition of Texas Monthly’s celebrated ‘cue list but at No. 7 — that notion is a little out of whack.
“A hundred percent you can still eat here,” co-owner Ashley Weaver chuckles. “We do call Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays our ‘local days’ because that’s when locals know they don’t have to fight the crowds. But even on the weekends, when the line goes around the building, the wait time isn’t that bad — maybe 45 minutes to an hour to go through the line, and 15 minutes to get your food. Honestly, it’s not any more of a wait than a busy night at Red Lobster.”
Dayne’s namesake pitmaster Dayne Weaver says that many of the state’s lauded ‘cue joints are only open a certain number of hours on a certain number of days, which leads to crushes of people. Snow’s and Goldee’s are both weekend-only operations, and they close in the afternoon.
Dayne’s, on the other hand, operates much more like a traditional restaurant: Open five days a week, all day, and on Fridays and Saturdays, they’re open until 8 p.m. — a rarity in the craft ‘cue world.
“That’s actually a good hack,” Dayne says. “Come on a Friday or Saturday night. A lot of people don’t know we’re open then, mainly because, traditionally, a lot of barbecue restaurants aren’t open late. They’re usually just open a few hours a day for lunch.”
The restaurant also employs a large staff of about 35, including eight or nine pitmasters. That many hands-on-deck means less wait times, the couple says.
“Even before we made the list, we were thinking about ways to keep our wait times down, and hiring a good size staff was one of them,” Dayne says. “We’ve been terrified of people having to wait in long lines, so we did our best to prepare ourselves and prepare our staff in case we did make the list.”
Their foresight was key. “We have a Plan A, a Plan B, a Plan C, D and E,” Ashley says. “Dayne’s a meticulous planner. I’m more of a go-with-the-flow type of person. But we knew we’d better have some plans in place, and I’m glad we did. We were already focusing on service before the list dropped, so we weren’t caught with our pants down.”
The Dayne’s of today, housed in a cool, old historic building, next to a set of railroad tracks, in a high-traffic area near downtown Aledo, is a far cry from the pitmaster’s humble beginnings, which started in his backyard in White Settlement. That’s where Dayne started serving barbecue to friends, family, and neighbors.
Dayne honed his skills by reading barbecue books and watching barbecue videos, soaking in as much information as he could. He then took that knowledge and through trial and error came up with his own distinct style of ‘cue. “He was perfecting brisket before he knew there was a top 50 anything for it,” Ashley says. “He just started educating himself on temperatures and different cooking methods and created his own thing.”
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Darrell Byers
A tray from Dayne's Craft BBQ features brisket, pork ribs, turkey, bacon brisket, sausage, flamin hot street corn, loaded potato salad.
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Darrell Byers
Drew Lindsay (R) and Matt Meza discuss the finer points of craft bbq at Dayne's Craft BBQ in Aledo, TX, on Saturday, July 20, 2024.
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Darrell Byers
That self-taught approach sets Dayne apart from a lot of other celebrated Texas barbecue joints.
“If you look at the top 10 and then really on most of the top 50, but definitely the top 10, every establishment has somebody who has worked for another barbecue business,” she says. “Like they either worked somewhere and decided to venture out to open up their own place, or they apprenticed under another top 10 place. Dayne didn’t learn from anybody else. He learned from self-experience, and then he taught me, and then he taught our pitmasters. And now we’re continuing to share that knowledge with our employees. It’s a very do-it-ourselves way of operating a restaurant.”
That’s the way they like it. Over the years, as their business has grown from doing pop-ups to running a food trailer to landing a brick-and-mortar, they’ve had ample opportunities to work outside their circles, to bring in investors and partners who could definitely stretch their careers and brand. But oftentimes, the Weavers know, those relationships come at a cost.
“We worry about compromising the quality of our food,” says Ashley. “Anytime you have a partner involved financially, they’re gonna wanna do whatever they can to affect the cost. And they might not understand why we’re paying a premium for better meat or better-quality ingredients than another barbecue place. It’s nice we don’t have to run those decisions by someone else, decisions that may impact our business.”
Ashley, who was born in Arlington, and Dayne, a military brat who has lived all over the world, met in 2012 at a car dealership, where they were both working. “I was a receptionist, and he was a salesman,” she says. “The reason that I liked him is because he was the worst salesman I’ve ever met in my life. To this day, he cannot tell a lie. I don’t even know if he ever made a commission. I was like, ‘Wow, he’s got some integrity. Let’s see where this goes.’”
Thirteen years, four kids, and one very successful barbecue business later, the two earned a spot on a coveted list that will no doubt, in ways big and small, change the course of their lives.
“We’re still in shock,” Ashley says. “There were subtle little hints that were dropped by Texas Monthly that maybe we’d be on the list. They came and took photos. But they wouldn’t tell us anything for sure. So, when we heard, there was definitely a feeling of “How can it be us? It’s an amazing accomplishment. I think we deserve it. We’ve put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and I know a lot of other places have, but it just rings different for us because it has been just Dayne and I, without any investors or partners. It’s hard to make that work, and we’re not just making it work, we’re killing it, and that’s just an amazing feeling.”
