Stephen Montoya
From the left, Tyler Schouten (Director of Food and Beverage) Vicki Nivens (Co-Owner) MayCee Decker (Director of Public Relations), and Chad Decker (Co-Owner).
There’s a stretch of U.S. Highway 377 that bleeds Texas from the cracks in its pavement. Head southwest out of Fort Worth and you’ll pass rolling pastureland, bait shops, cattle gates, and — if you’re lucky — smoke curling above a low-slung building just outside Stephenville. That’s where Hard Eight Barbecue began, in a converted gas station that never quite made it out of the asbestos era.
These days, the family behind the wood-fired empire wants to clear something up.
“We’re not a franchise,” says co-owner Vicki Nivens, the force behind the flower shop–turned–barbecue queen. “People say that all the time, but each restaurant is its own. Same menu, same process — but every one is a stand-alone.”
Hard Eight now has five locations — Stephenville, Roanoke, Coppell, The Colony, and Burleson — but at its heart, it’s still a family-run operation built on tradition, Vegas, and a whitetail ranch in Brady, Texas. No, you can’t buy into this food concept because it’s not a franchise; it’s a family tradition.
It started like a lot of Texas stories do — with a deer lease, some land, and a hunch.
Stephen Montoya
“Phil [Nivens, Vicki’s late husband] and I were living in Bridgeport at the time,” she says. “We had this high-fence ranch in Brady where we raised whitetails, and Phil always had this dream of opening a restaurant.”
They looked at Granbury first. But then Phil’s son-in-law Chad Decker — horse trainer, cattleman, and future Hard Eight pit boss — called from Stephenville. He’d found a property: an old gas station on a corner lot.
“It was full of asbestos,” Vicki says. “We thought we’d just fix it up into a little BBQ hut, but we had to tear the whole thing down.”
So they started from scratch — literally. The plans were drawn by hand on a yellow legal pad to mimic the feel of the family hunting lodge. “We built it ourselves,” says Vicki. “Our family and friends. Chad made tables. I did the bathroom doors. We didn’t know the first thing about the restaurant business.”
But what they lacked in hospitality experience, they made up for with instinct.
“We wanted it to feel like an experience,” says MayCee Decker, director of Hard Eight’s PR and daughter of Chad. “It’s dinner and a show, in a very Texas kind of way.”
Hard Eight’s whole concept was built around that moment — when the pit lid opens and the heat hits your face, and there, lined up like gospel, are briskets, ribs, and jalapeño poppers.
That drama at the pit is no accident. In fact, it was the one thing they were sure about from the beginning. A walk-up smoker, open fire, and nothing between the customer and their meat but the smoke itself.
Still, it wasn’t exactly a smooth rollout.
“We had people walk in, sit on the pecan stumps we used for chairs, no backs on ’em — and just look confused,” Vicki remembers of her family restaurant beginning. “They weren’t used to ordering by the pound. Some folks would end up with three pounds of brisket and sticker shock at checkout.”
They adapted. They posted a sign: Don’t let your eyes get bigger than your stomach.
And slowly, the smoke started to spread.
From 10:30 a.m. in the morning to 10 p.m. at night, Hard Eight is busy cooking meat for the next day’s service. It’s not just a smokehouse — it’s a rhythm. And it’s built on volume, not vanity.
“We’re not chasing the next trend,” Vicki adds. “We’re not doing smash burgers or burnt ends or whatever’s hot on Instagram. We just focus on the quality of the food, every single day. It may not make headlines, but it’s what our family believes in.”
That simplicity — the refusal to stray from the formula — has become part of what defines the brand. No hamburgers. No tacos. No frills. Just brisket, ribs, sausage, and the kind of consistent quality that makes someone drive 50 miles out of their way to stand in a little smoke.
It’s also what leads to one of the most common questions they get asked.
“People always want to know if we compete in barbecue contests,” Chad says. “We do — every single day. Our competition is the public. There’s no better or worse judge than that.”
The secret to Hard Eight’s signature flavor isn’t locked in a safe or scribbled in a forgotten recipe book. It’s kosher salt, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder — and a method as old as Texas Hill Country itself.
“The actual cooking happens over direct heat,” Chad explains. “The smoke people smell is from the mesquite we’re burning down. We don’t cook with it. We use the coals that come off it. And when that fat hits the coals, the meat basically smokes in its own juices.”
Stephen Montoya
This is how Decker’s German ancestors cooked their meat — and it’s the tradition that shaped Hard Eight’s signature style.
Over the years, they’ve weathered plenty of obstacles. Recessions. Rising meat costs. COVID. One of the family’s most challenging moments came during the construction of the Roanoke location, when Phil passed away unexpectedly. “We had to decide — do we stop or do we keep going?” Vicki says. They finished Roanoke, and eventually opened two more restaurants.
But ask the family behind this concept if they’ve made it, and they hesitate. For this family, success isn’t about headlines or hashtags. It’s about continuity. When the original crew could step back and things didn’t fall apart — that was the real turning point.
Today, they’re eyeing San Antonio for a new location. The details are still under wraps, but Vicki hints that it will be a "real cool concept."
Still, the soul of Hard Eight is its people. Some of them have been there since day one. Managers started as busboys. The operations lead was once a college kid loading wood boxes. When COVID hit, and restaurants across the country struggled to find staff, 95% of Hard Eight’s team returned when eateries began reopening for in-house dining.
Even the menu tells a story. The pork chop is juicy. The sausage is a family favorite. The okra? Always fried fresh. The rub? Kosher salt, black pepper, garlic and onion powder. That’s it. No gimmicks. No secret menu. Just fire and repetition.
“It’s about the people,” Vicki says. “It always has been.”
