Offset Smoker fuses Texas barbecue traditions with Vietnamese classics

Well before customers line up for brisket and “armadillo eggs,” Offset Smoker founder Hue Pham has been up for hours, feeding oak logs into his restaurant’s two massive offset smokers.

Getting up early to run a barbecue joint would be challenging enough, but Pham does it while juggling another full-time job. He’s a night shift supervisor with the Baton Rouge Police Department with more than two decades on the force.

The grueling schedule signals something about Pham. He’s passionate about good barbecue.

Cooking for his family had always been a hobby and a stress reliever, but Pham’s interest in barbecue snuck up on him. It happened during a family trip to Austin in 2020.

Determined to try iconic Franklin Barbecue, Pham woke up at 5 a.m. to join the spot’s famously long lines. Six hours later, he returned to his weekend rental with trays of succulent brisket for his wife and kids.

Something clicked.

“What got me was the pit and how they smoked it,” he recalls. “It was amazing. At the time, I didn’t even know what an offset smoker was.”

Back home, Pham bought a backyard smoker and began experimenting. “I burned up plenty of meat before I figured it out,” he says.

He kept at it, traveling back to Texas to take classes with barbecue chefs. Becoming a disciple of indirect heat and real wood, he upgraded to a custom-built offset smoker.

Practice paid off and Pham began hosting pop-ups at Pelican to Mars in 2022, offering his central Texas-style brisket, pork, chicken, turkey and sausage. He also participated in Night Market BTR, a festival celebrating Asian culture that has become known for launching new food concepts. There, he featured a top-selling off-menu item, the Offset Smoker brisket banh mi.

With response continuing to grow, Pham opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant on Government Street in 2024. The bare-bones spot features counter ordering and outdoor seating, and while it looks simple, the menu is built on details. Nearly everything is made from scratch, including the sausages, sauces, sides and the armadillo eggs, an endearing Texas barbecue accompaniment in which jalapeños are stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped in both sausage and bacon, and smoked.

Pham’s brisket banh mi is still served for pop-ups and as a restaurant special. He perfected it after traveling regularly to Vietnam where he learned traditional banh mi techniques from family members. Pham even makes his own po-boy bread.

Offset Smoker’s popularity isn’t slowing down, and the hectic schedule is fine with Pham.

“People ask me why I keep doing it,” he says. “It’s simple. I love cooking.”

This article was originally published in the June 2026 issue of 225 Magazine.