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Pie News

Humble pie shop treats East Dallas to hot coffee and perfect flaky crust

Teresa Gubbins
Mar 6, 2018 | 3:51 pm
Humble Pies
Be it ever so humble, there's no dessert like pie.
Photo courtesy of Humble Pies

The Garland Road corridor east of White Rock Lake gets a little more foodie-esque with the arrival of Humble Pies, a new pie shop opening in late March.

Humble will open at 9014 Garland Rd., joining other recent-ish hipster arrivals in the vicinity such as Lounge Here and Hypnotic Emporium Ice Cream.

Humble comes from Sean Jett, a Dallas native and El Centro College grad who has worked as a chef and community college cooking instructor. The shop will be a proper pie shop whose pies have actual crust, not some home-ec concoction of ground-up graham crackers.

Just as the true star of pizza is the dough, so is crust the telltale element of real pie.

"My pie dough is one I've used for years that came from a family-based recipe," Jett says. "It has a splash of vinegar, and then I go old-school on the fat and use both lard and butter."

They'll start out with 7-8 pies a day, and see how things unfold. Jett will use whatever local ingredients are available, such as Texas blueberries when they come into season.

He'll do local favorites like Key lime, and Southern classics such as pecan pie and his signature coconut cream. They'll also serve coffee, sourced from a local roaster still to be named.

"We're not doing fancy espresso drinks, just brewed," he says. "And we're not making a bacon-jalapeno bourbon pie. That's why we're Humble Pies — we're not pretentious."

He and his wife, Erin, have been thinking about opening a pie shop for more than 15 years. A Houston native, she introduced him to House of Pies, Houston's incomparable pie shop chain, back in their college days at Texas A&M. More than once, they'd close out a night of partying at the pool hall with a midnight run, 100 miles one way, NBD, to get a slice of pie.

One of his pies is a homage to HOP's French blackbottom, with layers of chocolate and rum custard.

Jett grew up in East Dallas; being in the area was key. "Getting our location was happenstance," he says. "I was driving down Garland Road and saw that the old Metro Barber shop was out of business. It just seemed perfect."

He's in the same center as Cheesecake Royale, but he says that won't be a problem.

"People have asked, 'How could you open a pie shop two doors down from the cheesecake place?'" he says. "But I've had conversations with them, and they're excited we're going to be there. We do the same sort of things but we don't actually do the same thing. We're complementary. And we've already talked to the guys at Hypnotic, we're going to trade products, maybe get some of their ice cream."

For Jett, pie occupies a unique place in the dessert realm.

"Pie is special because it invokes memories," he says. "For me, it's my grandma's Alabama pecan pie. You don't have that with cookies and cakes. Everybody has emotional memories attached to pie."

The Garland Road corridor east of White Rock Lake gets a little more foodie with the opening of Humble Pies, a new pie shop opening in late March. Humble will open at 9014 Garland Rd., in the same vicinity as other recent-ish hipster arrivals such as Lounge Here and Hypnotic Donut Emporium.

Humble comes from chef Sean Jett, a Dallas native and El Centro College grad who has worked as a chef and community college cooking instructor. The shop will be a proper pie shop whose pies have actual crust, not some home-ec concoction of ground-up graham crackers.

Just as the true star of pizza is the dough, so is crust the telltale element of real pie.

"My pie dough is one I've used for years that came from a family-based recipe," Jett says. "It has a splash of vinegar, and then I go old-school on the fat and use both lard and butter."

They'll start out with 7-8 pies a day, and see how the business unfolds. Jet will use whatever local ingredients are available, such as Texas blueberries when they come into season.

He'll do local favorites like Key lime, and Southern classics such as pecan pie and his signature coconut cream. They'll also do coffee, sourced from a local roaster still to be named.

"We're not doing fancy espresso drinks, just brewed," he says. "And we're not making a bacon-jalapeno bourbon pie That's why we're Humble Pies - we're not pretentious."

His wife, Erin, is a Houston native who introduced him to House of Pies, Houston's incomparable pie shop chain, while they were students at Texas A&M. More than once, they'd close out a night of partying at the pool hall with a midnight run, 100 miles one way, NBD, to get a slice of pie.

One of his pies is a homage to HOP's French blackbottom, with layers of chocolate and rum custard.

Jett grew up in East Dallas and opening in the area was important to him. "Getting our location was happenstance," he says. "I was driving down Garland Road and saw that the old barbershop that had been there for XX years was out of business. It just seemed perfect."

since that's the area décor: keep it fun enough I just spent a lot of time at orr reed picking up shiplap wanted to do all exposed brick but there’s so many colors – concrete floor. Opening in the area was important to him. "This is my neighborhood, I grew up in East Dallas, and my mother was a Bryan Adams graduate," he says.

Location: happensant looking in Lakewood driving down road disgruntled by whole Lakewood rent thing – driving down garland road and he old barbershop ws out of biz. How could you open a pie shop 2 doors down from he cheesecake place? I’ve had converestions they’re excited we’re going to be there – do same sort of thigns bu don’t do the same thing. already had convestionw with guys at hypnotic – trade products – guys at lounge here

pie involkes memories. Everybody has emotional memories attached to pie. You do’thave ht same thing with cookies and cakes. My grandma’s Alabama pecan pie. A coconut cream. Memories attached.

openings coffee desserts
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Food trends

Dallas-Fort Worth pitmasters lead Texas’ growing halal BBQ boom

Associated Press
Aug 21, 2026 | 1:10 pm
Levant BBQ
Levant BBQ
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FORT WORTH, Texas (RNS) — At 9 am on a scorching Saturday in June, nearly 100 people were already lined up outside Goldee’s BBQ, a small, wooden-shack restaurant.

First in line was 30-year-old Thanh Huynh, who had been sitting in a lawn chair on the joint’s rustic porch since 6:30 am.

“I have, like, a whole list, and I’m going to spend lots of money here. It’ll be worth it,” he said, laughing while rattling off a long order of meats and sides from his phone’s Notes app as a sweet, smoky scent from nearby pits hung in the air.

Opened in 2020 by a group of his friends, the restaurant was named the No. 1 barbecue spot in the state by Texas Monthly a year later, and then won a Bib Gourmand award from the prestigious Michelin Guide, given for “great food at a great value.”

The restaurant serves classic Texas barbecue like craft pork belly, sausage, and ribs. But it also offers halal brisket, turkey, and lamb.

"Halal" means meat raised and butchered in accordance with Islamic guidelines. It refers to the method in which the animals are slaughtered, one that focuses on humane treatment, cleanliness, and acknowledging the value of life — similar in concept to kosher food in Judaism.

A growing number of halal places have opened around Fort Worth in recent years, and there are also non-halal restaurants that use halal beef, such as burger institution Kincaid's, the new Burger Vault in Keller, and the forthcoming Tick Tock Taco in Colleyville.

Growing Texas trend
At a time when Republican leaders are increasingly targeting the state’s growing Muslim communities, halal barbecue joints like Goldee’s are thriving in Texas. Across the state, Muslim pitmasters are gaining recognition for putting their own spin on one of Texas’ most iconic culinary traditions.

Goldee's Barbecue Goldee's Barbecue is an acclaimed BBQ joint in Fort Worth. Goldee's Barbecue/ Facebook

At least a dozen barbecue spots now serve halal meats, including Yearby’s Barbecue & Waterice, run by Black Muslim couple CJ and Sabrina Henley, soon-to-be in Plano; and Levant Mediterranean BBQ, a restaurant with locations in Houston and Frisco and whose all-beef menu includes a brisket shawarma sandwich.

“Now there are so many options, and for us to have highly rated barbecue, it’s a blessing,” said Haris Ghaffar, who drove an hour from Celina and stood in 90-degree weather for nearly two hours with a friend for the halal options at Goldee’s.

Growing up in the 1990s, Ghaffar said a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich was one of the few halal meals he could eat while dining out. Back then, halal food was seen as serving a small community. Today, it’s a multibillion-dollar industry that’s part of the American culinary mainstream, said James Beard Award‑winning food writer Farhan Mustafa, who wrote about the rise of American halal barbecue for Bon Appétit magazine in 2025.

“Halal food is American food,” said Mustafa, who is based in Seattle. “It belongs on your plate. It belongs in the casual chat. It belongs in hip hop tracks. It’s the most American thing there is.”

Mustafa said Muslims are part of a growing list of communities putting their stamp on Texas barbecue. “Whether they’re first, second or third-generation Muslims or Muslim Americans or just Americans, they’re bringing what they know and what excites them,” he said.

More than salt and pepper
Texas barbecue is typically defined by salt-and-pepper brisket and pork ribs, but this new crop of halal pitmasters are adding inventive twists, often based on their own family heritages.

Zain Shafi, a pitmaster and co-owner of Goldee’s, previously ran Sabar Barbecue, a food truck that offered Pakistani-infused halal dishes, such as brisket with rub that included spices like bay leaf and coriander.

Sabar was nominated for Best BBQ in CultureMap's 2025 Tastemaker Awards, and made the list of Texas Monthly's Top 50 Barbecue Restaurants of 2025. The restaurant was also featured in a recently published BBQ book Texas BBQ: The Art of Low and Slow. He closed Sabar in December 2025 after two years.

Sabar BBQ Sabar Barbecue offered a Pakistani twist on BBQ. Sabar Barbecue

Shafi brought tandoori smoked turkey to Goldee’s menu. And sourcing halal cuts, he said, was a natural choice because they are “the highest quality” meats.

Goldee’s chef and part owner Nupohn Inthanousay also blends his Laotian heritage, serving a smoked Lao “sai oua” sausage with sticky rice and a fiery, tangy dipping sauce.

At Kafi BBQ in Irving, owner Salahodeen Abdul-Kafi brings halal Wagyu beef and Iraqi spices to classic Texas barbecue, challenging what he said is the “traditional old guard of Texas barbecue.”

“My goal at Kafi BBQ is to make the best barbecue in Texas,” Abdul-Kafi said. “I have not been shy about that at all, and making the best barbecue in Texas does not necessarily have to include pork.”

A former Silicon Valley tech worker, he moved to Texas six years ago in search of a Muslim community. On weekends in his backyard, he smoked brisket for friends. By 2024, he bought a smoker and opened Kafi BBQ.

He said he spent months testing and perfecting recipes and finding local producers. Abdul-Kafi attributes his obsession with crafting a stand-out menu to the Islamic concept of “Ihsan”— an Arabic term meaning doing something with excellence for the sake of God.

On a Sunday afternoon this summer, the restaurant’s red booths were packed with diners, drawn to menu items like the 13-spice Wagyu brisket, pomegranate-glazed beef belly burnt ends and Iraqi-inspired spicy beef sausage.

“That sausage, I’d probably put it at the top sausage I’ve ever had, and we eat barbecue a lot. This place is unique,” said Jonathan Tate, a Fort Worth resident who came to Kafi BBQ with a friend after reading about it on a Facebook foodie group.

“I don’t necessarily have to have it halal, but it’s nice to know they took good care of the food, the meat,” his friend Jon Sklar said, before going back in line to order oxtail.

Kafi BBQ Meat at Kafi BBQ in Irving. Kafi BBQ

'We love barbecue'
Although political rhetoric against Muslims in Texas has become increasingly hostile — some GOP lawmakers even discussed a ban on halal food at a conference this month — pitmasters like Abdul-Kafi see the rise of halal barbecue as an effective counterargument.

“It’s an example of exactly the opposite of what the Islamophobes talk about, right?” he said. “They say, ‘oh, Muslims don’t integrate, they stay alone, they don’t help society and all this stuff.’ And it’s like, I’m sitting here contributing to the most well-known cuisine of Texas.”

One of the diners at Kafi BBQ, Houston native Muhammad Sohail, 23, said the restaurant reflects who he is — a proud Texan and Muslim. “This place is super important because I can see halal within the culture of Texas, which is my culture at this point,” Sohail said. “We love the food. We love meat. We’re Muslims and we love barbecue.”

After finishing a big lunch with 10 relatives, Areeba Ali, a Dallas native of Indian heritage, said the restaurant’s appeal cuts across communities, which she said is evidence that halal barbecue isn’t a niche but resonates broadly with Texans. “If you look around in the restaurant, you see everybody in there — it’s not just one demographic in there,” Ali said.

For Mustafa, that success is ultimately a testament to the resilience of Muslim American communities.

“No matter how much they try to erase us, our food is here to stay,” he said. “You will see the power of just good food and the fact that most people really seem to understand that this is just as American as anything else.”

---

This story was written and produced by Religion News Service and distributed by The Associated Press. It also includes information from the CultureMap archives.

halal halal barbecue muslim communities pitmasters religion texas texas barbecue trends culinary traditions goldee's barbecue
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