Jerry Pizzitola, owner of Pizzitola's Barbecue, stands in the entrance of his restaurant Jan. 6, 2009.
Pizzitola's Bar B Cue owners Jerry Pizzitola, left and Tim Taylor stand in the restaurant's historic dining area, Nov. 2, 2011.
Back row: Andrew Woods, Leila Matthews, Jerry Pizzitola and Priscilla Woods. Front row: Lois Davis, Josephine Davis and Linwood Davis pose for a portrait at Pizzitola's BBQ Wednesday December 10, 2014. The late John and Leila Davis were the original owners of the restaurant formerly named Shepherd Bar-B-Q.
Jerry Pizzitola in March 2013
Michael Fulmer, left to right, Jerry Pizzitola and J.C. Reid pose for a portrait March 14, 2013, in Houston.
Jerry Pizzitola, a long-time barbecue fan and entrepreneur who continued the tradition of Houston’s legendary Shepherd Drive Bar-B-Q stand as Pizzitola’s Bar-B-Cue, died January 19. He was 81.
His friend and former business associate Tim Taylor confirmed his death, though declined to say the cause.
Pizzitola was born in Houston in 1942 and grew up in Galena Park. He attended St. Thomas High School and Texas A&M University, where he was a notable football player at both schools.
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Growing up, Pizzitola traveled around Houston with his father, who was in the food service business, and they always made stops at any barbecue joint they passed.
GUIDE: Houston's Top 30 barbecue joints
“There was a neighborhood barbecue joint that sold six chopped beef sandwiches for a dollar on Saturdays,” remembered Pizzitola in 2015. “We rarely went out to eat back then, but we always went there on Saturdays.”
These early tours with his father instilled in Jerry a lifelong love of Houston barbecue restaurants.
Pizzitola’s Bar-B-Cue
1703 Shepherd Dr.; 713-227-2283
Closed Sundays
Throughout the 1950s Pizzitola continued to patronize Houston barbecue joints, most of which were owned by Black pitmasters cooking East Texas-style barbecue. Among his favorites were Matt Garner’s, Lockwood Inn, and Green’s. This was the Jim Crow era of racial segregation and because the restaurants were Black-owned, Black customers ate in the dining room and White customers ordered from a window in the back of the establishment.
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One such establishment was Shepherd Drive Bar-B-Q, owned by trailblazing Houston barbecue restaurateurs John and Lela Davis and opened in 1934. The neighborhood near Shepherd and Interstate 10 was known as the “West End” in the 1940s and was considered “mixed” in that it hosted businesses of many backgrounds, including Black barbecue joints as well as Italian-American grocery stores.
After Jim Crow ended, Pizzitola became good friends with the Davis family and was a regular customer at their barbecue joint.
He began working for his family's business, Regal Food Service, and in the 1970s he introduced a line of packaged barbecue sandwiches that were sold throughout the city. He hired a young pitmaster he met at Otto’s Barbecue on Memorial, Carlton Gould, to run the pits and make the sandwiches.
Pizzitola eventually left the family business — there is some disagreement on whether he resigned or was fired (“I was impeached!” Pizzitola would roar when asked about it many years later).
In 1983 he visited his beloved Shepherd Drive BBQ and learned that both John and Lela Davis had recently died. Eventually their daughter Lois sold the business to Pizzitola, though the family retained ownership of the property and still do to this day.
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After renaming it Pizzitola’s Bar-B-Cue, Jerry hired his longtime friend Gould to be the pitmaster. Gould held that job for more than 30 years until his death in 2016.
In 2003, Pizzitola hired restaurant veteran Tim Taylor to be general manager. Under Pizzitola and Taylor’s direction, Pizzitola’s Bar-B-Cue became known as one of Houston’s old-school joints that also embraced techniques of the craft barbecue movement.
Gould, along with longtime pitmaster Davey Reynosa, continued to cook on the original brick pits built by John Davis — those pits are still used today.
In November 2019, Pizzitola sold the business to longtime Houston restaurateur Willie Madden. After Madden’s unexpected death in 2021, partner James Maida took over and brought Taylor back as general manager.
In recent years, Pizzitola was a frequent presence at his namesake restaurant, though mainly as a customer and informal advisor. He would occasionally be seen visiting with members of the Davis family, who are also frequent visitors to the restaurant.
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