restaurantRestaurant: Impossible · Season 6, Episode 6 · Aired May 26, 2013
Bryan's Smokehouse
Lufkin, Texas
Yes. This one is still open.
On the show
Season 6, Episode 6 · May 26, 2013 · restaurant
episode title: "In the Pits"
What happened after
Still listed under the same name at a Lufkin address; a 2014 news report said the business was sold with the owner 'switching careers,' but the name and address appear unchanged in current directories.
What happened on the show
Bryan's Smokehouse in Lufkin, Texas took a sixth season turn, the standard Restaurant Impossible arc of a 48 hour rebuild bankrolled on the network's tight budget. No episode synopsis survives on Wikipedia, so how Irvine found the barbecue joint and what he reworked are left unstated rather than guessed. The current picture is encouraging but soft. The smokehouse still appears under the same name at a Lufkin address across current directories, though a 2014 report described a sale with the original owner switching careers, and we could not pin down the present operator or hours with a firm source. We mark it open at low confidence and flag it for a targeted re-check, keeping the honest caveat that the listings point one way while a clean confirmation stayed just out of reach.
After the cameras left
Bryan's Smokehouse appears to still exist under the same name, but its ownership makes the picture cloudy. It is listed at a Lufkin address in current directories, yet a 2014 report said the business was sold with the owner switching careers, even though the name and address look unchanged. Because we could not confirm the current operator or hours directly, with the address itself surfacing only via a search snippet, we mark it open at low confidence and flag it as a re-check candidate. The name persists; who runs it now is the open question.
Sources
Confidence: low. Last checked 2026-07-19.
What is there now
Street imagery via Google Maps. Location approximate.