What constitutes barbecue is often up for debate, with different regions of the U.S. boasting their own singular spins—and often a sense of superiority. But while the styles range from vinegar-based pulled pork to double-smoked brisket to Carolina gold sauce-doused meat, most are traditionally served as plated dishes with sides like baked beans, mac and cheese, collards and hushpuppies.

Barbecue sandwiches have enjoyed similar longevity even if they weren’t the default format. But now, menu developers are turning an innovative eye not just to the barbecue itself but how it’s presented in handhelds. “Barbecue is now an accepted craft in the culinary world. Restaurants are utilizing nostalgic or traditional sandwiches—let’s say, a pastrami or a Cuban or any other great sandwich—and they’re replacing that protein with barbecue,” says Christopher Prieto, owner and “head barbecue nerd” of Prime Barbecue in Knightdale, N.C.

Whether swapping out the typical potato roll for a different carrier, adding unexpected sauces or switching up the fillings, barbecue sandwiches present an ideal forum for new recipes as the following in-market examples prove.

From Sandwich to Taco

Photo Credit: Anna Routh Barzin

The Smoked Brisket Birria Taco was so popular at Lawrence Barbecue that it spawned a new restaurant, Leroy’s Tacos, which also serves a Smoked Brisket Quesabirria with Oaxaca cheese.

Like many cities in the Carolinas, Durham, N.C., is an especially competitive barbecue market, encompassing legacy restaurants that have been around nearly a century, new upstarts that are breaking bounds and everything in between. One relatively new player, Lawrence Barbecue, grounds its menu in the classics but puts a wholly original spin on those dishes, including sides like a spiced up Three-Cheese Mac with a “Voodoo” Crumble and a potato salad blended with deviled eggs.

The sandwich selection features fried chicken and the obligatory Carolina-style pulled pork, but it’s the brisket that stands apart. The sandwich is doused in Leisure Cheerwine BBQ Sauce, bringing a Carolina spin to the Texas-style meat. “It’s a sweet, savory and peppery barbecue sauce made with a cherry soda and sugar cane syrup. I wanted to be able to make a Texas-Style barbecue sauce that had something from North Carolina incorporated into it,” says Chef/Owner Jake Wood.

The Bungalow Smashburger further ratchets up the carnivorous factor, with a double brisket-laced patty, cheese, onions and Bungalow Sauce, made with mayo and mustard. Each sandwich is served on tallow-toasted brioche, which Wood says, “brings a crispier toast to the bun and a greater depth of flavor. We trim all of our briskets here in-house and render down the fat with garlic to utilize the waste.”

Perhaps most notable is the Smoked Brisket Birria Taco, which spurred the creation of a new restaurant concept. “We featured the tacos one day as a special, and a local food guide here in the Triangle area with a large following came and made a video, posted it on TikTok and it went viral. We had people traveling from different states just for these tacos,” he recalls. Demand was so high that Wood opened Leroy’s Tacos, with the Smoked Brisket Birria Taco headlining the menu.

In terms of Mexican meats, barbacoa is typically considered the closest equivalent to barbecue as it’s also slow-cooked. But for his birria, Wood starts with smoked brisket—rather than chuck or short ribs—before cooking it down in a consommé, which is also included on the side for dipping. The Smoked Brisket Quesabirria Taco incorporates Oaxaca cheese into the build. The end result for both is a crispy taco shell with fall-apart tender barbecue in the center.

Italian Meets Midwest

Credit: Smokee Mo’s St. Louis BBQ

Smokee Mo’s Mangia Bene stands apart from the typical St. Louis barbecue sandwich, thanks to its housemade Alabama white sauce and garlic bread carrier.

Two-location Smokee Mo’s St. Louis BBQ serves a Midwest sandwich with a global twist. The Mangia Bene is both a nod to owner Frank Imo’s Italian heritage (the name translates to “eat well”) and a strong differentiator in a market with an established barbecue tradition. The sandwich starts with brisket but then diverges from the regional blueprint. Rather than flavor the meat with St. Louis barbecue sauce (typically a combination of ketchup, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar and yellow mustard), the recipe opts for a housemade Alabama sauce, featuring a blend of mayonnaise and horseradish. Neither too heavy from the mayonnaise nor too pungent from the horseradish, the sauce wins over guests—even those who aren’t fans of the two condiments.

“A lot of people don’t like mayonnaise—it’s just not their thing. And it’s the same with horseradish,” says Amber Phegley, general manager of the Manchester, Mo., location. “But with this sauce, every little taste bud inside your mouth just explodes in a way that you wouldn’t expect. It’s one of those things that it is an experience you’re not going to forget.”

The Mangia Bene’s Alabama sauce might win converts, but it’s the carrier that lures customers from the get-go. Instead of the usual hamburger bun or potato roll, the sandwich is served on cheesy garlic bread. “As soon as they hear that it is a garlic bread, their eyes just light up,” Phegley says. The original Mangia Bene—which has been on the menu since the earliest days of Smokee Mo’s nearly decade-long history—features beef brisket but smoked turkey can be substituted in. The menu also includes pulled pork, smoked chicken, smoked pork steak and even vegan barbecue.

Over the years, Smokee Mo’s has created a number of signature sandwiches, but nothing has garnered literal shout-outs like the Mangia Bene. “Whenever people order it, we echo it. So the person cutting the meat and the one making your sandwich are going to yell, ‘Mangia Bene,’ and you will hear from the cash register all the way to the back prep area,” Phegley says. “Then a customer hears that and the next thing you know, we’re selling a Mangia Bene.”

Stacked Sky High

Photo Credit: Prime Barbecue

Prime Barbecue’s Full Nelson holds a trio of meats—deboned beef ribs, whole-link sausage, and chopped pork shoulder—plus coleslaw, pickled onions and a generous helping of sauce.

Inspiration comes in threes at Prime Barbecue since Prieto pulls flavors and ingredients from Texas (where he grew up), North Carolina (where he lives now) and Puerto Rico (where his family has generational roots). Menu standouts include the Saturday-only lechón, which puts an eastern Carolina spin on Puerto Rican-style pork; rather than spit-roasting the pig, it’s butterflied and cooked over coals. The pork is seasoned with adobo and mojo and boasts a crispy skin. Another Puerto Rican variation that’s a fan favorite is the Barbecue Rice, comprising bacon fat-cooked onions and bits of seared housemade sausage cooked in beef broth.

But the triple threat at Prime Barbecue is the Full Nelson, a gargantuan sandwich named after Prieto’s father. The build features double-peppered, deboned beef ribs; whole-link, smoked-in-house sausage; and a quarter pound of pecan-and-oak-smoked, hand-chopped pork shoulder. It’s all topped with barbecue sauce, coleslaw, pickled onions and more barbecue sauce—“just to make sure that it’s penetrated all throughout the sandwich,” he says.

When it comes to the bread, Prieto is a traditionalist. “It’s a double-sided toasted potato bun. It has to be toasted on both sides because there’s nothing worse than picking up a sandwich and the bread either being soggy or unable to hold the sandwich itself,” he says, adding that after the first couple bites, a fork will likely be needed. Still, the roll performs better than most. “Potato bread holds up really well; that’s why, in my humble opinion, it’s the No. 1 hamburger bun.”

The sheer height of the Full Nelson is already a sight to behold, but Prime Barbecue takes the presentation a step further by repurposing the bones. “When the beef rib is deboned, there’s little bits of meat on each side of the bone, which my father also loves,” Prieto says. “We lean that bone up against the sandwich, so in case you’re still hungry, you can eat the little bits of meat off the bone itself.”

An Ongoing Evolution

Pitmasters, chefs and consumers alike have long taken pride in their own regional styles and local variations, but they’re also open to exploring new flavor frontiers. Innovating within the sandwich space has a unique set of benefits. “It takes something typically messy—a cuisine you would sit down to enjoy with friends and family—and consolidates it into something you can enjoy on the go,” says Lawrence Barbecue’s Wood. “Plus, you can add various toppings and sauces to create fun flavors outside of what is considered traditional.”

Indeed, examples of fresh ideas are popping up in cities across the country. The Memphis Dog at growing chain Crave Hot Dogs & BBQ tops an all-beef hot dog with pulled pork, coleslaw and barbecue sauce. Multi-unit Florida concept Park Avenue BBQ Grille converts components of a barbecue plate into a sandwich with its Zac-N-Cheese, featuring pulled pork, mac and cheese, bacon and American cheese. In Houston, Gatlin’s BBQ serves barbecue for breakfast with Brisket & Egg Tacos and the GBBQ Big Boy Sandwich, a triple-decker with fried eggs, smoked ham, bacon, spicy sausage, American cheese and jam. The build-your-own sandwich selection at Q Fanatic BBQ in Champlin, Minn., brings unexpected flavor profiles into the equation through its iconic Espresso BBQ Sauce and Hot Pepper Vodka BBQ Sauce. And The Pig in Chapel Hill, N.C., embraces Southeast Asian flavor profiles in dishes like the BBQ Banh Mi Tacos and the Vietnamese Pork Cheek Sandwich.

Prieto credits barbecue’s current hot status to the rise of social media, the influx of barbecue cookbooks and widespread opportunities to train under established pitmasters. In decades past, he says, the only way to learn barbecue was through family tradition. “The borders that surrounded it in previous generations have been taken down. Because of that, barbecue is evolving—and it’s going to evolve even further,” he predicts.