Somehow, travelers have gotten it into their heads that when they land at IAH, the only move is south, into the sprawl of Houston. But unless business beckons you 25 miles south downtown, give yourself a break – head north instead. The same distance gets you expanses offering food and cigars, with less congestion, homelessness and crime.
Digs are plenty and can go from budget busters to modest, all with easy access to the local flavor. Start with the Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center, which sits lakeside within walking or trolley of shopping, dining and wooded trails.
Photo credit: Rosemeyer Bar-B-Q/Facebook
The Woodlands is the headliner of the region, a master planned, extravagant city of 120,000 developed by George P. Mitchell, an oil developer who changed the energy world by developing fracking. It opened in 1974 and has expanded from 17,000 acres to its current 28,000 acres. Many of the Woodland’s businesses, all the way down to Taco Bells, are set behind preserved tree lines, screened from roadways.
ExxonMobil, Chevron, Haliburton, and Occidental are among the corporate heavyweights headquartered or substantially present in The Woodlands, drawing a steady flow of business travelers and moneyed residents.
While there are plenty of excellent restaurants in the area – all the finest chains include Fleming’s, Del Frisco’s, Morton’s – we’re here for the barbecue.
Texas barbecue is an icon with a smoky backstory. Germans and Czech immigrants settled Central Texas in the late 1800s, hauling with them knives, old-country sausage recipes, and a love of slow-smoking beef. Market-style barbecue, informal yes, with butcher paper, simple rubs, and oak-fired pits took hold. Texas barbecue is part of the immigrant history of the state.
Over the years, we’ve indulged in barbecue all over the state, starting with the fabled Clark’s BBQ in rural north Texas. Acclaimed American food writer Alan Richman, when reviewing barbecue places in the U.S., named Clark’s at the top for Texas. It was a joint with a giant kitchen and tiny porch, sitting at a wide spot in the road.
Photo credit: Rosemeyer Bar-B-Q/Facebook
We enjoy a luxe steakhouse as much as anyone, but on this trip north of Houston, we came for the smoke and informal setting.
So we skipped the white tablecloth and silver joints. Instead, we chased the smoke – paper plates, trays, split logs in stacks, open fire and maybe a trailer.
Texas Monthly named two places in Spring, Texas – population 67,000 – to its quadrennial list of top 50 barbecue places in the state, rankings that are comprehensive and diligently curated. You know you’re getting some real-deal barbecue when you get it from a place suggested by the state’s widely acclaimed magazine.
We start with Rosemeyer Bar-B-Q which combines its Texas Monthly accolade with a Michelin star, both of which are noted on the side of Rosemeyer’s food truck, which parks on a patch of land outside Spring, Texas. A crowd gathers starting around 10 for the 11 a.m. opening, Thursday through Saturday.
The coveted accolade is well deserved. Rosemeyer’s pork belly burnt ends are deliciously sick squares of pig that melt in your mouth. The sliced turkey holds a smokey flavor against all odds; we dislike the side cut and prefer on-the-bone. But this works. The jalapeno cheese sausage explodes with queso goodness. It was all so intoxicating that we had to forgo the bread pudding and the October ice cream flavors, which included Make America Healthy Again, proudly noting its Kool Aid cherry base includes red dye #40.
Once you place your order, grab a free can of beer from the cooler next to the trailer and wait for your food at a picnic table.
It’s a sensory explosion. Make this journey to Rosemeyer’s.
CorkScrew BBQ is also a Texas Monthly honoree as well as a Michelin recipient. CorkScrew is so jammed that a drive-by threatens to derail a visit, patience not being one of our virtues. You need to sit in a lengthy line, which wraps around the porch and into a dirt lot. You will also need to circle the place to find parking. The adjacent lot fills quickly and some people take to sitting and waiting until someone, bursting with what is reported to be top of the line pulled pork, finally clears a space.
Photo credit: Corkscrew BBQ
It’s a good game to play the Texas Monthly list for barbecue goodness. But Texas, including this area, is also blessed with some fine barbecue chains, including Dickies Barbecue Pit and HEB True Texas BBQ, which is part of the HEB grocery family. Pappas Bar-B-Q can be called statewide but 14 of its 16 locations are in the Houston area. Of the three, Pappas is the winner, with some good side dishes including respectable potato salad and excellent chopped beef fries (yes, chopped BBQ beef over fries).
We’re obligated to let you know of Rudy’s Country Store and Bar-B-Q, situated in filling stations from Del Rio to Dallas and now extending into five states. It’s simply the best roadside, chain-style barbecue going, with fall-off-the-bone chicken that we devour with startling enthusiasm. The cole slaw is also top notch. The locations are ubiquitous on the major highways, and such fine work should be rewarded.
One more food tip that is particularly prominent in this region – check into gas station taquerias. They are everywhere and excellent. We’ve seen Salvadoran and Honduran food shops in these as well. Excellent and well-priced, and some stations provide outdoor eating space.
All this meat drives an appetite for another sensory favor. We need a cigar, and the region features a number of very varied options.
Photo credit: Blend Bar with Davidoff Cigars
BLEND Bar with Davidoff Cigars graces some prime real estate in the center of The Woodlands, 100 yards from the Marriott. The outdoor space wraps around the rounded corner spot. Live oaks dangle over couches, chairs and tables, secluding it from a bustling roadway.
The L-shaped humidor features a large Davidoff display, naturally, but also offers a nice selection of less prominent brands, including the Bentley, a premium brand with German roots that is expanding into the U.S., and The Machinist, which debuted this year at the PCA trade show.
Business at BLEND is mostly local, says Beth Ables, who manages the store along with her husband, Alex.
“We get business from the hotels and a lot of walk-ins when there are events in the area,” she says. From the patio, you can see the entrance to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, a 16,500-capacity amphitheater, “and we are absolutely packed here when there is an event there.”
The draw is cigars, but the restaurant at BLEND is a point of pride. Lamb pops, devilled eggs, and crawfish truffle mac & cheese are among the offerings. The $200 “Texas Snack,” which includes a 13-ounce ribeye, rack of lamb, and vegetables, is a curious eye catcher.
BLEND has the run of the business district of The Woodlands, but, as Ables says, “there are so many places around there, you can’t go far without finding someplace to smoke a cigar.”
That includes restaurants, says Phil Gager, the son on the father-son team that manages Woodlands Fine Cigars since it opened in 1996.
“People don’t know about all the places around here where you can bring a cigar and have no problem smoking it,” Gager says, thanking the freedom-minded Montgomery County’s policy. There are a host of local eateries that allow cigars, some even with small humidors, he says.
Gager’s father, Mike, was worn out with his career in the oil sector and opened the shop in the middle of the cigar boom. Business has never waned. The Gagers have cultivated a community-minded barber shop atmosphere, long on conversation between the varied patrons, which spans from airline pilots to energy line workers. They gather in a small circle of leather chairs and a couch on a weathered Asian rug. A small television plays on low volume.
Capacity is ten people, and it’s a rotating cast over the course of a day.
“We are 90 percent regulars but every day someone new comes in,” Gager says.
They’ve never embraced a membership model, offering 18 lockers that are always full. Events featuring cigar celebs are also out, but raffles are in, the prize draws getting humidors, grills and cooking gear.
“We are a store that has a place to smoke,” Gager says. Some of the locals on hand dismiss a newer model of cigar houses, where booze and loud music prevail, with cigars as an afterthought.
“We like to talk,” Gager says.
Not far from Woodlands Fine Cigars – everything in the city is measured by time rather than distance, so 30 minutes – Casa de Montecristo has the largest and most complete humidor in the area. Set in a spacious, large horseshoe, the sprawling vault takes up half the floor space in Casa’s main room, with windows onto both the spacious bar and the separate seating area. To wander around is akin to visiting a terrific library, with all its wide-ranging offerings that are certain to spark your interest.
In keeping with its model, Casa – and the ten lounges it operates – leans traditional: cigars, a few TVs, comfortable chairs, a modest but well-stocked bar, and conversation.
If Casa embodies the established template for modern cigar retailing, Forbes Henderson represents a sparer model.
Henderson, the proprietor of Lone Star Tobacco, sees the emerging bar/lounge model as attracting a newer customer who is just as interested in sports watching and drinking as learning about cigars.
Lone Star is located in the upscale Vintage Park shopping complex that includes dining, boutique shopping, personal care and movies.
Patrons can bring their own alcohol, with a private lounge, roomy humidor and outdoor seating under a canopy on offer.
Like Gager at Woodlands Fine Cigars, Henderson is a cigar lounge purist.
“A lot of those newer concepts of a lounge fail,” he says. “BLEND works because it has real food, not just pub grub. It’s got some atmosphere.”
Yet it’s a necessary evil to merge this entertainment with cigars, liquor and social events. The topic drives the very idea of what constitutes a cigar lounge; is it a full bar, a DJ, electronic golf or other pastimes? Or is it a room, a good cigar and some convivial chatter?
Both, he says.
“The places that use cigars as another piece of the entertainment puzzle are welcome, but it has to be recognized,” Henderson says.
He is speaking, indirectly, to the Office Cigar Bar & Lounge, a year-old space located in a business park. It threatens to be another drinking spot with cigars – defined by a bar at the back of the small room. Yet on layout alone, it’s cigar forward, with a humidor as big as the bar, a well-curated selection of greatest hits and boutiques. The private lounge is open 24 hours for the small membership.
Photo credit: The Office Cigar Bar & Lounge
But The Office hosts casino nights, live music on weekends and karaoke.
“I would say 10 percent of people who come in don’t smoke,” says manager Patricia Marie. “The VIP lounge is active. Some come in before the business opens and work. And some go there at the end of the night when the bar is closing, to stick around.”
Marie was hired by the owner in absentia, Brice Reid, who grew up in the Houston area and moved to Los Angeles to be part of the entertainment industry.
She’d never smoked a cigar before coming to The Office. Within 30 minutes of working there, she was turned on to a Deadwood Sweet Jane, moved on to a Dominicana, and now places orders for the humidor.
She noticed something curious over the past year – people don’t mind silence in a cigar lounge.
“I read the room,” she says. “We might turn sports on the TV, but people don’t watch. They’re here to socialize and smoke.”
It means that some patrons still insist on a conversation without accoutrements other than a cigar. If you want some noise, come back at the appointed time – weekend nights. There’s room for everyone.
Something like The Office has popped up 40 minutes to the north, in an unincorporated community that surrounds Lake Conroe, a man-made water body that is far south enough to have alligators.
Gil’s Cigar Bar opened in January 2024, a well-appointed one-room bar with an outside deck. The bar and the humidor are small. As with The Office, the emphasis is on a place to sit and smoke.
Photo credit: Gil’s Cigar Bar
“About 80 percent of my customers smoke cigars,” says Gilbert Duran, a U.S. Army vet who got turned on to cigars during a humanitarian mission to Nicaragua in the late 90s.
“My intention was to build for my [cigar smoking] hobby,” he says. “And it makes me happy to know I have customers who also enjoy it.”
He decided he wanted a community feel and decided there would be no memberships. Regulars could rent a locker for $400 a year, and with that came a Gil’s branded humidor and monthly free cigars or accessories.
The decision to include entertainment – including karaoke on Friday nights – was meant to include more people in his little society.
“I can go without entertainment, but I have to look at the business side,” Duran says. “I don’t want to lose money, and a lot of times employees will make more money when there is a live event or karaoke.”
He acknowledges, like so many, that “a good cigar enthusiast likes a quiet place and maybe some conversation.”
The Office and Gil’s are examples of an evolving corner bar that features cigars as one more connector. It bodes well for the future of the industry, even as what are perceived as nuisances to some are part of the mainstream.
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There’s a fair argument that heading north from Houston means leaving behind the city’s signature attractions. Chief among them: Space Center Houston, about an hour south.
The center anchors a sprawling campus devoted to NASA history and exploration, drawing about 1.25 million visitors a year. Ticket options range from general admission to private tours, and yes – you’ll navigate crowds and shuttle buses. But put in a little effort and the payoff is real: remarkable access and sharp, engaging insight into how America put humans into space.
The Houston Zoo is another big draw – one of the top zoos in the country – set inside Hermann Park and steps from the city’s Museum District, where more than a dozen institutions cluster in an easy-to-explore hub.
One could also contend that the northern reaches of Houston’s 10,000-square-mile span are simply one big bedroom community. There are few attractions or destinations, chain stores abound, and the beige sameness and strip-mall obsession will be off-putting to urban denizens.
But there are also more green spaces and less density, easier navigation and a friendliness that comes from a less-hurried – but nonetheless ambitious – pace of life.
The food is less formal if you like; trailers and wooden structures dishing out Michelin-starred barbecue is a culinary and cultural adventure. There’s a strong point that Texas does barbecue better than any other state. And of the estimated 2,500 barbecue places in Texas, there are some major league winners, such as Rosemeyer’s. For that, Texas Monthly’s list is verifiably the most reliable place to find the best.
The cigar culture splits four ways: the purists at Woodlands Fine Cigars, the refined hybrid at BLEND, the mix of purists and hybrid at Casa, and the louder, event-driven scene at The Office. Throw in the community of Gil’s and you have a buffet of different rooms, different vibes, good folks. They play together in this growing cigar landscape.
