It’s hard to call a Top 50 Texas Monthly BBQ joint a “hidden” gem, but when Rejino Barbeque was put on the list last year, I’d never heard of it. After the Texas Monthly writeup, I’d been looking for a reason to get to Olton ever since.
Through football season I was on air Monday through Saturday and Rejino opens Thursday through Saturday from 11:00 am through sellout. When the stars finally aligned and I had the day off last Thursday, I took the drive out to Olton for some lunch while on my way to Arlington to catch some Texas Tech baseball games.
The protip is to order your smoked gold online so you can guarantee yourself a quality trip, but I rolled the dice to go meet Aaron Rejino in person. The Olton Native has been around West Texas but wanted to get home back several years ago so he started selling barbeque out of his garage. Turns out, he’s pretty dang good at smoking meats.
When Texas Monthly’s Daniel Vaughn first found Rejino back in 2018, he called Rejino’s work a testament to hard work in small-town West Texas. Olton still loves Rejino’s, but the brand is much bigger now than it was back in 2018. The 2022 version of the restaurant has an expanded patio and robust online ordering system to allow people from all over West Texas to travel in.
When I was there last Thursday, from Lubbock, a guy stopped Aaron and told him how much he loved the food. Aaron asked where he was from and the gentleman responded Muleshoe. “What brings you to Olton?” was Aaron’s next question to which the Muleshoe Man responded with a simple, “You!”.
Between the two of us, we’d traveled over an hour just for Lunch, and I hope to do so again plenty more times in the very near future.
The ‘Hidden’ BBQ Oasis in Olton, Texas
You can also catch Rejino’s as a sponsor on my podcast, the Gamblin’ Gauchos, where we recently caught up with Dallas Braden who took us through his life story, and that time he threw a perfect game.
