Some travellers pick an itinerary around an aircraft type or a lie-flat seat. A veteran aviation blogger recently booked a connection through Dallas for a different reason: barbecue. Instead of flying nonstop to Burbank, he deliberately routed through Dallas-Fort Worth specifically to try American Airlines' new Pecan Lodge barbecue platter in domestic first class — and declared the detour completely worth it.
The platter features smoked beef brisket and sausage served with macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, pickles, onions, peppers, and Pecan Lodge's own barbecue sauce. It's the dinner option; at lunch, American serves a smoked brisket sandwich instead. Pecan Lodge itself is one of Dallas's most respected barbecue joints, starting at the Dallas Farmers Market in 2010 before settling in the Deep Ellum neighbourhood.
What makes this interesting is how the partnership grew. American first tested the barbecue on select flights between Dallas and New York, and passenger response was strong enough that the airline rolled it out to eligible domestic first class departures from DFW.
The verdict on board? Genuinely impressive. The brisket stayed tender and moist — a real feat, since beef often turns dry and tough in an aircraft oven — with a deep smoky flavour that held up on reheat. The sausage had a proper snap, the mac and cheese developed a crusty edge the reviewer compared to scraping the bottom of a Swiss fondue pot, and the pickles and slaw brought the acidity you'd expect at a Texas smokehouse. His one complaint: portion size. He jokes he could have eaten four helpings and now needs to visit the restaurant itself. Only missing note: no cornbread.
Why should this matter to anyone booking a flight? Because in-cabin food is starting to influence routing decisions on domestic routes, not just international ones. If you're flying American out of Dallas in first class on a dinner-time departure, the Pecan Lodge platter appears as a preorder option — and it's apparently good enough that you might, like this reviewer, choose a connecting itinerary through DFW just to get it. It also hints that airport-adjacent cities with famous food scenes could become stopover draws in their own right. airline meal of the year lists have a new frontrunner before the year is even close to done.
If anything, the small onboard portion works as advertising: the real fix is a table at Pecan Lodge in Deep Ellum, where the helpings are considerably more generous.
