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Junek's BBQ Grows from Grocery to Restaurant
By NICOLE PRIOLO

It's worth the trip out to Wellborn to try Junek’s Barbecue. Junek’s, which is located on 2154 slightly north of Greens Prairie Road, has more to offer than just barbecue. The menu boasts everything from pork to jalapeno cheese sausage to shrimp baskets and more.

Mark Junek, owner of Junek’s Barbecue, said their menu hasn’t always been this diverse. It wasn’t until they made the move to the new building that he decided to add more options. In January of this year, the restaurant celebrated its second anniversary of being in the new building. Before that, it was run out of Junek’s Grocery. In those days, they sold barbecue in the store and offered catering services, but customers weren’t able to dine in.

Junek’s dad bought the store in 1981, but when he retired, Junek and his wife Becky moved from Dallas to take over. His father ran a deli out of the store, and Junek said all he had at the time was a little Brinkmann’s Smoker, which they inevitably wore out.

“Eventually people asked us to do parties for them, so we started doing catering, and now catering probably makes up about three quarters of our business.” Junek said they do a lot of catering for various departments at Texas A&M University, and they have also done catering for the City of College Station. Additionally, they do about 20 or more weddings during the year.

“We had to get more room because our catering grew so much. We just were on top of each other, and we ran out of space. We also figured we needed to put a place where someone could sit down and eat.”

When you dine in at Junek’s, you will notice the rustic look of the building, complete with stained concrete floors and wood tables, which were made by hand. Junek did the finishing himself. The overall atmosphere of the restaurant is both casual and relaxing.

“You don’t have to dress up. You don’t have to go in and put slacks and a nice shirt on just to come and eat a hamburger or to eat a steak,” Junek said. “I want people to be comfortable when they come in.”

Prior to taking over the business, Junek graduated in 1984 from the Institute of Electronic Science, a two-year school that used to be part of TAMU. His background is in engineering technology, and he worked primarily in quality assurance when he was living in Dallas.

“I came from a quality assurance background, and that’s where I try to apply my past knowledge, trying to make sure that we had consistent, high-quality food at affordable prices, and it would be that way every time,” Junek said. He wants his customers to know what they’re going to get, so he refuses to cut corners with the quality and the cost.

It’s beliefs like these that have allowed Junek’s Barbecue to continuously evolve and grow since the late 1980’s when he began offering catering services. From a business that went from having a single barbeque pit to two commercial pits, from having no seating area at all to offering a restaurant that can hold 50, Junek’s proves that not only does good barbecue sell, but so does consistency.