There are an estimated 4,000 restaurants in San Francisco collectively serving up tens of thousands of dishes. For Gazetteer SF, food enthusiast and man-about-town Omar Mamoon is recommending the best ones. This is Order Up.
Whenever there’s a hankering for a big tray of smoked meats, I usually just wait until my next trip to The Lone Star State — I travel there three times per year. But recently a friend turned me on to Pico’s BBQ, a new-to-me Texas-style barbecue outfit that operates out of a little red truck in a parking lot in the Port of Redwood City on Saturdays (“from noon to none”). I checked it out last weekend and I’m happy to report: Pico’s is the real deal worth the meat sweats.
The brisket? Glorious, glistening with a pronounced peppery bark. The ribs? Tender with a chew, still hanging on the bone. (Contrary to what people tend to enthuse, ribs that “fall off the bone” are overcooked.)
But it’s Pico’s shiny sausages that I swoon for.
There are two types: one super savory, the other slightly spicy, both ethereally juicy in the center with that satisfying snap when your teeth pierce the casing upon contact. I just can’t get enough.
It helps that the person behind Pico’s is a seasoned cook-turned-pitmaster named Russell Savage (an appropriately badass surname, really). Born-and-raised in Palo Alto, Savage studied culinary arts at Johnson & Wales University in Denver and spent his career cooking in various outlets from fine dining to personal cheffing before he found the light in meat.
“I got burnt out of cooking but wanted to stay within the realm of food,” says Savage. “The idea of slowly transforming humble ingredients into something special has always appealed to me and that’s what led me to barbecue.”
So Savage did what any normal person would do: he packed his bags, got in his car, and drove almost two thousand miles to Texas in 2019. He had no plan but knew he wanted to learn the art of smoked meats. He ended up spending the next few years studying the craft at places like Terry Black’s, Tejas Chocolate & Barbecue, and Hurtado Barbecue — all respected spots that have made Texas Monthly’s Top 50 BBQ Joints list over the years.
Savage eventually moved back to Palo Alto in 2023 to start Pico’s. “I thought it would be a fun challenge and a cool way to introduce a style of cooking and food I fell in love with to the community I grew up in,” he told me.
He started smoking and selling meats informally out of the front of his parents’ house, which led to catering gigs, then pop-ups. His business grew organically. At the end of 2024, he procured a red truck and a large smoker, which he now parks at the Port of Redwood City (459 Seaport Ct.).
Before he can serve those smoked meats and superlative sausages, Savage must start three days before. After cutting down the beef brisket and pork rib, he seasons the trim with some secret spices and lets the meat cure overnight. The next day, he grinds down the meat and handcranks it into hog casings to form 1/3 pound links, which he then hang-dries in the fridge overnight to dry out the casing and create a snappier sausage.
Come early Saturday morning, Savage smokes the sausages at 150 degrees for 4 hours, imparting an essential ingredient: smoke. Instead of using post oak that’s traditional to Texas barbecue, Savages burns almond wood, which is local and abundant in California.
After the initial smoke, Savage places the sausages in an ice bath to stop the cooking process, then smokes them at a higher temperature right before service to warm the sausages through and get them extra snappy. He does about 40 pounds of sausage a week, which makes 60 house links and 60 slightly spicy hot links.
With the exception of staff on Saturday who help take orders, Savage is a one-man operation. He starts cutting and selling his meats at noon and goes until it’s gone. I visited last Saturday and people were already lined up at 11:30 am; he was sold out around 2:00 pm.
My advice: come with a crew, order everything, and take it to the tables along the water and consume it immediately. With as much time and care that goes into Savage’s smoked meats, you won’t want to wait a second longer to eat them.
