Cade Mercer – koKo Ramen / Guess Family Barbecue – Waco, Texas

In this episode I chat with Cade Mercer from KoKo Ramen and Guess Family Barbecue in Waco, Texas.

  • Guess Family Barbecue Hours:
  • Monday – Saturday – 11am – 8pm
  • Sunday – 10am – 4(Brunch at Guess is only on Sunday)
  • koKo Ramen Hours: Monday – Thursday – 11:00 am – 8:00 pm
  • Friday – Sunday – 11:00 am – 10:00 pm

We start off talking about how hot it gets in a pit room then get into his backstory. He grew up in a small town between Austin and San Antonio near New Braunfels, then moved near Galveston, then onto Fresno, California, then moved back to New Braunfels to work at Rudy’s BBQ.

We get into his going to culinary school and how Reid Guess was the chef at Lambert’s and called him. We talk about that time at Lamberts, his time at East Side Tavern and hanging out at Hung out Freedman’s for a few months where he learned a whole lot from Evan, Chris, Brad and Lane.

He moved to Waco because Reid needed someone to come in to work at koKo because Reid was doing everything. He assisted too on moving koKo the truck to Union Food Hall.

We go into the specials at Guess being a Burger special Monday, Taco Tuesday(using Flores Tortillas), Chicken Fried steak Wednesdays, and a Donut special on Sundays.

We got the lowdown on how things are at both spots. They are both at 50% capacity now for dining in and for Guess they have have a BIG building so they can seat a lot of people if they wanted to.

We go over in depth the Brunch at Guess featuring brisket hash, brisket tacos(again on Flores Tortillas), pancakes AND pulled pork pancakes, biscuits and gravy, and their ‘Build your own brunch” where you can add BBQ along with brunch items. He also gives his ideal tray for brunch.

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