Valley food truck to open brick-and-mortar barbecue spot in Tempe

A Texas-style barbecue restaurant serving beef ribs and brisket smoked onsite is coming to Tempe.

Wild Barbecue is setting up shop on University Drive, about a half-mile west of Mill Avenue. The new restaurant is taking over the space formerly occupied by Arizona Distilling Co. and is slated to open in early November.

Mo Abu Ghazal launched Wild Barbecue as a food truck in 2023. He and his brother Ahmad, who manages the business, have worked large events, toting their custom food trailer and custom 750-gallon double smoker around the Valley. 

A combination of happy customers asking if they had a restaurant and the grind of hauling their heavy trailer and smoker around town motivated the brothers to seek a brick-and-mortar location. 

They looked for nearly two years for a building that was large enough to accommodate their smoker and a decent-sized dining crowd, and a structure that was established and not a new build. The original Arizona Distilling location checked all of the boxes. 

“It was exactly what we were looking for and it’s a really good location,” Abu Ghazal says. 

What’s on the menu at Wild Barbecue?

Along with brisket and ribs, customers will be able to order beef cheeks in a sandwich or a la carte, plus traditional sides like macaroni and cheese and coleslaw. 

In addition to beef, the menu will feature tandoori turkey and lamb. Spiced Mediterranean rice and Mediterranean salad are nods to the cuisine Abu Ghazal grew up eating in his homeland of Jordan. 

“To go with smoked meat, you need rich, flavorful side dishes with a lot of herbs,” Abu Ghazal says. “Nothing bland.” 

Abu Ghazal cooks his signature brisket at 250 to 275 degrees for 12 hours, and then rests it for another 12. The meat is smoked over post oak sourced from the mountains in northern Arizona. This particular wood results in a different, more savory flavor than mesquite or other varieties, while holding its temperature well, Abu Ghazal explains. 

Arizona Distilling’s wood-fired pizza oven still occupies the kitchen, and Abu Ghazal plans to use it to bake bread. The fast-casual restaurant will feature an open layout, allowing customers to see their orders come together in real time. 

“You can see how we smoke the meat, how we cut it,” Abu Ghazal says. “You can see everything.”

Wild Barbecue will open without a bar, but there are plans to offer alcohol in the future. 

The 55-seat, 5,000-square-foot property features a front patio facing University Drive and the capacity to eventually host diners on a back patio, near the custom smoker.

A burning passion

A structural engineer by trade, Abu Ghazal moved to Dallas with his brother, a software engineer. This is where Abu Ghazal discovered American barbecue and the art of low-and-slow cooking.

“In Jordan, it’s different, it’s fast… 45 minutes is the maximum time it cooks,” Abu Ghazal says. “That’s where I found my passion in barbecue and smoking.”

A lot of intensive research, trial and error and hands-on learning from experienced professionals in Dallas, Houston and Austin helped him hone his newfound craft. When Ahmad’s career brought him to Phoenix, Abu Ghazal followed in 2021. The brothers still have their engineering day jobs, but here, Abu Ghazal saw the opportunity to turn his passion into a serious side gig. Wild Barbecue was born. 

In addition to the expected questions about the smoking process, whether he brines the meat — he does — and seasoning secrets, Abu Ghazal gets a rather unique query: How does a Jordanian engineer get into Texas-style barbecue at this serious level? 

“I get a lot of those questions,” Abu Ghazal says with some laughter. “For me, it’s all about the wood, the long process and the way to do it right is you have to be patient. It’s about how to get the best barbecue here.” 

Wild Barbeque

Opening in November
601 W. University Drive, Tempe