Sloan Rinaldi, founder of Texas Q and a fourth-generation pitmaster, is turning a midlife career change into a multifaceted barbecue empire that spans sauces, rubs, media production, and international business development. Her story, featured on The Building Texas Show, illustrates how a traditional craft can evolve into a global platform for cultural exchange and economic opportunity, with implications for entrepreneurs in food, media, and beyond.
Rinaldi's journey began after she left a career in construction at 50. A sliced brisket sandwich at Killen's Barbecue inspired her to teach herself fire management and competition barbecue. She commissioned a smoker from East Texas Smoker Company and quickly made her mark, placing 14th out of 250 teams at a Texas State Championship. She then landed a statewide deal with H-E-B for her original Texas Q sauce, but pulled it from shelves to reformulate without high fructose corn syrup—a decision that prioritized quality and consumer health over short-term sales.
Today, Texas Q is based in Houston, where Rinaldi hosts private barbecue crawls and is expanding her media ventures. Her upcoming nine-episode series, From Texas With Love: United We BBQ, will film across eight countries and three continents, including Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Argentina, and Japan. Each episode pairs a Texas barbecue tradition with a different country's live-fire cooking culture, from Ibérico hogs to Japanese wagyu to Argentine gaucho asado. The series culminates in a finale cook-off in Houston, bringing all featured cooks together.
Rinaldi's international reach is already tangible. She recently hosted two Taiwan-based venture capitalists on a private Texas Q barbecue crawl in Houston. They flew 15 hours and fasted for a full day beforehand. The itinerary included one of only three Michelin-starred barbecue restaurants in the world, plus two Top 15 stops, one of them Top 10. By the end of the day, the conversation had shifted from barbecue to business, with specific cities now in play for future ventures.
Back home, Rinaldi is filming Grillz on Grills, a new Houston culture series with Bun B, Slim Thug, Trae tha Truth, and Paul Wall. It explores the city's food, music, and custom-grillz scene, which Rinaldi says has gone global. She and her co-host get their own custom grillz built during the series, expected to launch on YouTube, with hopes for Netflix.
Rinaldi's philosophy underscores why this matters: “You can put the richest guy and the poorest guy at the same table, having the same meal. You can't get that in any other cuisine. So it is the most uniting cuisine or culinary culture on earth.” That belief drives her media projects, which aim to bridge cultures and create business opportunities. For more information, you can reach out via Email Contact.
The implications are significant. Rinaldi's model shows how a niche food brand can scale into international media and diplomacy, leveraging authenticity and personal narrative. As she builds out her media ventures, she is positioning Texas barbecue as a global connector, with potential to influence tourism, trade, and cross-cultural understanding. Her story also highlights the power of reinvention, proving that it's never too late to pursue a passion and turn it into a thriving enterprise.
