One of Waco’s longest independently owned barbeque restaurants was started in 1978 by Dan Henderson and partners F.E. “Buck” Massey and Elsie Dieterman. The original location was 1521 Wooded Acres Drive. Uncle Dan’s Barbeque really started to flourish in 1980 when Dan married Clara McNulty, a Baylor graduate and experienced restaurateur. Clara bringing in years of experience saw the opportunity to create her “now famous” Texas Tater, bring in Smoked Turkey Breast, and introduce our popular white potato salad to Waco.
1988 was a turning point in Dan and Clara’s life when they decided to purchase Mr. Massey and Ms. Dieterman’s shares of Uncle Dan’s. The late 1980’s also brought off-premise catering and delivery to the Uncle Dan’s service line-up.
In 1990, Uncle Dan’s expanded to 231 North Hewitt Drive in order to more conveniently serve the populations of the Hewitt, Robinson and Lorena areas. Hewitt’s drive-through window has been and still is a big crowd-pleaser among Uncle Dan’s patrons.
In 1996, Dan and Clara bought the old Kelly’s Night Club building at 1001 Lake Air Drive. After completely remodeling the building and adding a drive-through window, Uncle Dan’s made the move to its new location in May of 1998.
In March 2008 Dan brought experienced restaurant manager Gregory Behm into the family as his new Manager at the Lake Air Dr location to help with the continuing growth of the business and expansion of our catering opportunities.
With the remodeling of the Waco location in 2019, Dan Jr. helped to implement some newer ideas along with our traditional items by adding Prime Brisket Friday, a premium brisket with a custom-made spice rub and kissed with the flavors of oak and mesquite smoke. Along with our new remodeled restaurant, we are happy to announce we have remodeled our private dining rooms at our Lake Air Dr location, for our families and local businesses to enjoy the luxury of private dining for groups from 6 to 68.
In April of 2025 a new chapter was begun in the Uncle Dan’s story as Dan looked towards retirement and moving into a new phase in his life and sold the operations of the business to his long-time Operations Manager Gregory Behm in preparation for the days to come. As we look to the future our focus will still be on our own unique menu classics with an eye towards the continuing evolution of flavors in the Texas BBQ scene and local sourcing of clean healthy foods wherever possible.
Uncle Dan’s BBQ is proud to operate in the Waco area and look forward to many more years of serving our guests and their families here in Waco and all of Central Texas.
