Following the success of his barbeque food truck, Roy May, Class of 2015 and former yell leader, opened up a stationary restaurant.
Good Bull BBQ’s original food truck was parked across from campus, and an overwhelmingly positive response from the community accelerated the timeline for serving from a brick-and-mortar location.
In roughly 60 days, May and his team revamped the location to reflect their goals for the restaurant. They elicited little outside help, working to create Good Bull’s atmosphere from knocking out walls to creating bright chalkboard art.
“It needed some work,” May said. “This place kind of looked like a war zone. Even when we were three days from opening, it didn’t look like we were going to pull it off, to be honest. Looking back, it was a lot of fun. But when you’re in the building every day, you don’t really see the progress. When you step back, you notice.”
After graduating from A&M, May decided to call College Station home and has always wanted to bring a new barbeque joint to the area. Every decoration inside holds meaning to Roy and his team, including a hallway dedicated to the Bonfire Memorial.
“The biggest thing that is our hope, is we wanted to create a destination location in College Station for barbeque,” May said. “It’s not just a place where you can get your barbeque, sit down and eat, maybe grab a cold beer and leave. We wanted to create a place to tell a story with. It’s a little bit of my story, it’s a little bit of the story of A&M.”
May said he is grateful for the enormous social media support that Good Bull has gained, and said the support has helped immensely. Compared to the food truck, this new location has afforded the business the ability to serve more food and expand the menu with little hassle.
“The barbeque trailer gave us a great avenue to get our food into the market here in Bryan-College Station, with a lot less financial risk,” May said. “A mobile venue is exponentially cheaper than running a physical establishment.”
Psychology senior Dean Aramburu said he has gone to Good Bull so many times he can’t count his visits, eating there at least once a week since opening, and at the food truck before that. Aramburu said his favorite dish is the pulled pork tacos, which he recommends to all first time visitors.
“It’s the same food, just better hours now. Now if I wanted to, I could go for lunch and dinner,” Aramburu said. “The food’s incredible. It’s probably the best pulled pork I’ve ever had, and I’ve been to a bunch of the big barbeque places in Texas. Nothing really compares.”
Caroline Plowden graduated last May from the Professional Program in Accounting at Mays Business School. She became friends with May when he participated in her sorority’s philanthropy event while they were both students. Plowden said she is happy to see May’s dream become a reality.
“I think he is one of the most sincere, good hearted people, which I think might be a bit of a surprise to some, just because he has the military background, he’s done a lot with his life with the old guard, but he really just has the biggest heart,” Plowden said. “He loves to serve people, and I think his favorite way to do that is making great food.”