One might easily take the local hospitality community for granted, knowing how readily bartenders and spirits brand reps have stepped up in recent years for benefit events aiding abused kids, disaster relief or Trigger’s Toys, a nonprofit serving hospitalized kids and their families.

Now, in the midst of widespread shelter-in-place orders that have shut down area bars and restaurants because of coronavirus concerns, it’s their own community that needs the help – and a team of local BBQ pitmasters hopes to come to the rescue with a meaty effort dubbed The Great Texas Bar-BQ Pick-Up.

Led by Leo Morales of Barrel & Bones Craft Bar and Smokehouse in The Colony, the team — which includes Dallas’ Ferris Wheelers and Smoke Sessions of Royse City — plans to cook 250 briskets to anchor hundreds of meals whose sale will benefit struggling hospitality workers. The effort is being organized by Trigger’s Toys, which hopes to distribute proceeds to about a hundred area bartenders.

“They’ve always been there for Trigger’s, so Trigger’s is going to be there for them,” said Bryan Townsend, who co-founded the Dallas-based charity nearly a decade ago with wife Stacey.

It was the hospitality industry, Townsend said, that helped build Trigger’s Toys’ success, volunteering to staff the Ultimate Cocktail Experience, the agency’s annual event that has raised $1 million since 2012.

So when Morales approached him and Brian McCullough, both of whom often help put together bartender-driven benefit efforts, they were all in.

“Leo’s been part of the bar community,” McCullough says. “He knows this impacts all of our friends.”

Morales already had experience providing BBQ meals to local breweries that don’t have their own kitchens, so the infrastructure was in place.

For $50, you can buy a family meal — including two pounds of brisket, plus two sides — for your household and/or front-line workers such as nurses and police officers. Or you can simply make a donation to the effort.

“We’re really just trying to crush this thing from all angles,” Townsend says.

The meals will be available for pickup on April 27 at as many as 20 brewery locations throughout the Dallas area, and Townsend hopes to repeat the event if it’s successful. You can place your order here.

The effort comes a week after Cattleack Barbecue in Farmers Branch announced that it would give away 300 pounds of brisket and burnt ends to those in need of a meal.