"There's not a halal Texas barbecue in the Bay Area, so we definitely see a need for that," said Reka Saleh, co-owner of Fikscue. "And, of course, we wanted to reach a broader community."
She added, "It's been a roller coaster ride, to be quite honest."
Hazel Carrasco-Spooner and her friend lined up at 10:30 a.m. for the noon opening.
"She told me about this place a while ago," she said, "so we wanted to try."
"9.5 out of 10," added Nick Ngo, the first person in line.
"When we first started there was barely anybody in line," said Fik Saleh. "People started coming earlier and earlier and I think the earliest came at like 9 o'clock, so, three-hour wait."
Fikscue is an Indo-Tex craft barbecue restaurant where they serve Texas style barbecue mixed with a selection of Indonesian cuisine. All of their food is certified halal.
Reka and Fik Saleh opened their restaurant in Alameda in November 2023, and since then they've taken off, recently finding themselves featured on the New York Times "Top 50 Best Restaurants" list for 2024.
"Barbecue was a hobby of mine," said Fik. "I started selling the barbecue out of the house and then a few weeks after, Reka joined."
Reka had her own pop-up shop, making and selling Indonesian cookies. She decided to take the leftover trimmings from Fik's barbecue to create one-of-a-kind Indonesian dishes.
"We just wanted to share our craft and our passion with what we do with the community," said Reka. "And bridging these two food cultures together, especially Indonesian food that is very under-represented here in the Bay Area."
"It goes well together because in Indonesia, we like marinated beef and things like that," added Reka. "So I said why not try it. It doesn't hurt to try. I was just playing around, R&D at first and it really blended well."
Be sure to try their Rendang Plate, a slow-cooked curry with smoked brisket served with rice, garlic chips, sambal and a spicy egg on top.
"It's rendered down curry," explained Reka, "where it becomes very deep, savory, rich, full of spice dish."
And of course, Fik serves up a classic Texas-style barbecue plate with everything you would come to expect from one of the top barbecue restaurants in the country.
"The Texas barbecue staple is the smoked brisket," Fik explained. "We also have the beef 'dino ribs' plate, smoke fried chicken, beef ribs, and house-made sausage, which is all beef with a sheep casing because everything is halal and we don't have any pork."
Fikscue is open Saturdays and Sundays due to their days-long, slow cooking process, which is part of what makes their food so tantalizing and well worth the wait.
They start serving at noon and close whenever they run out of food, so plan accordingly. But don't worry, they keep a white board nearby where they regularly update how much food they have left.
"The response has been amazing," said Reka. "We've gotten repeat customers from Alameda or even from afar like Sacramento. It means so much to know that they would go the distance and wait in the line and have our food."
She continued, "For them to carve out X amount of hours of their day to try our food, it means so much to us."
For more information, visit Fikscue's website.