Opening day at Bark Barbecue: Ruben Santana's Dominican smokehouse lands on NYT Cooking

The 300-seat Bushwick restaurant comes from a Queens pitmaster who taught himself to smoke meat in his backyard during the pandemic.

Channel: NYT CookingStory of October 3, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.

NYC’s Newest BBQ Joint: Opening Day at Bark Barbecue | NYT Cooking

NYT Cooking posted three videos in seven days, and the one with the biggest audience follows a restaurant through its first morning. Ruben Santana, a Queens native who often cooks in a ten-gallon hat, learned barbecue in his backyard during Covid by watching videos, then applied low-and-slow Texas rules to the food of the Dominican Republic, where his parents are from. Bark Barbecue now has a 300-seat home in Bushwick, and the menu, as the description lays it out, runs from shredded brisket carnitas and arroz congri to tres golpes sandwiches stacked with pulled pork, fried cheese and plantains.

The comments read like a reunion. Viewers remember him from food markets, from a Munchies segment and from the TV series Pitmasters, and the most liked one is about a former mother-in-law who still cooks for him. One mother says her son works in that kitchen.

The other two uploads stay closer to home: Andy Baraghani's lemony pepper steak and celery stir-fry, a dish the title says he eats more than once a week, and October's Bake Time, Vaughn's maple cardamom sticky buns, which drew a crowd fast in their first hours.

The video carrying the most daily traffic, though, is ten days old: Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman making pizza while promoting their romantic comedy "The Love Hypothesis," closing in on 900,000 views. Overall the channel ran somewhat above its usual daily pace. Among cooking channels of its size, Chef Thomson is having the loud week, while ChefSteps and Early American are holding steady.

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The videos drawing views on NYT Cooking right now

‘I Eat This More Than Once a Week’ (Pepper Steak Stir-Fry With Lemon)…85,947 views · 2026-09-30 These Sticky Buns Are Not for the Faint of Heart | Bake Time | NYT Co…28,537 views · 2026-10-02 Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman: The Pizza Interview | NYT Cooking886,887 views

The numbers

Here is how NYT Cooking's week looks in figures.

views gained this week, compared with similar channels

Chef Thomson

12,980,934

The Grumps

3,185,886

NYT Cooking

2,727,919

Jimi Jackson

153,558

subscribers

1,340,000

no significant change in the last 7 days

total views

274,607,346

views per day

506,341

typical day: 426,309

this week's videos (first-day views)

NYC’s Newest BBQ Joint: Opening Day at …

52,796

‘I Eat This More Than Once a Week’ (Pep…

42,434

compared with similar channels (subscribers)

Chef Thomson

1,440,000

Early American

1,380,000

The TRY Channel

1,380,000

ChefSteps

1,380,000

NYT Cooking

1,340,000

Jimi Jackson

1,340,000

The Stay At Home Chef

1,330,000

The Grumps

1,270,000

Ethan Rode

1,260,000

As of October 3, 2026 · Data source: Trari Social News, Trari Traffic Trends and Ranking Platform, Google YouTube

Subscriber, view, like and comment counts are YouTube's. Rates, usual days, rankings, comparisons and categories are Trari's own calculations.

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