In a way, a recent trip to Clarkston, Michigan caused me to spend four days in Texas. I ventured to Clarkston to check out the Detroit Free Press restaurant of the year. The Union Woodshop was touted as having great BBQ. Imagine that, great BBQ in a BBQ wasteland! It appeared that we were finally going to get some BBQ to crow about in Michigan! I really did want to love this place. I tried a cross-section of the menu. Pulled pork, brisket, smoked chicken, sausage, a wood-fired pizza (kind of a giveaway that BBQ isn’t what they are all about), and burnt ends. I admit that the burnt ends were slightly above average, but the overall experience was very disappointing. At least in the front of the house there was no passion for the food. Part-time wait staff doing a part-time job with a very limited knowledge base about the food and the soul of The Union Woodshop. I left very disappointed and still in need of some great BBQ. It was then and there I decided a road trip to the hill country of Texas was called for to satisfy my quest for some really great brisket served up by people who love what they do.
I chose Austin as my base camp. A great city with a wonderful wacky vibe. It is also kind of in the middle of what is known as the Texas BBQ trail. I would be able to hit at least 12 spots over my few days and tie in a few other treats for myself like a minor league ball game or two. I was fortunate enough to have a sidekick along for the trip who is always open to hitting a local dive. We grabbed some tickets and off we went.
Day 1
We arrived in Austin late on a Thursday afternoon. We threw our gear in the room and walked across 6th street to get to the legendary Stubb’s BBQ. The place was hopping, but we managed to get a small table in the bar. We were there only to kick off the BBQ quest and didn’t need to wait around for a more formal table. We jumped right into it and ordered brisket, chicken, mac and cheese, along with something called Serrano cheese spinach. An adult beverage also made it to the table. We plowed into the first stop on the BBQ tour and realized we had made a rookie mistake. We had to cool it with the sides if we were to hit all the joints we had in mind! I put the first piece of brisket into my mouth and realized right away that the crowd at Stubb’s was there for the great music and not the Q. The chicken had no smoke flavor. I felt like I was back in Michigan!
If it tells you anything, the star of the plate was the Serrano cheese spinach, which turned out to be a casserole that had a great bite to it. Disappointed but unbowed we left Stubb’s (which really is a cool music venue) and headed down the street in search of salvation. To answer our prayers we stumbled upon a bright blue cart right down the street that had “Bar-B-Q Heaven” painted on the side. I took this as a sign and stopped to visit. I met Darren who had been smoking brisket for 17 years. He learned the trade from his dad who had been in business for 27 years before handing it off to his son. Here was a man passionate about his craft! He took us around back to show us his smoker and explain the 17-hour process required to do it right. He provided us with a sample of brisket and I knew right then and there that the trip was not a boondoggle after all!
This was real brisket. A tremendous smoke flavor, paired with great meat, and just the right amount of fat to make a piece of his brisket melt in your mouth. He is open from 4:00 PM to 4:00 AM six days a week. With a new bounce in our step we headed for the last destination of the evening, The Iron Works BBQ. It was nearing closing time as we picked up our trays and headed to the counter. As it was the last stop of the night, we tried the brisket along with smoked turkey. We fell into a trap that was repeated too often by having a few sides as well. We promised each other that from that point on sides would consist of no more than pickles and onions. We liked the vibe of this place as we headed out to the back porch to try their fare. The brisket, while much better than Stubb’s, didn’t hold a candle to Bar-B-Q Heaven. The star of the plate was the smoked turkey. It had a great smoky flavor with a pepper rub. It made us discuss the value of developing a smoked turkey trail across part of America. Day one was behind us and we had hit three distinctive Austin BBQ joints. The bright blue wagon of Bar-B-Q Heaven won the day, hands down.
Day 2
We headed out bright and early on the road to hit some of the most hallowed BBQ ground this country has to offer. We started off in Lockhart. This small town south of Austin was the southern terminus of the Chisholm Trail. There has been a lot of beef going through this town over the last 130 years! The first stop of the day was Black’s Barbecue. This has been run by the Black family since 1932 and touts itself as the oldest barbecue joint in Texas. We jumped into the line and made our way past the sides to the pit master. We were now in real BBQ country! The smell and the overall ambience made us almost forget that we had another four places to hit that day! Pictures of the Black family and team pictures from seemingly every high school team in Lockhart’s history adorned the walls. It was 10:00 in the morning and opening time for the Black team. Mr. Black (4th generation) greeted us as we entered the place, a very welcoming environment. We ordered a third-pound of brisket and a half chicken and proceeded to a picnic table. I had to try some slaw – I have a hard time passing on the sides. The chicken was so good I started to giggle as soon as I tasted it. This was chicken as it should be done. The smoky flavor was very present but didn’t overpower the moist chicken. I almost went for more but my sidekick reminded me that it was only 10:10 and this was technically a late breakfast we were having. The brisket was excellent as well.
Following Black’s we ventured to the other side of the town square to Smitty’s Market. Though this place has been Smitty’s only since 1999, it housed the famous Kreuz Market for more than 99 years before Nina Schmidt Sells took it over from her father. She got everything but the name of the place, as Kreuz moved to another location in town. There is enough of a story in the split to write a book, I am sure, but we were there for the Q. When you walk into Smitty’s Market, it is like walking into a holy place. I walked past a long row of benches stained by over 100 years of smoke and the meat dripping off the required butcher paper. I truly expected music from the BBQ gods to start playing. This is a special place. We walked into the room housing the pits and were met by a young lady and the pit boss. We had quickly realized that this trip had to be as much about the sausage as it was about the brisket. The game plan turned into an order of brisket, sausage, pickles, and onions. No sides – I was all about discipline now. We were served on butcher paper which was wrapped, and we headed out to the dining hall. The sausage was excellent and the brisket the bomb! The ambience was second to none as you could see the special patina throughout the building that comes from well over a century of hardwood smoke. We had to hit the road as Lockhart held one more place for us.
Kreuz Market was in a newer building on the north side of town. It moved out there in 1999 after starting as a business in 1900 where Smitty’s now hangs their sign. They have built a true temple to BBQ. The menu, as it is with all real BBQ joints, is short and sweet. It is clear that Kreuz does not believe in vegetables getting in the way of great BBQ or in sauce masking the flavor of great brisket. We ventured back to the smoker and I swear I found Elvis’s long-lost brother cutting brisket and shoulder clod to order (see pic). We ordered a link of jalapeno cheese sausage to go along with the brisket. We carried the butcher paper to a picnic table in the dining hall and dug in. We went a bit overboard with the amount of brisket, but was it ever great! The charred bark on the meat was so full of taste that my taste buds are still dancing. The link was a home run as well. The spicy pepper flavor was a perfect foil to the smoked link. Wow, this town seems like the perfect place to spend the rest of my days as far as I am concerned. Great people and great BBQ. What more can you ask for? But, alas, we had other places to go on this fine day, so we jumped in the car and headed further down the road to Luling.
Luling is an interesting town. Once called the “toughest town in Texas,” it has since lost that vibe. The main drag through town is called Davis Street, a street that was once the bustling center of commerce. This was just what the doctor ordered – a long walk before the next bout with BBQ took place. It is too bad that the town is only about five blocks long. We ventured into the Chamber of Commerce to find out a bit more about Luling. I was curious as to how it got its name. An interesting note is that no one seemed to know the answer. I checked it out online later that evening and concluded that there was indeed a great deal of confusion as to the origin of the name. I suggested to the ladies that they make up a story and stick to it. A couple of guys from Michigan would never be the wiser. We continued to chat with two of Luling’s finest as they told us about the upcoming watermelon festival called the Watermelon Thump. It is complete with watermelon spitting contests and the crowning of the “Thump Queen” (that is indeed what they call this lucky lady). We also toured the Central Texas Oil Patch Museum at the insistence of the chamber.
At last we felt we could face another round of brisket. We entered City Market and stood in line to get through the swinging double doors that led to the pit. Again we were greeted by smiling men holding sharp knives. We ordered our regular of brisket and a link. It was wrapped in butcher paper and we made our way to a table. While most of the places we have visited don’t really talk much about sauce, City Market has an interesting sweet peppery sauce that is bright orange and held in high esteem by the locals. This is for good reason, as we used some of this sauce on both the brisket and the sausage. The brisket and sausage were excellent, but by now our taste buds were so accustomed to truly great brisket and links that we really couldn’t decide if we were doing City Market justice. We were getting jaundiced, this was “merely” another great BBQ joint!
We hit the road and headed north after strolling down Davis Street one last time. We were heading up north to Elgin, the home of Meyer’s Elgin Smokehouse. Home stretch. On the way to Elgin a funny thing happened. We made a pit stop in Bastrop to look for a good milkshake. Founded in 1832, Bastrop is a beautiful town sitting on the banks of the Colorado River. During the Spanish colonial period in Texas, El Camino Real crossed the Colorado River in what is known as Bastrop today. This town was one of the original counties in the Republic of Texas and they seem to be very proud of this. Texas does love its history. As you can imagine another walk was called for and we ventured down Main Street to the Historical Society Museum. This is a very cool looking building but unfortunately for us it was closed.
As we headed back downtown we came upon Lock Drug, an old fashioned drug store with a soda fountain. We were in luck! There is a marble counter with stools on your left as you enter. The shelves are well stocked with the typical items you find in a CVS, except this place had charm. We eased ourselves up to the counter and looked forward to a bit of town history form the young man behind the counter. We quickly learned that he had moved up from Houston less than a year ago and had recently been discharged from the service. Bastrop was a great place to “chill out” and decide what he wanted to do next. We decided what we wanted him to do next was to make a chocolate soda. Alas they were out of vanilla ice cream. No worries I told him, let’s make it with chocolate ice cream! They were also out of chocolate ice cream. An ice cream store out of both vanilla and chocolate. This was a first for me. I had an old boss that used to say there was never an excuse for us at Carhartt to run out of stock in one of our core items. In making his point, he asked me on many occasions if I had ever seen an ice cream store run out of vanilla or chocolate. I hope I run into Robert again someday to let him know that I indeed have now seen an ice cream store run out of these two core flavors. I doubt that he would have accepted running out of a size of an R01 regardless of this story. We figured out a drink he could make for us and jumped back in the car. I won’t go into the fact that we found out that milkshake base is a tasteless base that looks like vanilla but is only used as a base to thicken a malt or shake. We were now refreshed and heading to our last BBQ stop of the day.
Elgin is a town that was founded in 1872 with cotton and railroads as the reason it was put on the map. Today a big reason it is on the map is because it has several BBQ joints. We chose to visit Meyer’s Elgin Smokehouse on the advice of friends. We walked into Meyer’s feeling we were on a brisket death march by now. We asked for an embarrassingly small amount of brisket and one of their links. Meyer’s was opened in 1949, but really got its start in 1888 when Henry Meyer came over from Germany and settled in central Texas. His family recipe was handed down and his son started to manufacture and distribute the product outside of Elgin in 1949. This is yet another fourth-generation story. It appears that BBQ families know how to keep their kids working at home! Back to the BBQ. We took our butcher paper with a pitiful amount of brisket and the smallest link they could find to our table. The link was every bit as good as expected. The brisket was mouthwatering I am sure, but my mouth could no longer water. We left Elgin knowing if we had made this our first stop of the day we would have waxed eloquently about the melt in your mouth flavor of their. As it was, we just wanted to head back to Austin. On the way out of Elgin we passed another BBQ mecca, The Southside Market. It is interesting to note that The Southside calls itself the oldest BBQ joint in Texas. There seem to be several places that are the oldest.
That night I visited yet another shrine, but this was a shrine to baseball. Dell Diamond is a little gem in Round Rock and home of the triple A affiliate of the Texas Rangers, the Round Rock Express. We watched a lively game played against the Reno Aces. I believe this was the first time I had ever been to a ball park and didn’t have at least one dog!
Day 3
A change of pace was called for. A long walk around Austin led me to believe that everyone in Austin must work out to some degree. I have never seen so many joggers, bike riders and power walkers in one place! The walk by the river led us to a statue of Stevie Ray Vaughn. This is a town that knows how to pay homage to its legends! We decided on a non-BBQ joint for lunch. Met up with a group of friends my BBQ sidekick works with. They all work in the field of knowledge management. I work in the field of coats and pants. A most interesting lunch. We went to Trudy’s, which is a very cool Tex-Mex place in Austin. Though this loosely qualifies as a chain (there are 3 locations), who was I to argue with a bunch of knowledge managers? It turns out they know something about food. We were at the original location in central Austin. I was told the margaritas were to die for. I don’t know about dying for them but this place indeed has taken the art of the margarita to a new level. I won’t get into the food too deeply here as we are talking about BBQ, but if you ever want to have a breaded and fried avocado stuffed with spicy chicken and cheese topped with a nice Suiza sauce, well this is your place!
We finished lunch by hitting a nearby ice cream joint called Amy’s. This is the kind of place that serves up a mix (I had coconut rum chocolate mixed with raisins) and entertains you while the mix is going on (throws it in the air and so forth), slaps it into a cup and charges you six bucks. Strangely enough it was worth every penny. Amy’s was a great place to cleanse the pallet after some very fine Tex-Mex.
We bid adieu to our knowledge management peeps and decided another walk was called for. This walk took us into the Texas state house. A very cool capitol with a lot of stars decorating the building. They do love their stars in Texas! We decided a visit to a true Texas roadhouse was in order, and not the kind you find on 6th Street. We jumped in the car and took off for the small town of Hunter. We wanted to stop for BBQ on the way to Hunter. We ventured into San Marcos and kept hitting dead ends. We finally found Hays County BBQ on a county road leading out of San Marcos. Hays Co BBQ might just be a hidden gem. Mike and Asenette Hernandez took over the old Woody’s BBQ in 2007 and have been smoking meat in their own way. The brisket was perfect. Juicy but with a great bark that brought out the dry rub recipe and the 17 hours of smoke. I jumped off the wagon and had some pinto beans that were great. Give this place a go if you are near San Marcos. You won’t be disappointed.
We headed south toward Hunter and soon found ourselves in front of Riley’s Tavern. Story has it that 17-year old J.C. Riley borrowed a Model T Ford and drove up to Austin in September of 1932. As luck would have it, he camped out on the steps of the state house and was the first person to get a beer license following prohibition. Riley’s is a classic, and the people who have taken it over have left it just like J.C. would have wanted it. You walk into a small bar with a dance floor and small stage in the next room. There is seating outside, but it wouldn’t be mistaken for anything one might call fancy. Rusted chairs and a few tables that were on their last legs welcome you. It is a great place to sit and meet with the locals. A couple of frosty beverages later the band started up inside. The Derailers, a true Texas band, were just what the doctor ordered. They live on the edge of country music, but there was a trace of bebop in their licks. They had the folks dancing in no time. A night of great BBQ, great music and watching the locals enjoy themselves finished off our off day.
Day 4
The day started off at one of the many food trailers that are all over Austin. Torchy’s Tacos seemed like the perfect way to start off the day as we met up with one of the knowledge managers and her spouse. They had a few places in mind to show us. We ventured down to the farmers market which was like no other farmers market I had been to. In between the typical fruit and vegetable stalls were excellent little food stalls, selling everything from gourmet tacos to duck egg omelets with house made chorizo sausage. I was continuing to fall in love with Austin. We were herded over to East Austin to get in line at Franklin BBQ. I was told that they tend to run out of BBQ by noon and it is worth standing in line for. I stood in line for two hours in the hot Texas sun to try Aaron Franklin’s brisket. When I finally made it to the front of the line I understood why we waited so long. This guy will talk to anyone and makes you feel like you are the only one in his joint. He was the youngest looking pit master that we ran into on the entire trip. He got his start working with the folks from the legendary Louie Mueller BBQ and bought his first smoker from them when he had built up a very small nest egg. He came close to perfecting the fine art of smoking and soon had a food trailer going in the finest Austin tradition. People beat a path to his door and he became successful enough to move to a building on 11th Street. Wow, was this place great! We had been all over the place eating in legendary Q joints that were fourth and fifth generation establishments. Here we were at an upstart’s place, and I have to say it was the best I have ever tasted!
We had planned on hitting another baseball game that evening and had a few hours before we had to drive up to Round Rock. Learning that Franklin BBQ had its roots from Louie Mueller, we decided to head up to Taylor and visit Louie Mueller BBQ. The town of Taylor reminds me of an old movie set. A main street with high sidewalks to allow for loading and unloading, a movie theater that hadn’t shown a movie in quite a while, and large cotton warehouses. Kind of a town that time has forgotten. When we walked into Mueller’s it was another magical experience. Here was a large BBQ hall filled with people sitting at tables coated with that special smoky patina. The walls were also a perfect brown color from years of smoke. It seems that everyone who comes through the door tacks a business card to the wall. You can tell how long they have been there based on how much smoky patina they have on them. The last link and brisket of the trip were very good. We decided to splurge and have a bit of homemade cobbler with Blue Bell ice cream. They had not run out of vanilla. It was fantastic! I think Aaron Franklin has surpassed his old master, but Aaron has a ways to go before his joint will have the special ambiance of Louie Mueller. We watched the Iowa Cubs and the Round Rock Express bang out a game that evening and the game was followed by a concert featuring the western swing band Asleep at the Wheel.
This Texas BBQ quest was undertaken to assure myself that even though I happen to live in a BBQ wasteland, others can enjoy this great American food. There are many more central Texas towns to visit and partake of BBQ. I will get to Lexington next time. As summer starts to descend and I make my yearly visit to Cape Cod, I wonder if searching for the perfect lobster roll might not be a bad idea.
Union Woodshop – Clarkston MI
Stubb’s – Austin TX
Bar-B-Q Heaven - Austin TX
Iron Works BBQ - Austin TX
Black’s BBQ – Lockhart TX
Smitty’s Market – Lockhart TX
Kreuz Market – Lockhart TX
City Market – Luling TX
Luling BBQ – Luling TX
Lock Drug – Bastrop TX
Meyer’s Elgin Smokehouse – Elgin TX
Trudy’s – Austin TX
Amy’s – Austin TX
Hays County BBQ – San Marcos TX
Torchy’s Tacos – Austin TX
Franklin BBQ – Austin TX
Louie Mueller BBQ – Taylor TX
Texas BBQ Trail http://www.tourism-tools.com/texasbbq/Welcome.html
The Best BBQ Restaurant in America http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/slideshows/2011/07/aaron-franklin-barbecue-best-restaurant-in-america
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