The BBQ Capital of Texas

We never would have found the town of Lockhart, the Barbecue Capital of Texas, except for a post on the blog site of  our “classmates”, The Hey Dukes.  But once we learned about it we had to venture over and give it a go.

The town has about 12,000 inhabitants but it has four world-class BBQ joints.  It was by proclamation of the Texas Legislature that it earned it’s moniker as the BBQ Capital of Texas.  (It probably doesn’t hurt that it is just down the road from Austin, the capital of Texas.)  The four restaurants collectively serve abut 250,000 meals a year.

Our first stop was at Black’s.  I had the moist brisket and Gary ordered up an original sausage.  The brisket was very tender and flavorful.  The sauces were superb.  The sausage was spicy hot.  This place was without a doubt our favorite for its food.  Unfortunately, we were really hungry when we arrived and we shared an order of coleslaw and an order of mac and cheese and that slowed us down for our subsequent stops.  Black’s proclaims on their signs that they are “open 8 days a week”.

Our next stop was at Smitty’s.  This was the facility that we enjoyed the most.  You walk right by the hardwood fire on the floor feeding heat and smoke into the meat smokers.  We had a portion of shoulder and another sausage.  They have hot sauce, but no BBQ sauces at the tables as they claim their meat is that good.  The shoulder was highly flavorful.  The sausage was a lot greasier and not as spicy, but still good.

At all these joints, you simply wait in line until you reach the meat counter and they they serve up your meats on a few layers of butcher paper.

We next ventured to Chisholm’s.  By this time we were stuffed.  Gary ordered up a single sausage.  It was the greasiest yet, too greasy in fact for our tastes.  (I only was able to down a single bite.)

We moved on to Kreuz’s.  We stopped and walked through the building, but that was it.  No more BBQ for us.  So we will never know if Kreuz’s could have topped Black’s by our tastes.

By the way, in addition to its BBQ, Lockhart has a beautiful court house. It was built in the 1890s out of limestone with red sandstone trim.

And it you wish to read the Hey Dukes review, which differs from ours, it is at:  http://zeetraveler.blogspot.com/2013/02/finger-licking-good-bbq-in-lockhart-tx.html

But that is probably why this small town has four BBQ houses.