Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Barbecue Heavens
228
Hill Country Barbecue
The Meat Market Connection
Lockhart, Texas
Who'd expect to find such a barbecue hot
spot in the middle of Texas hill country?
But here's Lockhart, Texas, about halfway
between Austin and San Antonio, with a
phenomenal cluster of top-notch barbe-
cue joints evolved from a long-standing
German tradition of smoked meats and
sausage.
First and foremost is
Kreuz Market
(619
N. Colorado;
&
512/398-2361;
www.kreuz
market.com), established over 100 years
ago, originally as an eating area tacked on
beside a German meat market. You'll eat at
long communal tables; they don't chain the
knives to the table like they used to when
the tables were set right by the pits, but
they do provide a roll of paper towels at
each table—and you'll need it with meat
this juicy and tender. You'll order at the
counter (no table service), and your
choices will be mostly beef—brisket,
prime rib, sausage—or pork chops. Sides
originally were just white bread and sal-
tines, but Kreuz (pronounced “krites”) has
recently added a few other options, like
beans, potato salad, and sauerkraut (the
heritage is German, after all). And Kreuz
staunchly holds true to Central Texas's
barbecue orthodoxy—if the pit master has
done his job right, barbecue doesn't need
sauce, and you won't find a drop of it here.
When Kreuz decamped to its modern
new digs, the old store was renamed
Smitty's Market
(208 S. Commerce;
&
512/
398-9344;
www.smittysmarket.com) and
is now run by various offspring of Kreuz's
late longtime owner Edgar Schmidt. (The
family feud that split up the Kreuz-Schmidt
dynasty still simmers, much like their bar-
becue pits.) While the menu is much the
same as at Kreuz—a few more side dish
options, a slightly spicier sausage—where
Smitty's excels is with its brisket, meltingly
tender and served on a piece of butcher
paper. The bare-bones dining room has
communal tables, just like Kreuz; they do
offer forks, but forget cutlery—you'll eat
this barbecue with your fingers, and lick
them afterward.
If you insist on having sauce with your
'cue, head for
Black's BBQ
(215 N. Main
St.;
&
512/398-2712;
www.blacksbbq.
com), continuously family-owned since it
first opened in 1949 as—yes, that's right—
a meat-market annex. Today it's a proper
cafeteria, with mounted animal heads and
historic photos on the walls; there are
even more side dishes here, and the oak-
smoked barbecue options include chicken
and pork ribs as well as beef brisket. The
sausage ring at Black's is especially popu-
lar, a piquant ring of beef-and-pork sau-
sage that's a great antidote to the juicy
subtlety of the brisket and pork loin. Break-
ing with Lockhart tradition, Norma Black
first whipped up a tangy, bright-orange
barbecue sauce to serve sauce-addicted
customers from the North, enticed here
by Black's hard-to-miss billboards scat-
tered around town. Whether or not you
use it, that's up to you.
(
San Antonio (65 miles/105km); Austin
(30 miles/48km).
L
$$
Havana Riverwalk Inn,
1015
Navarro, San Antonio (
&
888/224-2008
or 210/222-2008; www.havanariverwalk
inn.com). $
Austin Motel,
1220 S. Con-
gress St. (
&
512/441-1157;
www.austin
motel.com).
