Known for Texas Barbecue

Known for Texas Barbecue

Armed with a pair of long tongs, Carlos Tamez lifts a juicy slab of barbecued beef brisket from the brick oven and plops the smoked meat on a wooden block at Black’s Barbecue in Lockhart, Texas (pop. 12,601).

"Two slices or three?" Tamez asks a customer who’s come to sample the restaurant’s famous pit-smoked meat. The distinct aroma of smoldering wood wafts across the counter as Tamez, the restaurant’s manager, cuts three thick strips of brisket and wraps them in butcher paper.

While Black’s wasn’t the first business in Lockhart to serve barbecue, it’s been slow-roasting beef brisket for 74 years.

"We’re the oldest barbecue restaurant in Texas run by the same family," boasts Edgar Black Jr., 79, whose father opened the business in 1932. "People from as far away as South Africa and Germany eat here because they’ve heard about us."

Founded in 1848 and named for surveyor Byrd Lockhart, the town long has been known for barbecue. Several tons of barbecued beef, pork, chicken and smoked sausage are served each day by Black’s, Chisholm Trail Barbecue, Kreuz Market and Smitty’s Market.

It all started in the late 1800s when cowboys herded cattle north along the Chisholm Trail through Lockhart, which became a major trading center. Those ties to the historic cattle trail and the town’s renowned eateries led state lawmakers in 1999 to proclaim Lockhart the Barbecue Capital of Texas.

"You can get into an argument about which place has the best barbecue," says Mike Masur, 57, a Lockhart resident who frequents Chisholm Trail Barbecue. "But it’s like arguing about religion; you can’t win."

Lockhart’s pit masters smolder native post oak logs, seasoned at least eight months, to provide the fragrant smoke and indirect heat that slowly roasts and flavors the meat. After that, secret recipes, cooking methods and condiments separate the establishments.

Black’s and Chisholm Trail, for example, offer barbecue sauce to their customers; Smitty’s grudgingly provides it; and Kreuz Market bans sauce—and forks, too.

When Kreuz Market opened as a meat market and grocery store in 1900, customers dined off butcher paper with their fingers and used knives attached by chains to the wall to slice their meat. "There were no sides or sauce," says Nina Schmidt Sells, 55, whose father, Edgar "Smitty" Schmidt, bought the business in 1948.

The Schmidt family ran Kreuz Market until Sells and her brother, Rick Schmidt, parted ways in 1999. Sells kept the historic downtown building and opened Smitty’s Market, named for her father and run by her son, pit master John Fullilove, 31.

Rick Schmidt, 59, retained the Kreuz Market name and built a modern 23,000-square-foot facility along U.S. Highway 183. "There wasn’t a feud," insists son Keith Schmidt, 36. "It just makes the legend better and brings more people in."

Signs posted in Kreuz Market still advise customers not to expect sauce or forks. "We did add a few sides, like beans and potato salad," Schmidt adds. "But we’ve never had a sauce. We don’t want to hide our meats’ flavor."

Smitty’s serves beans, too, along with extras such as onions, tomatoes, pickles, cheese and crackers. "We serve sauce, but we have to hide it from the regulars who’d throw a fit if they saw it," Fullilove says, chuckling.

Sauce is provided shamelessly at Chisholm Trail, Lockhart’s only barbecue restaurant with a drive-through window. Owner Floyd Wilhelm, who worked at Black’s for 18 years, sold his fishing boat for $1,000 in 1978 and invested the money in the business. "The banks told him that he couldn’t go up against two barbecue places and survive," says Floyd Jr., 42, one of Wilhelm’s two sons who work in the restaurant.

Back then the Wilhelms sold three briskets a day. Now they sell four briskets in five minutes during lunch.

"It just amazes me that four places can stay packed all the time," adds Floyd Jr., "and in a small town, too."

Visit www.lockhart-tx.org for more information.

Sheryl Smith-Rodgers is a freelance writer in Blanco, Texas.

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