The Best Barbecue in Lockhart, Texas

Jesse Swearingen opened a meat market in Lockhart in 1875. Charles Kreuz Sr. bought it in 1900 and put his name on it, and when Texas Monthly went looking for the oldest barbecue business in Texas, the trail ended here. Everything else in town is downstream of this counter.

It is first because the sausage is the thing Lockhart actually invented. This is a meat market that learned to smoke, not a restaurant that added barbecue, and the coarse ground original sausage is the clearest argument for the difference. It also keeps the longest and most reliable hours of any joint on this list, which matters more than it sounds in a town where half the places close when the meat runs out.

This is the building. Kreuz Market operated here from 1924 until 1999, when a split between Edgar "Smitty" Schmidt's children sent the business north with his son Rick and left the building to his daughter Nina, who reopened it under the family nickname. The pits in the back room are the ones that have been burning longest in Lockhart, and you walk past them through a blackened corridor to get to the counter.

It is second only because Kreuz has the clearer claim on the sausage and the steadier schedule. On the experience of eating barbecue in a room that has been doing nothing else for a century, nowhere in Texas beats it. We are quoting the address and phone from Texas Monthly and the Austin Chronicle rather than the restaurant's own site, which was not loading when we checked.

Chuck Charnichart runs the pit, with Haley Conlin and Alexis Tovias, and none of the three had run a barbecue joint before they opened this one. Texas Monthly's review is titled around the idea that Barbs provides the twenty first century energy Lockhart needs, which is a fair summary of why it matters in a town whose other joints measure their history in generations.

It ranks third rather than higher for one practical reason. It runs a few days a week and it sells out, so it cannot be the plan, only the reason you picked a particular weekend. If you can arrange the trip around it, do that. Published hours vary between every listing we found, which is normal for a joint that closes when the brisket is gone.

Black's says five generations of the family have served more than 50 million guests, and its own site makes the specific claim worth understanding: not the oldest barbecue joint in Texas outright, but the oldest continuously owned by the same family. Kreuz traces further back as a business, Black's further back as one household. Both claims are true under their own terms, which is the kind of thing Lockhart argues about.

Kent Black is a third generation pitmaster, the meat is rubbed with the family recipe and smoked over locally sourced post oak, and the beef rib and jalapeno cheddar sausage are the orders people drive for. It is the easiest full service stop on the list and the one most likely to still be open at seven in the evening.

Terry Black grew up in Lockhart and this is his family's return to it, after the Austin, Dallas and Waco locations made the name familiar statewide. The building was one of two Mobil filling stations in town before it was a barbecue hall, and the room next to the main dining hall, the McGee Room, seats up to 50 for private events.

It sits fifth because it is the most polished and the least specific to Lockhart. Meats are sold by the pound, in sandwiches and in family packs, the sides and desserts are sold by portion, and the whole operation is built to move a Saturday crowd quickly. If the historic joints have hour long lines and you have children in the car, this is the right call.

When the Texas Senate adopted the Lockhart barbecue resolution, it named Black's, Kreuz Market and Chisholm Trail Barbecue. This is the one out of those three that tourists skip, and the one with the weekday lunch crowd of people who work in Caldwell County. It has a drive through, which none of the others do.

It is last because it is the least distinctive plate of the six, not because it is weak. It is also the cheapest, it serves plate lunches and sandwiches rather than meat by the pound alone, and it is the only entry here where you can get through in ten minutes. Several write ups mention fried catfish on certain weekdays. We could not confirm which days, so ask when you call.