Today was the big BBQ tour day! We started our tour by picking up our tour companions, Matt, Cherie, and Tom at their hotel, then headed out to Taylor, Texas where we visited the Taylor Cafe. The Taylor Cafe is easy to miss, being just another run-down building on a run-down block. And the inside isn’t much better. The bartender/waitress was unpleasant, but the BBQ was good. I was a little surprised to see they put BBQ sauce on the brisket, but all-in-all this made for a good first stop for our tour. From Taylor, we drove down to Elgin, Texas where we stopped at The Southside Market & BBQ. Again we went with brisket and sausage, and both were excellent. Definitely a step up from the Taylor Cafe. Here the brisket had more smoke flavor and was a little more tender. The sausages were among the best I’ve had. Getting full, but needing to move on, we went down the road to Meyer’s Smokehouse, also in Elgin. Still pretty full from The Southside Market & BBQ, we went with a small order of brisket. The brisket here wasn’t as tender as others, but was full of flavor, actually somewhat resembling the seasoning you find in beef jerky. A little weird, but still pretty tasty.
And then it was time. Lockhart, Texas, the BBQ capital of Texas loomed just a few miles away. Our first stop in Lockhart was at Smitty’s Market, our favorite place from last year’s BBQ tour. At Smitty’s we got a bunch of brisket and hot rings and chowed down. Again Smitty’s demonstrated why they were the best last year, and easily topped everywhere else we’d stopped earlier in the day. Filled to the brim with ‘cue, we headed about a mile south to Chisholm Trail Bar-B.Q., the one place in Lockhart we hadn’t made it to last year. Upon entering, I was surprised to see that the Chisholm Trail actually had a salad bar and BBQ buffet. But as this was technically our 5th lunch I decided to pass. As I stood in line waiting to place my meat order, I turned around to find Matt loading up at the buffet! Some are just gluttons for punishment, I guess. To my further surprise (and horror) I then noticed that he’d ordered himself a giant hunk of chicken-fried steak! I can’t imagine what he was thinking, but all took our orders back to a table where we discovered that the brisket at Chisholm Trail was fantastic, right up there with Smitty’s or anywhere else in Lockhart. Definitely worth the stop. (Matt never quite made it through that chicken-fried steak.)
Unable to consume any more, we returned to our respective hotels to digest for awhile, before meeting back up on SoCo for a show at The Continental Club. The show was opened by Sarah Borges who put on a fun, high-energy show that completely won over the crowd. The headliner for the night was James McMurtry, who Sarah Borges introduced as, “fucking weird.” Is he? I’ll let you judge for yourself.
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