How did Lockhart become the Barbecue Capital of Texas?

May 26, 2025 / Sophie Clearwater /

In Texas’ state-designated BBQ capital, two legendary Lockhart families run the town’s most iconic barbecue joints as a rising star joins the scene — and all vie for coveted spots on the Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ list. Explore our project online now and watch the documentary June 5 at 7 p.m. on the KXAN+ smart TV app.

LOCKHART, Texas (KXAN) – Although it’s a small town of about 15,300 located southeast of Austin, Lockhart’s reputation is known throughout Texas and beyond, drawing tourists to its numerous barbecue spots and earning it the “Barbecue Capital of Texas” title.

The town’s barbecue roots date back about 150 years. Here’s a quick history lesson about how it started and the town’s continuing legacy.

‘Lockhart itself is an emblem’

According to Daniel Vaughn, Texas Monthly’s barbecue editor and curator of its Top 50 Texas BBQ Joints list, the state’s iconic barbecue style originated in meat markets, especially those in Central Texas.

Before the turn of the 20th century, people would attend a big public barbecue or go to a meat market to acquire the cuisine.

Some of Lockhart’s most famous barbecue joints began as meat markets, including Kreuz Market (1875) and Black’s Barbecue (1932).

A photograph circa 1976/1977 shows Kreuz Market. (Courtesy UNT Libraries Special Collections)
A historic photo of Black’s Barbecue in Lockhart, Texas. (Courtesy Black’s Barbecue)
A historical photo of the Mineral Wells Meat Market. Mineral Wells is located just west of Fort Worth. (Courtesy Boyce Ditto Public Library)
A historical photo of the Hemphill County Meat Market in Texas’ Panhandle. (Courtesy River Valley Pioneer Museum)

“At the time, they had ammonia refrigeration, which was not efficient at all,” Kreuz Market owner Keith Schmidt explained. “So instead of letting the meat spoil, they’d cook it and sell it.”

Kreuz Market claims to be the oldest business of its kind in Lockhart, whereas Black’s boasts to be the oldest barbecue spot continuously owned by one family in all of Texas. Smitty’s Market and Chisholm Trail BBQ are two other notable historic names in town.

“The way that the barbecue is cooked at places like Smitty’s and Black’s and Kreuz — it’s still very similar to the way it would have been cooked back then,” Vaughn said.

Brisket can cook anywhere from eight up to 14 hours, transforming the meat into a juicy, melt-in-your-mouth texture.

The menu hanging in Kreuz Market shows the different types of meat being served in the restaurant. (KXAN Photo/Jaclyn Ramkissoon)
Briskets smoking at the Terry Black’s Barbecue location in Lockhart (KXAN Photo/Jaclyn Ramkissoon)
Ribs, a Texas barbecue staple, seen at the Terry Black’s Barbecue location in Lockhart (KXAN Photo/Jaclyn Ramkissoon)

“The slower and lower you do, the better it is, because you’re not going to burn the heck out of it, and the connective tissue will soften,” Schmidt explained.

“You cannot rush it. You can cook a brisket in about four or five hours. It will not be good. It will be tough,” said Kent Black, owner of Black’s Barbecue.

Some pillars of Texas barbecue still in practice in Lockhart include making sausages in-house, using a simple seasoning mix and having shoulder clod on the menu — another cut of beef leaner than brisket, still with a beefy flavor.

A photograph circa 1976/1977 shows Kreuz Market workers making sausage by hand. (Courtesy UNT Libraries Special Collections)

Folks back then enjoyed Texas barbecue without sauce, forks, or even sides like beans and mac and cheese. Those additions are in modern dining rooms today, but customers don’t have to use them if they don’t want to — no judgment. A Texas Monthly article as recent as 2018 documented when Kreuz Market began to offer sauce.

“You can still come in here today and get a slice of beef, bring a sausage, plastic knife, bread, crackers, pickles, onions and cheese, and sit down and eat like it was 1965,” Schmidt said.

Smitty’s Market owner Nina Sells recalled how different their barbecue menu was 25 years ago. In 1999, when they opened shop, there weren’t sides like beans, potato salad or coleslaw. It was all about the meat.

“You didn’t need sauce to put on the meat. The meat was good,” Sells said.

Not only can tourists and locals taste barbecue similar to how it was cooked about 100 years ago, but they can also visit a more than century-old barbecue building in Lockhart.

A worker at Smitty’s Market cuts up meat to serve to customers. Some of the inside walls of the restaurant are dark, covered in decades of smoke and soot. (KXAN Photo)

The original Kreuz Market building from 1924 now houses Smitty’s Market (more on how that happened later) and is still in operation. Patrons can experience the layers of smoke and soot collected on the walls, coloring them almost completely black.

“It’s harder to keep this old building going than it would be to build a new building,” Sells said.

“But I feel – I do feel that I’ve been entrusted to take care of this building,” she added.

The Texas House of Representatives first recognized Lockhart as the Barbecue Capital of Texas in May 1999 in a resolution that recalled the town’s prime location on the historic Chisholm Trail. The trail was a major route out of Texas for livestock like Longhorn cattle, roughly between the 1860s and the 1880s, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

The resolution also mentions how the convergence of cultures from native peoples in the Plains, vaqueros and German immigrants influenced today’s barbecue.

In 2003, the Texas Senate adopted a resolution as well, making what was already widely accepted about Lockhart official.

A photograph from 1976/1977 shows a livestock auction in Lockhart, Texas. (Courtesy UNT Libraries Special Collections)

“Lockhart itself is an emblem… It’s really a symbol of those roots of Texas barbecue,” Vaughn said.

Texas Monthly also hosts its annual barbecue festival in town, inviting barbecuers from all over the state to serve their food and make a good impression on thousands of new customers.

Lockhart’s barbecue scene is still evolving with newer restaurant additions — a Terry Black’s location and Barbs B Q on the town square.

“You have that mix of the legacy and the heritage of Texas barbecue, along with that more modern look at Texas barbecue,” Vaughn said.

People crowd the streets of Lockhart for the first day of the Texas Monthly BBQ Festival in November 2024. (KXAN Photo)
A mural in Lockhart, Texas, mentioning the town’s status as the Barbecue Capital of Texas. (KXAN Photo)
A mural in Lockhart, Texas, mentioning the town’s status as the Barbecue Capital of Texas. (KXAN Photo)

‘Two massive barbecue feuds’

Barbecue newcomers may not know some of Lockhart’s restaurants were born because of business disputes between family members. These so-called “feuds” caught public and media attention nationwide.

“Two massive barbecue feuds. That’s more than most towns have. Most towns don’t even have one, and Lockhart has two,” Vaughn said.

First, there’s Kreuz Market and Smitty’s Market — a story of two siblings. Kreuz was originally hosted in the historic building that is now Smitty’s Market.

In 1984, Kreuz’s then-owner Edgar Schmidt sold the business to his sons, Rick and Don Schmidt, according to Kreuz’s website. Edgar passed away in 1990 and left the building to his daughter, Nina, effectively making her the landlord to her siblings and the business.

Rick became the sole owner of Kreuz Market in 1997. A lease disagreement prompted Rick to move Kreuz to a new location down the road in 1999. Shortly after, Nina opened Smitty’s Market in the original building.

A historic photograph shows the old Kreuz Market building with its sign outside. The building now houses Smitty’s Market. (Courtesy: Kreuz Market)

“[Rick] didn’t want a little sister coming in and ever telling him what to do, which I did not do, but we just didn’t get along,” Nina said.

Rick passed away in 2019, and his son Keith operates Kreuz Market today. He repaired the relationship with his aunt, and it remains intact and friendly.

“She always treated me like family. Still does, and so did my cousins,” Keith said.

The second feud led to two similarly-named joints. Kent Black is the owner of Black’s Barbecue, and his twin nephews, Mike and Mark Black, own Terry Black’s Barbecue.

Mike said he worked under his uncle at Black’s in Lockhart in the early 2010s, but soon after he started, the brothers and their immediate family wanted to open a Black’s Barbecue Austin. It’s disputed if they were allowed to use the Black’s name.

“They never had permission to use the original ‘Black’s Barbecue.’ My parents own that name,” Kent said when he sat down with KXAN.

“My grandma originally said, ‘Yes.’ Then my uncle, who was president of the corporation, filed a cease and desist against us,” Mark explained in a separate interview.

Black’s Barbecue has a location in Lockhart, as well as Austin, New Braunfels and San Marcos. (KXAN Photo/Jaclyn Ramkissoon)

Mike and Mark chose to rename their business after their father, Terry, but this sparked what would become years of lawsuits from both sides.

While these restaurants share family connections, many are also connected through their ties to other businesses that help support the barbecue industry in Lockhart.

Community businesses thrive in Lockhart’s barbecue scene

Just as important as the barbecue is the cooking apparatus, and Lockhart is home to some of the top experts in the industry.

Mill Scale Metalworks, based in Lockhart, makes custom offset smokers and live fire grills that many barbecue restaurants in Texas and across the globe use.

Mill Scale Metalworks in Lockhart, Texas, supplies custom smokers to many barbecue restaurants in the town and around the world. (KXAN Photo)
Mill Scale Metalworks in Lockhart, Texas, supplies custom smokers to many barbecue restaurants in the town and around the world. (KXAN Photo)

“So you can go to Europe, you can go to South America, and all over the country, Australia, and find Mill Scale smokers cooking Texas-style barbecue outside of Texas,” Vaughn said.

Brothers Matthew and Caleb Johnson worked at metal fabrication shops and learned the welding trade in Austin in their teens and early 20s, then searched for small towns where they could start their own shop.

“We saw Lockhart, and we saw the diversity in the culture, in the community, the long-standing barbecue tradition … just a quintessential Texas small town. And so we knew that this was the place that we wanted to be,” Matthew said.

The business was born in 2018. Mill Scale has built smokers for Black’s Barbecue, Kreuz Market and Barbs B Q in Lockhart, to name a few.

Barbs B Q and other barbecue restaurants in Lockhart and around the world use Mill Scale Metalworks smokers. (KXAN Photo/Jaclyn Ramkissoon)

Matthew emphasized that building relationships with restaurateurs, the community and their team members is just as critical as creating high-quality products.

“We were hoping that the old school, historic restaurants that have been here for over 100 years would be cool with us coming and being here and participating in this barbecue industry,” he said. “And fortunately, we were welcomed with open arms.”

Even down to the wood used in barbecue pit fires, several Lockhart barbecue restaurants use local suppliers. Charles Hunt said he’s been sourcing and cutting wood for restaurants like Black’s Barbecue and Kreuz Market since he was a kid.

Hunt said a lot of the barbecue joints he works with prefer post oak wood.

Charles Hunt has been sourcing and supplying wood to Lockhart’s barbecue restaurants since he was a kid. (KXAN Photo)

“They said it burns better… and the meat tastes much better with this than it does mesquite or any other wood,” Hunt explained, adding this business has been in his family for generations since his grandfather.

While Lockhart’s undeniable influence is entrenched in Texas barbecue culture and continues today, none of the town’s barbecue joints made Texas Monthly’s Top 50 list in 2021. The prestigious list only comes out every four years.

Even so, Vaughn pointed out in Lockhart, it’s about more than just the food or the list. He thinks Lockhart still deserves the “Barbecue Capital of Texas” title.

“Whether these places are in the top 50 or not, and you’re going to have a really memorable experience eating the barbecue, being in those historic buildings, being in that historic town that used to be right along the Chisholm Trail where they were driving cattle up to market,” he said.

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