You Could Smell Their Pits A Mile Away

Not their armpits … their barbecue pits. Our noses told us that Smitty’s Market was near long before we spotted the place. Although the town of Lockhart has four barbecue joints, and calls itself “The Barbecue Capitol of Texas,” we were in search of “Smitty’s.” It had been named one of the top five barbecue restaurants in Texas by Texas Monthly Magazine. We wanted to experience it.

With a field of firewood behind the restaurant, those barbecue pits must be burning day and night. If the size of the crowd on a Saturday afternoon is an indication of the business that they do, then they would have to barbecue around the clock.

Lockhart is a lovely little town, and Smitty’s is located smack dab in the middle of it. Plan to spend a little time in the town after you eat! I’ll show more pictures another day.

Being newcomers to the place, we found Smitty’s a bit confusing, and felt there needed to be a “User’s Guide” to eating at the joint, so I’ll tell you what we discovered.

• Enter by the back door. We went to the front door, and discovered we would have to wade through a sea of people to get to the serving line. We went back outside and walked around the building to enter in back, past that open pit I showed you.



• There are no “menus” as such. We stared, bewildered, at boards on the wall proclaiming prices for meat by the pound and didn’t know what to do. A local advised us to pick the meat we wanted and tell the server we wanted a “plate.”
• You don’t get a “plate.” When you tell the server what you want, he slaps it on brown paper with several slices of white bread (I’m not talking fancy white bread — I’m talking Mrs. Baird’s).
• You don’t even get a tray. You are going to have to juggle your food to the table.
• At this point, I strongly suggest that if you have a large party of people you should send someone to stake your claim to some real estate. Seating is “family style,” and we found the place overflowing into the halls.
• For the longest time, Smitty’s didn’t offer vegetable side dishes. I guess they figured, “Vegetables? That’s what food eats!.” They offer them now, but if you want side dishes you must stand in another line and order again from a board on the wall. I suggest you make your selections quickly, because the servers we encountered had no patience for indecision. There aren’t many choices, anyway: coleslaw, beans, potato salad, avocado (wha?) or a pickle.
• You aren’t going to get a fork. You have to settle for a spoon if you get a side dish … and don’t be embarrassed about eating with your hands. Everyone else will be, too. Just grab a lot of napkins.
• If you want barbecue sauce, you have to ask for it … and we found it rather unremarkable, but the meat needed it.

We ordered brisket and each got a ring of sausage. Our side dishes were beans and potato salad. As you can guess, it was not fancy dining. I was going to say “unpretentious,” but in a way I think Smitty’s is trying so hard to be informal that it is its own brand of pretentious.

Was the food good? Yes, but not outstanding. The potato salad was delicious, although it was too creamy for me. The beans were adequate. On the day we ate there, the brisket was extremely dry. That’s fine if you are watching your cholesterol, but if cholesterol matters to you, why are you eating barbecue? As for the rings of sausage … I didn’t even finish mine. I was unimpressed. The taste was good enough, but from our experience that day, I would NOT put it in the top five in Texas. I wouldn’t even put it in the top five of the barbecue joints I have managed to visit (and I have a long way to go before I get to them all!).

The best part of the meal for me was the hand dipped cone of Blue Bell Ice Cream when we were done. Rocky Road! Mmmmm. On a scale of one to five, Smitty’s Market only gets a three from me — and that’s because of the ice cream.

I’m glad we visited it, just because I needed to say I had been there. However, I feel no urge to return. Y’all, if a barbecue place is going to capture my affection, it has to do it the first time I try it. There are just too many barbecue restaurants in Texas … and too little time.

In fact, our neighbors at the table told us, with wistful smiles on their faces, “You should have gone to Luling! Man, they have the best barbecue place in the world!”

There’s always next time.

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Reflecting on Caldwell County Courthouse
2. Up In Smoke
3. Not A Kernel Of Truth
4. Peggy Sue BBQ in Dallas
5. A Gas-tronomical Adventure at Chef Point Cafe

Tagged as: MY NECK OF THE WOODS, Prairies and Lakes, restaurant, Texas Travel