About this tour
In 1999 the Texas Legislature made it official: Lockhart is the Barbecue Capital of Texas. It is a small county seat southeast of Austin, but four pits within a few blocks of one another draw pilgrims from around the world, and the lineage behind them runs straight back to the old cash-and-carry meat markets of a century ago — when a grocer smoked the cuts he could not sell fresh, wrapped them in butcher paper, and let customers eat them standing at the counter with a pocketknife. This driving loop connects the four smokehouses that carry that tradition, then closes at the courthouse square they all orbit. We narrate the history and the family feuds that split one market into two, not the menus — but come hungry anyway.