Best Texas barbecue: Eating at Snow’s, Lexington

God bless the little children, or at least the strong-willed teens. It was because of our 16-year-old’s determination that we have another “special” barbecue experience (something to contend with our half day stakeout attempting to eat at Franklin’s Barbecue in Austin) that the day after we travelled 13 hours from Taos, New Mexico, to Austin, we rose at 7am to drive an hour to eat barbecue.

For breakfast.

That’s because Snow’s BBQ in the small town of Lexington (population circa 1,100) is only open on Saturdays and only until the meat runs out – reckoned to be about noon. Snow’s has become legendary after it was featured in Texas Monthly in 2008 as the best barbecue in the state. In today’s parlance, it was disruptive. Snow’s seemed to come from nowhere to topple the heretofore uncontested Texas BBQ greats. Rankings have shifted as the years have marched on but Snow’s remains a top dog in the fiery world of Texas barbecue.

When I had suggested as an alternative visiting Lockhart, another small town near Austin where two of the state’s most renowned barbecue joints reside, to eat lunch at, er, lunchtime, he shrugged his shoulders in that teenage way. “I would rather skip it than just do something standard.”

You gotta love a joint that inspires fans to dig into smoky brisket or a half rack of ribs before they’ve even had their morning latte.

So we set the alarm and readied our bellies for barbecue.

Getting there

Lexington’s about an hour from Austin, heading east on 290 then up Farm Road 696. The drive from 290 up Farm Road 696 is lovely – enjoy the view of ranches, fields and farm houses and the sun rises above the horizon.

The queue

At Franklin’s Barbecue – the current cause celebre of Texas barbecue, located in Austin itself – the queue was a commitment, a social occasion, a happening (read about our experience) but you can’t go to the fair everyday. Here, it’s a quieter experience. We are here to eat. There were never more than 25 people in the queue and everyone chatted softly in their own groups. We waited only 20 minutes before being served.

 

Ordering

You can order by the pound brisket, pork ribs, pork steak, chicken, turkey and sausage – regular and jalapeño. In the queue, a lady with an electric carving knife was happy to carve our meal according to numbers and weigh it after – 8 ribs, 8 slices of brisket and 1 jalapeno sausage. Sides of cole slaw, potato salad and banana pudding come in small and large containers. From a table on the side you serve yourself pickles, onions, white bread and all the free beans you like.

 

The food

There is inside seating, but we took our tray of food and the four pieces of butcher paper that serve as plates to a picnic table out back right beside the smokers, aka the pits. The verdict was immediate: heavenly. The men in the family raved about the brisket. “My favourite part was lifting the brisket onto my sheet of paper and it just falling to pieces,” said the 16-year-old.

For my daughter and I, the ribs made top of the list. “I ate about six,” my 11-year-old said.

The jalapeno sausage had real fire, and the sides were all tasty, although we only spared a few forkfuls for them, with all that meat calling to us. For my daughter and I, the ribs were the best part. For me, they were the best ribs I’ve eaten in my life.

The atmosphere

Out back though, the pitmaster Tootsie (a woman – yeehaw!) and other Snow’s folks chat, walk admirers around the smokers and act as perfect hosts. I suspect an older man talking to patrons and checking meat is owner Kerry Bexley (a former rodeo clown!), but before we can chat with him his bustling off to another errand elsewhere at the restaurant.

We ran into Tootsie as she returned to her pits with a cold drink. Barbecue folk — with their secrets of the flesh and their Vulcan-like powers — can be a disconcerting lot. Some are known to be downright tetchy.

Not so here. You sit right up next to the smokers, and can watch the team work, pulling meat out and carrying it back to the main building. Tootsie was ready with a smile for any admirers who approached. “Y’all enjoy it?” she asked with a twinkle.

Emboldened by a group of four 20something men who had taken turns getting their picture with her — including one who also held up his little dog for a threesome shot — we stepped in for a portrait before heading back to Austin, sated. The time was 9:45.

 

What we thought

You can read a lot about the food itself – how long it’s cooked, at what temperature over what type of wood. You can read the esteemed American writer Calvin Trillin on visiting Snow’s BBQ with a group of my former Texas Monthly colleagues.

Here’s what I say:

Everyone wants authenticity on their travels. Lexington is nothing if not that. It’s mostly a typical small Texas town – tidy homes, local shops, a couple of hairdressers and at least 3 churches by our count. This is the kind of place I grew up seeing as my parents drove us kids around the countryside in our yellow station wagon.

 

 

Visiting Snow’s definitely makes the grade as a bona fide barbecue event — cue the debate in the backseat on the return drive to Austin about how it ranks in our family barbecue rankings. How did the brisket compare with Franklin’s? What was it about the texture and the taste? How can ribs be that good?

My stepson is right: It’s much more interesting than simply turning up somewhere, ordering and sitting down to a meal, no matter how tasty.

Lexington isn’t putting on any airs for its visitors despite its status as the destination for barbecue pilgrimages. But at base Lexington is not entirely typical. It inspires visitors from around the world to eat Saturday-morning brisket, ribs and pork butt.

It sounds strange but I can’t recommend it enough: It’s a delicious way to start your weekend.

Snow’s BBQ

snowsbbq.com
516 Main Street
Lexington, Texas 78947
+1 979-542-8189
Open Sat 8-noon-ish. Closed Sun-Fri.

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