Smitty's Market

In the very small town of Lockhart Texas is apparently the center of the Texas BBQ universe.

It’s built in an old main street butcher shop, but you enter through the back where there’s giant pallets of chopped wood waiting for the ovens. You line up for your food in the dim, smoky back rooms, where a fire is burning on the concrete floor right next to the long line of people waiting to order. There’s two ancient registers running (cash only, folks), and a giant cutting table where a bunch of guys go back and forth to the ovens and retrieve huge slabs of ribs, brisket, link sausage (cold rings and hot rings). Your order is tossed on to a big sheet of butcher paper with a few smaller sheets to serve as plates along with a stack of sliced white bread and a half pack of Saltines.

Sides and drinks are ordered in the dining room adjoining, a sparse and large space which used to be the old butcher shop with the giant main street windows. Three lines of picnic tables run the length of the room and its full of the noise and bustle of groups of people eating, drinking, congregating, and waiting for tables.
The meat is good. The shoulder was outstanding, a clear winner. The ribs were really meaty but not fall-off-the-bone tender in the way I like. The sausage was really coarse ground and not that great. The cole slaw was really sweet, but a nice compliment to the meat. It’s good BBQ, perhaps the top five best I’ve had, but the real value is just the surreal experience.