Black's Barbecue Austin.

Black's Barbecue Austin

The rub is the family's original 1932 formula, and the family smokes the meat in Lockhart and drives it thirty miles up to this counter every day.2

Why go

Black's started in 1932 when Edgar Black Sr took over an existing meat market in Lockhart, having moved the family and its cattle down from East Texas the year before. His son Edgar Black Jr built the brick pit that is still in use and turned the market into a restaurant. Kent Black, the third generation, directs Lockhart; his son Barrett Black, the fourth, opened this Guadalupe Street room in November 2014.2 Be clear about where the fire is. There is no smoker here. Barrett Black said so plainly at the opening, and Nicolai McCrary said it again in 2023: The barbecue is still smoked at their location in Lockhart, but driven in daily.1 He scored it 8.0 anyway: the Lockhart pit cooks most of what you eat overnight, and smoked meat travels better than people expect. This is also the pit where Albert Smokey Denmark learned to make sausage and smoke meat before founding his own Austin company in 1964, though that happened in Lockhart, not here.8

Order this / avoid

• Order: the fatty brisket, on the 1932 dry rub, and a giant beef rib to split if there are three of you.1
• Sausage: link sausage on a recipe the family puts at eighty years old, hand stuffed and hand tied in Lockhart before it comes up the road.3
• Sides: Norma Jean Black's beans, the sweet slaw and the mustardy potato salad, all of which came over from the Lockhart room with the recipes.2
• Drink: local craft beer in cans and bottles, which is what the room stocks.2 Take a crisp lager against the fatty brisket.
• Avoid: coming for the pit. The original brick pit is thirty miles south in Lockhart and this counter is a satellite of it.1

What locals & experts say

• The Infatuation, Nicolai McCrary (on-page 28 April 2023), 8.0. His practical case is the format: As a result of the location, the lines here don't tend to be too bad, and This is one of the few barbecue spots in town where you can also get dinner (and not just lunch).1
• The Austin Chronicle, Virginia B. Wood (31 October 2014), on the room itself: family photographs chosen and framed by Barrett Black's mother, exposed brick, and a long mesquite counter top copied from the original restaurant.2
• Austin Monthly, and this is where the name trap bites. Its November 2020 dining guide names eight Austin barbecue joints, chosen by the editorial team, and this room is not one of them while Terry Black's is. Its September 2014 Dining Spotlight on the youngest of the Black family is about Mike and Mark Black of Terry Black's, who the magazine notes have broken off from that business.6 Neither piece is about this counter.
• Nothing further. This door holds no MICHELIN standing in either the 2024 or 2025 Texas guide, and neither it nor the Lockhart original is on Texas Monthly's Top 50.

Good to know

• Which door this is: the operator runs four. Lockhart at 215 N Main Street is the 1932 original; this is the Austin room at 3110 Guadalupe Street on the Drag, beside the UT campus. The other two are New Braunfels and San Marcos.9
• When: open for lunch and dinner, which is the practical argument for it. The operator publishes 11am to 9pm and 11am to 10pm for this address without saying which days take which, so check before a late run. At the 2014 opening it ran 11am to 9pm daily.2
• The patio is shared with Hopfields, the pub at the same street number.2
• Hygiene: this room has its own record and it is a clean one. Blacks Barbecue at 3110 Guadalupe St Ste 150 scored 100 on 24 July 2025, and 98, 94 and 92 before that. Nothing is below 70. If you look the address up yourself you will also find Hopfields at suite 400, scoring 93, 92, 81 and 78; that is the pub's record and it is not this counter's. Terry Black's, at Barton Springs Road, is a different operator with a different permit again.7

Verdict

could-visit — A satellite counter of the 1932 Lockhart original, opened in 2014 on the Drag and run by Barrett Black, the fourth generation. The rub follows the family's original 1932 formula, the sausage runs on an eighty-year-old recipe hand stuffed and hand tied, and the beans are Norma Jean Black's. Nothing is smoked at this address: the meat comes up from Lockhart daily, and The Infatuation scored it 8.0 while pointing out that overnight-cooked smoked meat travels better than people expect. Come for what nobody else in town offers, which is barbecue at dinner time, a short line and a campus address. If you want the pit itself, the drive to Lockhart is thirty miles.