CM Smokehouse
Baby back ribs smoked and then fried, sold as wings, off a trailer that also smokes beef cheeks into quesabirria.1
Why go
Cade Mercer came up through Lambert's and EastSide Tavern, then helped build the menus at Guess Family BBQ in Waco and Koko Ramen before leaving in November 2020 to run his own pit, and the route shows in what comes out of the window: brisket goes onto butcher paper, into a Philly cheesesteak and into a crunchwrap.2 The quesabirria is the one to take seriously, made with smoked beef cheek and served with a consomme for dipping and a salsa verde The Infatuation calls bright and lively.1 The traditional half of the menu is still there, pulled pork and chopped beef sandwiches and Frito pie, so a table can split the difference.1 One correction worth having before you drive: this trailer parks at Bouldin Acres on South Lamar, and the same kitchen also runs inside the group's Braker Lane and Menchaca rooms, so check which door you are navigating to.2
Order this / avoid
- The baby back rib wings. Smoked, then fried. It is also the half of Jeff's note that the operator confirms.2
- The barbacoa quesabirria tacos. Smoked beef cheek, consomme on the side, salsa verde.1
- The brisket crunchwrap if you want the joke, or the brisket Philly cheesesteak if you want the sandwich.1
- Avoid: planning around South Congress. There is one trailer and it is on South Lamar at Bouldin Acres.2
What locals & experts say
- The Infatuation Austin, Raphael Brion, page dated 28 January 2022, on the sleeper order, verbatim:
There's also some very good barbacoa quesabirria tacos, made with smoked beef cheeks and served with a consome for dipping as well as a bright and lively salsa verde.
The page is deliberately unrated, which the outlet defines as a place it wants to revisit before assigning a number.1 - Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor, Texas Monthly, dated 23 April 2021:
Besides the excellent brisket, be sure to try Mercer's house-made beef sausage.
He also calls the smoked-and-fried cauliflower wings no afterthought of a dish and the brisket cheesesteak gloriously satisfying.4 - The line the venue prints on its own homepage is the magazine's summary, not the reporting.
Bored of 'just a barbecue platter,' Cade Mercer has created an experimental new menu at his CM Smokehouse trailer in Austin
sits above Vaughn's piece rather than inside it. The sentence it is built from is Mercer's own, verbatim:I'm so bored of getting just a barbecue platter.
4 - The West Braker Lane door is missing from the operator's own site. Daniel Vaughn's 2024 favorites piece records a second CM Smokehouse there in North Austin, opened 2023, and names the beef-fat brioche cinnamon roll at its weekend brunch. The venue's own site describes one truck at Bouldin Acres and no second address. This is the Bouldin Acres trailer; nothing is claimed for Braker Lane.5
- Not in the current Texas Monthly Top 50. The 2025 edition was scanned for this business and does not carry it. The list runs every four years, so that is the standing position until the next one.6
Good to know
- Hygiene: no score exists, and the format is why. CM Smokehouse is a trailer, and Austin Public Health's published dataset covers fixed food establishments only, which is missing data rather than a finding.3
- The host bar's score is not the kitchen's. Bouldin Acres at 2027 S Lamar is facility_id 12186640 and scored 85 in December 2024 and 93 in July 2023. That is the bar you sit in, not the trailer you order from.3
- Getting there: 2027 S Lamar Blvd, inside Bouldin Acres.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note:
Beef fat cinnamon roll, baby back rib wings
. The rib wings are confirmed on the operator's own menu. The cinnamon roll is now sourced too, and where it is sourced matters: Texas Monthly names a beef-fat brioche cinnamon roll at weekend brunch at the West Braker Lane location, which opened in 2023 and which the operator no longer lists. Jeff's note may well be about that door. It is recorded as his note and not asserted as a current menu item at Bouldin Acres.5
Verdict
should-visit — Cade Mercer's trailer at Bouldin Acres, cooking the argument that a Central Texas pit does not have to end at a tray: baby back ribs smoked and then fried and served as wings, beef cheeks smoked and turned into quesabirria with a consomme, brisket routed into a Philly cheesesteak and into a crunchwrap. Mercer came through Lambert's, EastSide Tavern and Guess Family BBQ in Waco, which is a real modern-barbecue route rather than a garnish on the bio. It is not in the current Texas Monthly Top 50 and the only bylined write-up is unrated and four years old, so the ceiling here is a well-argued trailer, not a destination pit.