Moreno Barbecue
They sell the jalapeno cheddar sausage by the pound, so you can order a quarter of it alongside everything else.2
Why go
Bo Moreno opened a barbecue truck in 2019, grew it into a Menchaca Road building, outgrew that too, and in 2025 took over the old Green Mesquite room on the I-35 frontage at Southpark Meadows.4 Nicolai McCrary rates the result 7.9 for The Infatuation and ranks it tenth for brisket in the city.3 McCrary makes the practical case for driving south himself: There's typically not much of a line at Moreno, making it a good option on busy Austin weekends when the weather is nice and half the city is queued up for Franklin or La Barbecue.
Parking is plentiful, there is a full bar, and it is one of the few pits in town serving barbecue at dinner.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the jalapeno cheddar sausage, which McCrary calls
some of the snappiest we've had
and which is sold by the pound so a quarter can ride along with the rest.2 - Order: brisket on the moist cut. The lean is the gamble; The Infatuation's brisket guide says
If you decide to take your chances at Moreno, go with the moist cut
because it is the more consistent of the two.3 - Order: off the combo card. Barbacoa and pork belly tacos, brisket gouda mac and cheese, pulled pork nachos, and a smoked cheeseburger at night. This is the part McCrary says the place is really for.2
- Avoid: the brisket taco. It arrives as a slab of brisket in a big housemade flour tortilla with the cheese and salsa on the side, and McCrary says to save room for it only if you came for the tortilla.2
What locals & experts say
- The Infatuation Austin, Nicolai McCrary, 10 December 2025, 7.9:
The brisket holds its own with the best in town
, seasoned with salt and pepper only, andthe jalapeño cheddar sausage is some of the snappiest we've had.
Overall he calls it a working room:This is a jack-of-all-trades operation where no single item outmatches its competition, yet everything is reliably good.
He calls the room's ambience unremarkable and says that is beside the point.2 - The Best Brisket In Austin, number 10, from the same outlet: the caveat the review softens.
while we've had some fantastic brisket here on a few occasions, sometimes the meat is a little too crumbly to properly enjoy.
The guide also names the smoked cheeseburgers, barbacoa tacos and pulled pork nachos as what it does best. It is also carried in The Best BBQ Spots In Austin.3 - The Austin Chronicle, Haris Qureshi, First Look, 21 October 2025: an opening report and not a review, carrying Moreno's own reason for the move:
I didn't want to leave, but the restaurant was getting tight and congested when it was busy, so it was hard for people to sit down and enjoy the food.
His picks for a first visit are the Texas Treaty platter of brisket, spare ribs and house-made sausage with sides, or a three-meat plate, and he says do not sleep on the turkey. Those are the pitmaster's words about his own food.4 - On Texas Monthly: this pit is not in the ranked top ten of the 2025 Top 50 BBQ Joints. The other forty places run unranked as
Best of the Rest
, and I haven't read that half of the list, so it may sit in there.6
Good to know
- The wood: in 2024 Daniel Vaughn named Moreno among the Austin pits that Chief Firewood, a Smithville yard, delivers split post oak to.1
- Where it actually is: 9900 South I-35 Frontage Road, Suite M700, 78748, in the Southpark Meadows complex between a Half Price Books and an escape room. Directions older than October 2025 send you to the Menchaca Road building instead.2
- Two Morenos: the old Menchaca Road building is now Moreno Burger Co under the same owner, and it holds its own entry and its own review. Going there for brisket is a wasted trip.4
- Groups: plentiful parking, no shortage of tables and a full bar, and a combo menu wide enough that picky eaters have somewhere to land.2
- Hygiene: no public inspection score exists for this operator. Austin Public Health's dataset holds sixteen permits at 9900 South I-35 and none of them is Moreno, which is what you would expect of a room that changed hands in 2025. Read the silence as missing information.5
- Do not borrow the predecessor's score: Austin Public Health still holds this unit under Green Mesquite - South Park Meadows, scored 75 in January 2025. That is the tenant Moreno replaced, and a permit does not follow the room to a new operator.5
- What is still open: the hours. Neither bylined page prints them for this room.
Verdict
could-visit — A Southpark Meadows pit from Bo Moreno, who started with a truck in 2019, outgrew a Menchaca building and took over the old Green Mesquite room off the I-35 frontage in 2025. The Infatuation scores it 7.9 and ranks it tenth for brisket in the city, and the useful part of that verdict is where it sits in the ordering: the salt-and-pepper brisket holds up but runs dry or crumbly, so the moist cut is the order, and the jalapeno cheddar sausage is the thing McCrary rates highest. Sold by the pound, so you can take a little. The real argument is scheduling. There is usually no line here, there is parking, there is a full bar, and it serves barbecue at dinner, which almost nothing in this city does. That makes it the Saturday answer when Franklin and La Barbecue have queues around the block. The room is a shopping complex between a bookshop and an escape room and nobody pretends otherwise. It holds at could-visit because a 7.9 in a city with four pits above nine is a good day out and not a destination.