Smokey Denmark Sausage Company.

Smokey Denmark Sausage Company

Natural casing on everything cooked and smoked, hickory, post oak and pecan in the smokehouse, and a grind that changes with the style.1

Why go

Albert C. Denmark learned to make sausage and smoke meat at Black's Barbecue in Lockhart, and in 1964 he started his own wholesale business in Austin.2 The name is not Danish and the nickname is not about smoke: Denmark was his surname and his hair went gray early.2 The plant has been on East Fifth Street since 1970 and it still runs the founder's recipes and techniques through two changes of ownership, with Jonathan and Melissa Pace holding the business today.1 Pace put the aim in one sentence: I would consider us traditionalists. The company's own line for it is blunter, no fake casings, no spray-on smoke, no bologna.3 The plant does private label, so its links turn up under other people's names. In 2005 the Chronicle named Rudy's Country Store & Barbecue and the Iron Works as two rooms serving this product as their own.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the four Mick Vann picked out for the Chronicle, which is the Hot Gut, the Original Hot, Smokey D's Hot Links and the smoked pork and beef.1
• Also on the counter: wieners, bacon, burger patties, and pit-smoked brisket, pulled pork, ham and turkey, alongside a run of sausages that stood at twenty-three varieties when the Chronicle counted them in 2012.1
• If you are cooking for a crowd: the plant runs custom batches from 100 pounds and processes game year-round.1
• Cook them with that spec in mind: natural casing wants gentle heat, because a hard sear splits it before the fat renders. The staff's own answers on the company site run the same way, jalapeno and cheddar links straight from the smokehouse, kielbasa slow-grilled over charcoal until the skin just crisps.3
• Avoid: planning a weekend trip. The meat market is Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 3:30pm, and there is nothing to eat on site.7

What locals & experts say

• The Austin Chronicle, Mick Vann (27 July 2012), surveying the city's remaining old-school sausage makers: All of their products are first-rate and delicious. He names the four to buy in the same paragraph.1
• The Austin Chronicle, Virginia B. Wood (7 October 2005), on the part of the business you never see: the plant makes private-label product to a customer's specification, so the sausage at Rudy's and the Iron Works is this company's work.2
• Rollin Smoke names it on its own menu. The pit states on its current menu that its jalapeno cheddar kielbasa, mild country beef and hot links are Smokey Denmark's, bought in rather than cased on site.4

Good to know

• What this is: a wholesale sausage plant with a retail meat market at the front, at 3505 East Fifth Street. It is not a restaurant, and nobody cooks to order.7
• When: Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 3:30pm. Closed weekends.7
• On the dates, so you know what is solid: the 1964 founding and the Black's Barbecue apprenticeship are carried by two Chronicle profiles seven years apart. The two pieces disagree by a couple of years on when the founder sold and when the current owners bought in, so neither handover date is stated here.
• Hygiene: the plant has its own record, scoring 99 on 8 January 2025. That is the only inspection inside the register's rolling three-year window, so the record is thin rather than troubling, and it is well clear of the sub-70 threshold that triggers disclosure in Austin.6

Verdict

should-visit — An East Austin sausage plant going since 1964, with a retail counter at the front and weekday-only hours. Albert C. Denmark learned the trade at Black's Barbecue in Lockhart and set up on his own, and the standard he set is still what the company sells against: natural casings on everything cooked and smoked, no spray-on smoke, hickory, post oak and pecan in traditional smokehouse and pit-style smokers, and grind texture that changes with the style. The Austin Chronicle's survey of the city's sausage makers picked out the Hot Gut, the Original Hot, Smokey D's Hot Links and the smoked pork and beef, and called the whole range first-rate. This is also the answer to why a link on someone else's tray tastes better than the tray deserves, because the plant does private label and Rudy's and the Iron Works were both named as customers.