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Austin's barbecue pits.

The Infatuation's brisket guide puts LeRoy and Lewis first in Austin and Franklin second, and the board at the top pit runs past brisket into beef cheeks out of a tallow confit, whole hog butchered on site and a link cased that morning. So order across the tray, and run the day in the order the sell-outs allow: the full board early, a short weekday queue in the middle, and one of the few rooms still cooking in the evening.

The Infatuation's brisket guide now ranks LeRoy and Lewis first in Austin and Franklin second, and Texas Monthly put LeRoy and Lewis second in the state in 2025 with Franklin listed and unnumbered, which Daniel Vaughn reads as the field catching up rather than the pit slipping. What the best pits compete on now is the rest of the tray: beef cheeks confited in tallow, whole hogs butchered in house, lamb racks under za'atar, a link cased that morning. So order across the board, and run the day in the order the sell-outs allow, starting where the whole board goes out at once and taking the second stop at a pit with a short queue. Jalapeno cheddar sausage is the second thing this city does best, and there are three answers to who made it: the pit itself, Smokey Denmark on East Fifth, and at Franklin I cannot tell you, because the only source I have found is fourteen years old. Smoke also turns up off the barbecue menus entirely, in a bowl of pho, on a Neapolitan pizza and inside a burger patty. A vegetarian gets one real plate in this city, at LeRoy and Lewis, and one question to ask about every side. Then the counters shut when the meat runs out, usually in the middle of the afternoon, and only a few rooms keep cooking past it. One thing to know before you go to Mum Foods: Austin Public Health scored that kitchen 68 in January 2025, below the city's failing line of 70.

Start at LeRoy and Lewis.

Go first to LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue, where the beef cheeks come out of a tallow confit, the whole hogs are butchered on site and the sausage changes with the week. Nicolai McCrary ranks the brisket here first in Austin and Franklin Barbecue second in his brisket guide, and in his review of the room he asks, "Do they have the best brisket in Austin? Maybe not." Both of those hold, and the rest of the board is what settles it. Texas Monthly ranks the state every four years and orders it differently, with LeRoy and Lewis second and Interstellar BBQ sixth. Anyone who eats black pepper by choice should go to la Barbecue first instead. The pit that beat all of them is fifty miles south on a square in Seguin, so Burnt Bean Company is a whole day out of Austin or it is nothing.

  • LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue$$$

    Order the beef cheeks first: they take a salt and pepper bark, four hours of post oak, then a finish in beef tallow confit. The kitchen takes whole hogs, three or four a week, and butchers them here, which is why the only pork rib on the board is the Saturday bacon rib. It holds one MICHELIN Star and placed second in the state on Texas Monthly's 2025 list.

  • Franklin BarbecueEast Austin · $$$

    Franklin cooks prime brisket on salt and pepper over post oak in an offset, and puts beef ribs on from Friday through Sunday. The summer break lands in the middle of August, so check the dates before you build a trip on it.

  • la BarbecueEast Cesar Chavez · $$

    Ali Clem was hired as help on a South First trailer by John Mueller, and fourteen years later the room she runs holds a MICHELIN Star the guide filed under her own name. Her seasoning is pepper-forward and it runs through the meat and into some of the sides, which is the make or break here. Send anyone who loves black pepper to this counter first.

  • Interstellar BBQNorthwest Austin · $$$

    John Bates cooked at Wink and Asti before he ever tended a pit, and the odd end of this board is where that shows: pork belly burnt ends glazed in peach tea, a Frito pie cased into a sausage, pulled lamb shoulder in the slot where pulled pork usually sits. It placed sixth in the state in 2025 and holds one MICHELIN Star. Nicolai McCrary has eaten some of the best brisket of his life here and has also found the flat a bit dry and the fat on the moist side prohibitively chewy, so order across the board and do not bet the meal on brisket.

  • Parish BarbecueSprinkle Valley · $$

    Holden Fulco managed InterStellar and cooked at Franklin, so the brisket arrives textbook under a thick peppery bark, and the surprises are Louisiana: ham cured in house and sliced to order, jalapeno cheddar boudin, crawfish stuffing. It took a Bib Gourmand in 2025 while smoking out of a trailer parked on a brewery lot.

  • Burnt Bean Company$$

    Ernest Servantes and David Kirkland came off the competition circuit and took first in the state in 2025, on the square in Seguin. What the drive buys is the weekend beef short rib, close to two pounds of crusted meat, and a Sunday barbecue breakfast of barbacoa tacos and brisket huevos rancheros. It trades Thursday to Sunday and it sells out.

Where these pits learned.

Every pit on this list learned from another one. Miguel Vidal took mesquite and Tejano cooking out of Valentina's to Churchrow Tejas BBQ, Travis Crawford carried LeRoy and Lewis and Valentina's to the smokers at Mum Foods Smokehouse And Delicatessen, and Holden Fulco brought InterStellar and Franklin to Parish Barbecue. The oldest thread runs out of Lockhart, where Albert Denmark learned sausage and smoke at Black's before he opened his own Austin plant in 1964, and his links have been arriving under other people's names ever since. Black's Barbecue Austin and Stiles Switch BBQ (North Lamar) hold the older thread by inheritance rather than by apprenticeship, and Micklethwait Craft Meats BBQ & Catering is the outlier: a baker who came to smoke rather than a cook who came off another pit.

  • Black's Barbecue AustinThe Drag, West Campus · $$

    The rub is the family's original 1932 formula, and Barrett Black, the fourth generation, opened this Guadalupe Street room in 2014. Take the fatty brisket and a beef rib to share.

  • Smokey Denmark Sausage CompanyEast Austin · $

    Smokey Denmark runs a wholesale plant with a meat market at the front, on East Fifth Street since 1970, still on the founder's recipes. Natural casing on everything smoked, hickory and post oak and pecan in the smokehouse, and the grind changes with the style. Jonathan Pace says he would consider the house traditionalists, and nothing is cooked to order.

  • Churchrow Tejas BBQCrestview · $$

    Miguel Vidal smokes the mollejas in a pan to catch the fat, cools them overnight and brings them back up in that liquid, then folds them into a fresh flour tortilla with tomatillo salsa and a house escabeche. Daniel Vaughn ate here four times and called that the best bite of the lot. He is just as plain that the pit room has not reached the consistency he expected, so order fatty brisket or chopped and leave the lean.

  • Micklethwait Craft Meats BBQ & CateringEast Austin · $$

    Tom Micklethwait came to smoke out of a baking career and served his first plate off a salvaged trailer in 2012. The rub is celery seed, onion powder, garlic, chili, mustard and coriander, thick enough to hold post oak smoke, and the scratch sides and the pie counter are the baker's half of him. The pit runs out of a converted farm store that spent years as a church, with three offsets sharing the room with the guests.

  • Stiles Switch BBQ (North Lamar)North Lamar, Highland · $$

    Ewan Hardeman and Lance Kirkpatrick have run post oak in an offset on North Lamar since 2011, and the pit came back onto Texas Monthly's Top 50 in 2025 after missing 2021. The serrano glaze is the house move and it comes standard on the pork ribs and on the fried brussels sprouts, and the sausage rotates from a classic pork link to a veal and pork weisswurst. It keeps long hours, plenty of seats and hardly any line.

The newest pits.

Go to KG BBQ for the cooking nobody else in this city is doing. Kareem El-Ghayesh had never heard of brisket when he first came to Texas in 2012, learned it on a Weber Kettle in Cairo off Aaron Franklin's cookbook, and was turned down by at least fifteen joints before Bill Kerlin took him on for free labor; his offset now runs orthodox salt, pepper and oak while the sauce rack stays Egyptian. Damien Brockway works the African diaspora through the same Central Texas method at Distant Relatives and buys most of his produce from Black farmers around Austin. Both men keep the fundamentals plain and build the second cuisine on top of them. Sí Baby-Q, Space Kat BBQ and Briscuits are new in a different way: none of the three changes the smoke, and each changes something else about the tray.

  • KG BBQEast Austin · $$

    El-Ghayesh glazes his pork ribs in pomegranate molasses under za'atar, smokes whole racks of lamb to medium rare with a garlicky mint chimichurri, and puts tahini cut with vinegar and cumin on the table, which he calls the national barbecue condiment of Egypt. It holds a Bib Gourmand from the inaugural Texas guide. The trailer parks on the patio at Oddwood Brewing, so the beer is the host's.

  • Distant RelativesSouth Austin · $$

    Order the chicken leg quarter with the chile vinegar dip, which Nicolai McCrary calls some of the best chicken he has eaten, barbecue or otherwise. Black eyed peas come slow cooked with brisket burnt ends stirred through, he finishes the lima beans with smoked pork butter, and the bread is a toasted sourdough Pullman where most Texas trays hand you sliced white.

  • Sí Baby-QSoutheast Austin, Fierce Whiskers Distillery · $$

    Simone Tong and Matthew Hyland inherited an Ole Hickory rotisserie with a building and hired a pitmaster off Terry Black's to run it. Daniel Vaughn found the Central Texas fundamentals sound, the fat cap rendered and the bark glistening, and the Eastern half of the idea uneven, so take the Butterworth curry smoked chicken and the dan dan Frito pie. The truck moved to a distillery yard in 2025 and the menu changed with it.

  • Space Kat BBQEast Austin · $$

    Tri-tip, coppa and lamb chops finish on different clocks, so the board here moves through the day rather than selling out at once. Jack Zizzo learned the pit at la Barbecue in 2014 and has had this business close on him three times, once when a faulty build set the truck alight. Akaushi tri-tip is the cut, smoked over post oak and finished over oak coals. Leave the coppa.

  • BriscuitsSouth Lamar

    The engineering problem here is the biscuit, built sturdy enough to carry smoked meat and a fruit jam without going to pieces. Brisket with smoked strawberry jelly is the namesake and the pork belly comes under spiced apple-pear preserves. Daniel Vaughn's line is that the meat plate is fine and the sandwiches are the reason to come, so ordering it all a la carte misses what the truck is for.

Brisket on a pizza, a burger and a bowl of pho.

Order brisket off five menus that are not barbecue menus. CỦI builds its pho on smoked brisket, Pieous cures its own pastrami and bakes Neapolitan pies beside it, Moreno Burger Co grinds pit trim into a smashburger patty, CM Smokehouse (South Lamar) turns smoked beef cheek into quesabirria, and Loro runs the Uchi kitchen and the Franklin pit off one menu. All five cook with beef that already carries bark and rendered fat, so the smoke is in the meat before the kitchen starts.

  • LoroSouth Lamar

    The Uchi kitchen and the Franklin pit share one menu here, and Tyson Cole's reason it works is that ten years of smoking meat and ten years of making sushi are the same skill set. The brisket places below Franklin's on the same reviewer's scale and you walk in without queueing, which is the trade on a day the queues have already taken your morning. Go to the South Lamar original rather than the Domain outpost.

  • Moreno Burger CoMenchaca · $

    The patties are ground from the trim off the pit's own smoked briskets, so the fat is rendered and the meat is seasoned by bark before it touches the griddle. Ask for the smashed one: pressing that trim thin puts crust across the whole face of the patty, and the crust is what you came for. The thick smoked patty never seasons through. Keep the toppings simple.

  • CỦINorth Austin · $$

    Cui cooks Central Vietnamese out of a small room in a McNeil Drive strip, with banh beo and banana-leaf tapioca dumplings that are rare here and a pho built on smoked brisket. McCrary reviewed it in June 2026 and withheld a score, saying he wants a second visit first. He did commit to one line: the classics arrive "wearing a pair of cowboy boots."

  • PieousBelterra, southwest of Austin

    Joshua and Paige Kaner opened a wood-fired pizzeria in an old Cartwright's building, found the rotisserie smoker the previous owners had left behind, and started curing pastrami on it: a wet brine, black pepper and coriander plus ten more, about fourteen hours over live oak, then a steam finish. Texas Monthly's barbecue editor rates the result above a few famous New York rooms. Take it as a platter, half lean and half fatty, and keep it off the pizza, which dries it out.

  • CM Smokehouse (South Lamar)South Lamar (Bouldin Acres)

    Cade Mercer came up through Lambert's and Guess Family BBQ, and the trailer smokes beef cheek into quesabirria with a consomme for dipping and a bright salsa verde. The window also smokes baby back ribs, fries them until the edges crisp and sells them as wings.

The smoked vegetable plate.

Go to LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue, where cauliflower burnt ends and miso glazed carrots ride the same pit as the beef and come off with a bark of their own, sweet and soft inside, charred and a little bitter outside. The rub carries no sugar. What I cannot tell you is the fat. I have not found an Austin pit that publishes which of its beans, greens or potatoes are cooked in pork fat by default, and I have not found a reviewer who asked, so guessing on somebody else's behalf is how a vegetarian ends up eating something they did not want. Ask at the counter, every time. That same board makes its blue corn cornbread with hog fat, right beside the carrots.

  • LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue$$$

    Nicolai McCrary is the only reviewer I have found who writes up a smoked vegetable in this city as a dish in its own right, and this is the plate. Ask one question at the counter before you assume anything about the rest of the tray.

  • ATX CocinaDowntown · $$$$

    ATX Cocina cooks no barbecue at all and is the room to pair with a pit day. A heavy focus on masa makes the whole kitchen gluten free and nobody makes a speech about it, and the pecan-crusted wagyu flank carne asada with chimichurri is the order. Book, or take the bar.

Running a two-pit day.

Two pits is the honest number for a day if Franklin Barbecue is one of them, because that queue takes the morning with it and the good cuts are gone by early afternoon everywhere else. Three works when you run the clocks. Open at LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue, where flat iron, cheeks and brisket go before the rest of the board. Take the middle of the day at Micklethwait Craft Meats BBQ & Catering, whose weekday line is the shortest of the good pits. Finish in the evening, where the fires are still going. Give Interstellar BBQ a morning of its own, because its sold-out board thins through the day.

  • Franklin BarbecueEast Austin · $$$

    Build the day around Franklin or leave it out, because that queue does not fit beside anything else.

  • LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue$$$

    Open here, and the Anytime Eats counter at the bar gets you into the food without joining the queue at all.

  • Interstellar BBQNorthwest Austin · $$$

    InterStellar wants a morning of its own, because the board thins as the day goes and the peach tea pork belly burnt ends are what you came for.

  • la BarbecueEast Cesar Chavez · $$

    Take la Barbecue first in any East Cesar Chavez plan. I have not found anyone who publishes a queue clock for this counter, so get there early.

  • Micklethwait Craft Meats BBQ & CateringEast Austin · $$

    Micklethwait takes the middle of the day, because its weekday line is the shortest of the good pits and turning up a few minutes early is the whole technique.

  • Space Kat BBQEast Austin · $$

    The queue is not the constraint at Space Kat. Vaughn's party were the only customers through their whole meal, so it goes wherever the day has room.

  • Barbs B Q$$

    Only a weekend works, and only early. Vaughn stood second in line an hour before the doors and the queue already reached the block behind him.

  • Black's Barbecue Lockhart$$

    Black's closes a Lockhart day, because it serves dinner in a town where the other counters have sold out.

The rooms still cooking after the sell-out.

The counters here shut when the meat runs out rather than at a printed hour, because the pitmasters put a fixed number of briskets on overnight and the day ends when those are gone. Space Kat BBQ and Burnt Bean Company trade Thursday to Sunday on those terms. Past the middle of the afternoon, go where the fire is still lit: Rollin Smoke BBQ inside Chalmers, Camino Alamo BBQ 老段烧烤 once the charcoal is going, Dai Due if you booked it, and Black's Barbecue Austin on Guadalupe. Nothing at Franklin Barbecue survives that hour except an order placed weeks ahead, which skips the queue and wants a large minimum.

  • Rollin Smoke BBQEast Cesar Chavez · $$

    Goodstock prime over local post oak on a Moberg, and the late hours are the argument: this counter is still serving when the pits sold out hours earlier. Take the smoked carne guisada in the G-Thang burrito, and on Sundays a trompo turns for al pastor that the cook crisps on the griddle. Confirm the al pastor on Instagram first, because it is a special and it sells out.

  • Camino Alamo BBQ 老段烧烤

    Camino Alamo sells skewers three to an order, lamb or prime beef or chicken wings, marinated in cumin, salt, white pepper, onion, Sichuan pepper and chili flake and cooked over charcoal troughs bolted to the front of the trailer. Diego Duan works the grill himself, so the queue moves at the speed of two troughs. Check the Instagram account before you set off, because I cannot confirm the current address.

  • Dai DueManor Road, Cherrywood · $$$

    Dai Due is the other Texas fire, and the one you have to book. Texas holds native deer in public trust and no restaurant may sell them, so Jesse Griffiths buys his venison from Broken Arrow Ranch in the Hill Country. The wild boar confit in a sweet and spicy chile bone broth is the order.

  • Black's Barbecue AustinThe Drag, West Campus · $$

    You get dinner here with no serious line, because the meat was cooked in Lockhart that morning and driven up. That costs it the pit, and on a Saturday when half the city is queueing on the East Side it is a trade worth making.

Make a walk of it

Two counters sit on the same stretch of East Cesar Chavez. Take brisket at la Barbecue while it lasts, then walk down to Rollin Smoke inside Chalmers, which is still serving after dark.

la Barbecue · Rollin Smoke BBQ

Jeff's take.

Franklin no longer settles the question, and it has not since about 2021. The honest move now is LeRoy and Lewis for the tray, la Barbecue or Parish for the pepper, and KG for the cooking nobody else in this city is doing. My saved note on Burnt Bean reads "#1 in Texas. See awards and press for details.", which is the whole reason a Seguin joint sits on an Austin list. The one note I wrote with an order in it is CM Smokehouse, "Beef fat cinnamon roll, baby back rib wings", and both are still on the window. Briscuits took its Bib Gourmand from the inaugural Texas guide. Go early, go midweek, and order the sausage wherever the pit cases its own.

Questions, answered

Can I hit three pits in one day, or does the meat run out before the third?

Three works without Franklin Barbecue and two with it. That queue takes the whole morning, so a Franklin day has room for one more counter and no third.1 Without it, the day is a question of clocks: a counter that puts its full board out early, a pit whose weekday line is short in the middle, and a room with the fire still lit in the evening.2

as of Aug 2026

How early do I actually need to be in line at each pit?

Only Franklin Barbecue needs a plan, and the plan is either a camp chair or Texas Monthly's own alternative, which is to turn up in the middle of a weekday and take what is left.3 Everywhere else, arriving a few minutes before the doors is the whole technique, and midweek it is barely that. The line that decides your lunch is not the one at the door but the board behind it, because LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue loses its best cuts early.45

as of Aug 2026

Can I get good barbecue at dinner, or is it all lunch until sold out?

You can, and the price of it shows on the tray. Black's Barbecue Austin on Guadalupe is the easiest of the dinner rooms, because the meat is cooked in Lockhart that morning and driven up, which is what that costs it.6 Stiles Switch BBQ (North Lamar) is the one I would send you to, for the serrano glaze and a room with seats in it.7

as of Aug 2026

I am vegetarian. What do I actually get at an Austin pit?

You get one plate, at one pit. LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue puts cauliflower burnt ends and miso glazed carrots on the same fire as the brisket, with a sugar-free rub and a real bark on them.2 Then ask about every side before you order it, every time. I have not found an Austin pit that publishes which of its beans, greens and potatoes are cooked in pork fat, and the cornbread on that same board is made with hog fat.4

as of Aug 2026

Who cases their own sausage, and who buys links in?

Interstellar BBQ and LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue case theirs every day and both move the recipe with the week, so the question at those counters is what went in this morning.89 Almost everybody else buys in, and the honest boards print Smokey Denmark Sausage Company.10 Franklin Barbecue is the one I cannot answer, because the only source I have found is fourteen years old.

as of Aug 2026

What Austin is known for

It covers 2 of the things Austin is known for: The Central Texas pit, The smoked sausage link. See the cards and their rooms.

How this was written

Jeff's argument, filled in from the sourced entries. Every room here has its own sourced entry, and nothing on this page adds a fact that is not on one of them. Last read through Aug 2026.

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