Kinda new BBQ place

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  • Ole Cowboy

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    TL; DR: beef tastes like beef and the wood it’s smoked on.

    ——————

    Rudy’s Original or franchise? They are two different flavors.

    As a native, beef is bbq; everything else is, well, something else.

    For brisket, I’m looking for a pepper seasoning, light on the salt with maybe a hint of garlic. Good bark, lean or moist should each stand in their own, no burnt ends or sauce. The beef tastes like beef with the ability to distinguish the wood it was cooked with. Smoke should not overwhelm.

    Kreutz, Black’s, or Louie Mueller are the standard bearers, the original Coopers in Llano and Hard Eight up north fall in the same category. There’s a place on 90 in Hondo that’s pretty damn good, too.

    Brisket is followed by sausage. No sausage means your not serious about barbecue. For sausage, I look for a beef/pork hotgut, venison/pork hotgut, or a beef/pork hotlink. Jalepeno cheddar starts to get too far out there for me. Southside in Elgin, Kreutz and Blacks do real good here; Coopers sausage is pretty good, but I don’t think it’s hotgut; they may have changed, though.

    There’s a place in Belton that gets Honorable mention: Schoepf’s. They’re all-around very good, but not stellar.

    Now, here comes the really subjective part; atmosphere. I’m looking for a place that’s been in the same spot since Christ was a corporal. So, food trucks are out—some call this blasphemy and there’s good food truck bbq out there, but even Franklin realized you’ve got to settle down.

    Meet on butcher paper is best. Sauce only for dipping, if that’s your thing, but no mopping, glazing, or any other sauce served on the meat. Sauce should enhance the beef, but not overpower it. While I like the original Salt Lick, it’s not my favorite due to saucing and finishing. They’re pretty damn good, though. If I’m entertaining for work, we go to Drfitwood and that’s a haul from USAA.

    My preference for ribs is beef. Should be similar to brisket, with more beef flavor. If pork ribs is all you’ve got, they need to be perfect and compliment the beef, not be the centerpiece. I’ll take sausage over pork ribs any day. If there’s brisket, beef ribs, and hotgut, then I’m in heaven...and a meat coma afterwards.
    We are close except on Louie Mueller, eaten there 3x in the past year and no more, its far cry from the LM's I was eating back the the early 70's and on. His granddaughter (?) LA makes some of the best Q you can get in Austin, it ranks with some of the best I have ever had and that is eating Q for nearly 70 years.

    I ALWAYS get Brisket and sausage. Most Q's get their sausage at Wal Mart, HEB if you are lucky, the next thing I look for is the ONIONS, you can either buy the Yellow or White, which ever is on sale and they taste like crap and are hot, or you can step it up and get Sweets for a FEW cents more. Hot onions and Wal Mart sausage almost guarantee I won't go back because it tells me the rest of the stuff they make is questionable.

    I am a sauce guy, but I am old school. Sauce has always been key in the world of Q, sadly not so much today. BBQ goes way back and the brisket was not a prime cut of meat in those times, it was tough, ran a bit on the dry side and were it not for sauce would not have been a great meal. Old school sauce was thin compared to most sauces today, no where near as sweet as some of the sugar, sugar and more sugar sauces of today. It was made from the meat drippings in the pit. They had pan that sat under the meat and it was a couple of 2 or 3 in deep and partially filled with water. The pan was long and narrow an sat directly under the drip. The last I had was in a joint up in Dallas, there were 2 places, world famous, my guess they are gone as BBQ joints rarely outlive the founder. Last I had was back in the late 60's or early 70's. Its a taste long gone for the Q scene.

    The meat today is far better quality, Franklin BBQ in Austin uses ONLY grade Prime and he personally picks out the briskets, if they don't meet his standards he does not take them, which is a reason why his Q is so good.

    95% of the Q you get is marginal at its VERY best. If you get a good plate, chances are the next time is won't be so good because they just take the meat off the truck, few places make their sauce anymore and almost sauces are more sugar than anything else. I am just finishing up a tasting of sauces, I think I still have maybe 2 or 3 bottles left that are not open, but I have been tasting for a couple of years. More often than not I have to thin it and add some spice to it to get it acceptable or something I just throw it away since there is so much sugar in it that it will send you into diabetic shock.

    My wife wants me to sell my sauce. It goes back in my family, not sure how far but at least to the 1800's.


    Todd, last April I crossed over 51 years with USAA!
     
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    toddnjoyce

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    We are close...

    Todd, last April I crossed over 51 years with USAA!

    Thanks for your service! Lots in that post, so I’ll condense. If you’re raising your own beef or buying a side of beef, Texas sauce is necessary.

    LM in Taylor burned 5-10 years ago, so it’s different now. The family (like many) has split and that (and the fire) is why it is what is is now.

    LA is Louie’s granddaughter, IIRC and had good stuff. Can’t wait for her to get some pits that have 50-75 years burned into them.

    I’m damn near a unicorn; I bridged sauce and no-sauce eras. Sauce era was like you said, cheapest USDA Grade D with sauce. I remember a vinegar-ketchup/tomato base with broth from the pan. Think cabrito with a pan underneath.
     

    Ole Cowboy

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    My motto is often just "Think cabrito." :)
    Cabrito in a 'hole in the wall' REAL Mexican eatery was on Thrus at lunch and dinner. It was a baby goat with head cut off, sliced in half laying on a serving tray with legs cut off at the knees, always enough to take some home.

    Boss calls me in and say we got 3 folks down from NYC office and they want some REAL Mexican food. Great, its Cabrito Thurs and one of my joints, well take them over there.

    I do, I order Cabrito, so do they. Waiters show up with 4 baby goats on serving trays. I am digging in and I look at and they are looking down at the trays and I can tell by the look on their faces that they are aghast. Then one says I won't have time to eat this I think I will get it to go, the other 2 concur.

    I ate mine, and I never did ask if they ate theirs, bet they did not.
     

    majormadmax

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    After the Texas Meat Company closed on Main Street, there's been few options for BBQ in Boerne. TMC was good but expensive, still we were a bit surprised to see it shut down as it was always crowded when we went there. They got 4.3 stars out of 5 from 159 Google reviews, and 4/5 stars from 91 ratings on Yelp, so they were pretty well liked. Can't figure out why they closed...
     

    benenglish

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    Boss calls me in and say we got 3 folks down from NYC office and they want some REAL Mexican food.
    We busted our butts to make sure that my sister's ex-mother-in-law got to experience REAL Mexican food when she came down for a visit. At every visit that hateful woman dropped a foreboding veil of evil over everything around her and this one was no different.

    When she left, she declared that she couldn't wait to get back to Ohio where she could once again have real, authentic Mexican food...from Taco Bell.
     

    toddnjoyce

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    After the Texas Meat Company closed on Main Street, there's been few options for BBQ in Boerne. TMC was good but expensive, still we were a bit surprised to see it shut down as it was always crowded when we went there. They got 4.3 stars out of 5 from 159 Google reviews, and 4/5 stars from 91 ratings on Yelp, so they were pretty well liked. Can't figure out why they closed...

    I liked TMC, but felt they were a little high priced, too. I believe they were owned or associated with the folks that own Cypress Grill, which we love for a nice meal.
     

    Ole Cowboy

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    After the Texas Meat Company closed on Main Street, there's been few options for BBQ in Boerne. TMC was good but expensive, still we were a bit surprised to see it shut down as it was always crowded when we went there. They got 4.3 stars out of 5 from 159 Google reviews, and 4/5 stars from 91 ratings on Yelp, so they were pretty well liked. Can't figure out why they closed...
    I went and OK, but very expensive and not good value for your money. I think this is the 3rd eatery these folks have opened in Boerne and none were successful, they also own the Dinger and it seems to do well, my wife eats there often.

    Fritzes BBQ is not bad and a good value to boot. Next to Fritzes is a Mex joint, I have eaten there 3 times and it ranks as the worst mex food I have ever had, but you almost cannot get into the place they are so busy????? Never had worse, would rather eat at Taco Bell.
     

    benenglish

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    we were a bit surprised to see it shut down as it was always crowded
    I think this is the 3rd eatery these folks have opened in Boerne
    There are many reasons that some people open and then close restaurants, one after another, with no correlation to how profitable or well-reviewed they are. Understanding why would require knowing the entire financial picture of the owners and other things about them, too. Those are not the sorts of things we can know just by observation.
     

    Ole Cowboy

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    There are many reasons that some people open and then close restaurants, one after another, with no correlation to how profitable or well-reviewed they are. Understanding why would require knowing the entire financial picture of the owners and other things about them, too. Those are not the sorts of things we can know just by observation.
    LOL, Ben you are not wrong on that point there can be other mitigating circumstances that impact a business, death of the owner for example. That said Most businesses close for one reason, not making any profit money. Does not mean it cannot be profitable, in fact in my long consulting career I found in most cases it was not a lack of revenue that took the company down, it was the lack of profits and more often than not it was FAILED management!
     

    benenglish

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    in my long consulting career
    I assume if you've had a long consulting career having to do with any businesses at this level, you've come across businesses that exist solely for money laundering. Decades ago, the hot ticket was video rental stores. You could pop one up, cook the books a while, close it down, and be gone before anyone noticed. Restaurants are quite good at this, too. They have way too much potential to process a bunch of cash and then shut down because, hey, everybody knows restaurants fail at a prodigious rate, right?

    The flip side of that is the ability of short-lived businesses to hide income. I've known bars and restaurants and coin-op laundries (and many more types of businesses) that hide from income taxes by either always being far less profitable than they really are or by simply shutting down before the IRS notices. There are many skilled restaurateurs who open a place, make it popular, make money hand over fist, shove as much cash into their pockets as possible, then shut down. Small, dead corporate entities that never reported much income but did pay their 941 taxes don't get audited by the IRS with any frequency. Virtually never, in fact.

    A truly skilled restaurateur can work that process over and over again. I've seen it happen far too many times.

    I'm not casting aspersions toward anyone. I'm just backing up your point. There are lots of reasons, some innocent, some criminal, some having (and this is a whole 'nother surprisingly common scenario) to do with mental issues, etc., that one person, family, or group may open then close multiple businesses, one after another.

    We just can't know.
     

    dennisz

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    After the Texas Meat Company closed on Main Street, there's been few options for BBQ in Boerne. TMC was good but expensive, still we were a bit surprised to see it shut down as it was always crowded when we went there. They got 4.3 stars out of 5 from 159 Google reviews, and 4/5 stars from 91 ratings on Yelp, so they were pretty well liked. Can't figure out why they closed...
    The 2 times I ate there, I thought they were way overpriced for what you got and the food quality was not what I would expect for the price, it didn’t surprise me they didn’t last. Fritze’s is good BBQ. The old market/shell station on River Road and main had good BBQ, but they shut down.
     
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