Drove home from a Driftwood showing last Saturday with brisket grease on my steering wheel and a strong opinion forming. I'd hit The Salt Lick around 1:30, sat outside under the oaks, and remembered why I keep coming back even though the barbecue snobs on the internet like to run it down.

So here's the ranking. Not the Texas Monthly ranking. Mine. Compiled over roughly two decades of eating between framing inspections and closings.

First, ground rules. I'm only counting places I've been to more than three times. I'm counting brisket heaviest, sausage second, ribs third, sides last because sides are mostly a scam. And I'm not including Franklin's because Franklin's isn't Hill Country and the line is a personality disorder.

The ranking

1. City Market, Luling. 633 E Davis Street. This is the one I'd defend at a table full of angry pitmasters. You walk through the side door into a smoke room that smells like it's been curing meat since the Nixon administration, and the sausage comes out on butcher paper with two slices of white bread and a squeeze of mustard from a plastic bottle. That's it. No sides theatrics. No brisket burnt-end tasting flight. The sausage has snap. The brisket has bark. You eat it standing up if you have to. It's a 45-minute drive from Canyon Lake and worth every mile.

2. The Salt Lick, Driftwood. 18300 FM 1826. I know, I know. The internet decided years ago that Salt Lick is a tourist trap. The internet is half right and half wrong. If you order the family-style all-you-can-eat, you're eating fine barbecue in a beautiful open-pit setup under oak trees with a cooler of beer you brought yourself. BYOB in Driftwood is still one of the great deals in Texas. The brisket won't win a competition. The vibe wins the competition. I take out-of-town clients here and they leave happy every single time.

3. Cooper's Old Time Pit BBQ, Llano. You pick your meat off the pit outside. That's the entire pitch and it's a great one. Big pork chop is the play, not the brisket. Anybody who tells you to get the brisket at Cooper's is showing off.

4. Black's, Lockhart. The beef rib is a monument. Eat one and skip lunch tomorrow.

5. Kreuz Market, Lockhart. Purists put Kreuz above Black's. Purists are wrong about a lot of things. Kreuz is excellent. Black's is better right now. Ask me again next year and I might flip them.

Everything else is a tier down from those five, and I'll take incoming fire on that.

Now here's where I get useful instead of opinionated.

If you're new to the area, or you're one of the people looking at homes out here right now — and there are a lot of you, New Braunfels active listings are up 61% year over year with an 11.37 months supply per the June 2026 market update from Autumn Sheffield's report — you should know that BBQ in the Hill Country is not evenly distributed. It's a Highway 183 and I-35 corridor thing more than a 281 thing. Luling, Lockhart, Llano, Driftwood — those are your pilgrimage sites. Fredericksburg has good barbecue but Fredericksburg is really a German-food and wine town wearing a BBQ hat sometimes.

The move, if you're house hunting: plan your showing days around where you want to eat. I'm serious. I've had clients decide they liked Blanco partly because we ate at a smokehouse after looking at land, and I've had clients cool on a neighborhood because lunch was gas station tacos. Food anchors memory. Use it.

A thing nobody tells you: the good barbecue joints out here mostly close by 3 PM or when they run out, whichever comes first. City Market runs out. Cooper's runs out. If you're driving 90 minutes to eat at one of these places at 2:45, you are gambling. Start early or don't start.

One more take and then I'll stop. Sides. I said sides were a scam and I meant it. The move at any real Central Texas joint is meat, bread, onion, pickle, maybe potato salad if you must. If a BBQ place has an eight-item side menu with a jalapeño creamed corn special, they're compensating. The pit should carry the plate.

Sensory note from Saturday I can't shake: the smoke at Salt Lick around 2 PM smelled more like pecan than oak, which surprised me — they run both but the pecan was winning that day. Sat there for an extra fifteen minutes just because of it. Then drove back to Canyon Lake past a field of dead sunflowers along FM 1826 that nobody had bothered to cut down. Hill Country in July looks about like that.

Showing a lot in Bulverde tomorrow. Might swing through Blanco after. There's a smokehouse on the square I haven't been to in six months and I owe it a visit.

Data sourced from Movoto's New Braunfels market trends (May 2026) and Autumn Sheffield's New Braunfels Real Estate Market Update, June 2026. Verify current numbers with a local agent before acting.