It started with a trailer
In 2016, Wade Ellison bought a used trailer smoker and parked it at a Saturday market with a hand-painted sign and forty pounds of brisket. It sold out by noon. The next week he brought sixty.
Rosa, a pastry cook, started showing up with a cooler of rye bread and pecan hand pies. People came for the brisket and lined up again for the bread. By 2019 the line was long enough to need a building, and they found one: a 1950s feed store with a tin roof and a loading dock that now holds the smoker.
The pit
Our main smoker is a 1,000-gallon offset pit the crew calls Big Red. It burns split post oak from Bastrop County, and nothing else. No gas, no shortcuts.
Brisket goes on at 4 am and comes off around 6 pm the night before it's served, then rests overnight wrapped in butcher paper. Ribs and chicken cook the same day. When something runs out, it's out. We'd rather sell out than serve meat that was rushed.
Our neighbors
We buy beef from a family ranch in the Hill Country and pork from a small Central Texas farm that raises its hogs outside. Greens, squash, tomatoes and peaches come from three farms within an hour of Pflugerville, which is why the sides change with the seasons.
Pecans for the pie come from an orchard south of town, and our coffee is roasted just down the road. When you pay us, a good part of it goes straight back into this county.
Why we take orders ourselves
You can order pickup right here on our site. It costs you nothing extra, it's ready in about 20 minutes, and it means we keep the whole order instead of paying a delivery app's commission. That money goes into the people who cook your food.
Thanks for eating with us. Come say hi to Big Red on your way in.