The constellation Orion was still twinkling in the sky when I plunked down a folding chair to claim a spot in line at Snow’s BBQ, in Lexington, about an hour’s drive east of Austin. The joint’s fame has grown in part because Snow’s has won high marks in Texas Monthly‘s past four Top 50 barbecue lists. In 2008, the barbecue world was shocked by the number one ranking of this previously unknown establishment.
That was quickly followed by a New Yorker feature from legendary writer Calvin Trillin, but the star power of beloved pitmaster Tootsie Tomanetz surpassed anything in the sky after her episode of the Chef’s Table: BBQ series aired on Netflix, in 2020. Hordes of new fans arrived to fill their bellies and meet the queen of Texas barbecue, who’s still tending pits before dawn at age 89. They’ve created a spillover effect, and two other barbecue joints have opened in this town of just 1,300 to feed smoked meats to locals and tourists alike who balk at the long line at Snow’s. I was in town to see how Lexington’s barbecue landscape had transformed, and I was surprised to see how national politics played a role in that transformation.
I turned on my car’s brights to navigate the hills and curves of Farm-to-Market Road 696 in the early morning. As I pulled onto Main Street, it seemed eerily quiet, and I wondered if I had managed to sneak up on an unusually calm Saturday. (Snow’s is only open on Saturdays, starting at 8 a.m. and usually running out of brisket by about 1 p.m.) I parked and walked past the restaurant building to see the dimly lit lot next door lined with dozens of groggy patrons sipping coffee, and even a few mimosas. At 5:30 a.m., I was seventy-eighth in line.
“When I get here at one or one-thirty, there’s always people in line,” owner Kerry Bexley told me, so those at the front of the line had beat me by more than four hours. Bexley hands out numbered tickets or has people count off so he can call out numbers for the free raffle. Prizes include discounts, barbecue sauce, Snow’s apparel, and—the most coveted—a jump to the front of the line.
Cold Lone Star beer and several cocktails are available for free at the bar, with good tips expected. That’s new since Netflix came to town, as is the side building with clean restrooms and a merch store. There’s also a new steel building at the back of the property that houses coolers, freezers, and all the orders of smoked meat Snow’s ships across the country.
For all the additional infrastructure, the experience of ordering and eating at Snow’s remains the same. Bexley and his crew still slice and weigh everything to order. Patrons take their trays to outdoor picnic tables that overlook the offset smokers manned by pitmaster Clay Cowgill and the steel pits worked by Tomanetz.
The smoked brisket now costs $32 per pound, and the wait is longer than ever, but the payoff of a few slices from the fatty end is still worth it. I got my tray just after 9 a.m. A bite from the tender pork ribs was a reminder of the traditional Texas savory flavor. And there’s still no better pork steak in the state.
Needing to save room to eat at two more spots, I packed up my leftovers, said goodbye to the nice family from Houston I’d met a few hours earlier, and headed one block south. That’s where Elijah and Jacqueline Wright have parked their Pop’s Lickin & Smackin Bar-B-Que truck since 2021. It began functioning as a mobile pit room after the couple built a small restaurant building next to it, which opened this May. Pop’s starts serving on Fridays and Sundays at 11 a.m., but on Saturdays, it gets started an hour early to attract those who might have come to town for Snow’s or the livestock auction down the block. Elijah said he sees more new faces on Saturdays, the joint’s busiest day by far.
When I was ordering, the small front lobby was full of locals eager to chat as we waited for our orders. They were there for the brisket sandwich or the specialty baked potato, stuffed with chopped brisket, pulled pork, or smoked sausage. “That’s the number one seller,” Elijah said. He and Jacqueline, who together make up the entire staff, serve at least forty diners a day. The menu features a photo of Elijah holding a large panful of Senior Belly Buster potatoes, but they require preordering. The joint is takeout-only, so after waiting about twenty minutes for my order, I retired to my car with a three-meat platter of juicy smoked sausage, tender and well-seasoned spareribs, and impressive slices of fatty brisket.
I asked Elijah why he felt confident serving barbecue just down the street from a celebrated place like Snow’s. “I have my own style, so that’s why they come,” he said of the local crowd. He attributes the quality of his barbecue to the attention he gives to his fire. “I’m not one of those to go and take a nap and leave it cooking,” he said. Elijah also credits his wife’s cooking skills. “She can do just what I do,” he said, so they share all the duties in the kitchen, including frying the fish for the Sunday special.
My third stop of the day was the Gardner Barbecue food trailer, out on U.S. 77, across from Lexington High School. The business, open on Fridays and Saturdays starting at 10:30 a.m., is operated by another local wife-and-husband team, Lakin and Devon Gardner. Devon was laid off from his job as a land surveyor in nearby Rockdale in 2020, and soon after, he organized a barbecue pop-up in a gas station parking lot. He sold out in 45 minutes and made plans for the trailer, which opened in 2022.
Lakin took my order at the window as the Gardners’ third son, just two weeks old, kept them company in the trailer. A few diners waited around at the covered picnic tables, but I was the only one eating there. Thirty minutes after I placed my order, the couple brought out two trays of barbecue. The peppery spareribs glistened with barbecue sauce. They were tender, unlike the undercooked pork belly burnt ends. A black bark on the brisket had a pleasant crunch to it, and Lakin’s batch of gouda mac and cheese was rich. Devon makes the sausage, which is a simple, German-style beef-and-garlic link. He said the locals don’t buy the jalapeño-cheese variety he has served in the past.
I asked Devon if he had sampled the other two Lexington barbecue joints. He said he had been to Snow’s a few times and liked it. “Kerry over there at Snow’s, he’s worldwide,” Devon said, adding, “One thing he can’t get is the locals, because they don’t want to stand in line.” He said that’s one reason he thinks Gardner Barbecue has been successful.
Devon didn’t have an opinion on Pop’s, or on whether or not it competes for customers. “I don’t get into the politics side of the barbecue community,” he said—but he didn’t mind displaying his views on national and state politics at his trailer. A sign supporting the reelection of Senator Ted Cruz was posted at the entrance, and a large Trump-Vance flag waved from the screened-in smoker trailer. I asked if these were displayed to attract the customers Devon prefers and dissuade others. “Everyone is welcome,” he said. “We’re not afraid to support who we like,” he continued, but said he understood that “it is a little risky doing that, because you might run into someone that might see that and drive away.”
It’s uncommon in my travels to see candidate flags hanging at barbecue joints. Most owners heed the advice of Kerry Bexley. “You cannot voice political comments in any form or fashion in business. You just can’t do it,” he told me. I hadn’t planned to delve this deep into the subject until I saw a post on X from Devon Gardner, who is a white man, using the N-word recently. From his @DevonRGardner account, he was comfortable using it, with an -a ending, at least fifteen times so far this year. Some, but not all, of the posts have been deleted since I asked him about his use of racist language. One deleted post read, “Happy black history month, n—a,” to a man who describes himself as “3% black” in his X bio and also routinely uses the N-word with an -a ending in his X posts. Another from Gardner, posted in 2014, reads, “If you sit at home and collect a check then you are defined as a n—r. Doesn’t matter if you’re white or black.”
“It’s a thing on X. It’s nothing racial or discriminatory,” Devon told me when I asked him why he was comfortable using such language on an account with his name and photo clearly displayed. “This is the first time I’ve ever heard it where it’s a problem, but . . . I got Black friends and Black family members, and I don’t call them the N-word or anything like that, because I’m not a racist person.” He added, “I can see how it comes off if you see it on X, but like I said, no, there’s not a racist bone in my body. We’ve got plenty of Black customers. . . . I’ve never refused the right to service to anybody. That’s not who I am, and that’s not what I do. . . . And if I was gonna be the kind of person to do that, then I have no right being in business.”
I began researching this story hoping to share a fun Saturday itinerary in a small-but-mighty barbecue town in Texas. After reading the racist language used by Gardner, I can’t imagine returning to his business or recommending it.
There is room for political discourse in the barbecue community, and I’ve witnessed plenty. Like many others, though, I would rather focus on food and friends. In Lexington, there are two such barbecue joints, Pop’s and Snow’s, where you can do just that every Saturday morning.
