Lockhart: Kreuz Market

June 2008

Employee John Colunga carries a hunk of post oak.
Photograph by LeAnn Mueller

Fielden says: If comments here are any indication, Kreuz demise as a contender for barbecue supremacy began in late August of 2009, 10 years after it bequeathed the epicenter of the barbecue world to Smitty’s and abandoned itself to a self-built Siberia north of town. My own experiences one year before and after agree, as Kreuz never comes close to achieving the taste, texture or temperature of the other Top 5 establishments. In fact, Kreuz is no longer a stop during the two or three pilgrimages we take annually to the Barbecue Capital of Texas. For all the size, machinery and attraction that was invested in the new location, one would think that Kreuz must be unsinkable; but all that remains is a sad testament to the monument that pride built. Pride goeth before the fall. For the heritage of its own name and for the quantity of meat and wood it currently wastes, let’s hope that Kreuz finds repentance leading to succulent salvation. If it does not, then it certainly built for itself a tomb to rival the pyramids of Egypt. (December 12th, 2010 at 1:49pm)

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The old Kreuz Market was like a one-room chapel. The humble brick building off the courthouse square in Lockhart had turned out divine smoked meat since 1900. But just as churchgoers nowadays worship in larger halls, so too does the visitor to the new Kreuz Market, which opened in 1999 in a gigantic building at the edge of town. (The old building now houses Smitty’s.)

Kreuz (pronounced “Krites”) does 45 percent of its business on Saturday. The rest of the week it feels like some kind of meat monastery. You enter, footsteps ringing out in the vast, vacant space, and head down a long hall to the pit room, over which a thin haze of smoke perpetually hangs. Roy Perez, the pitmaster, who has not taken a day of vacation in 21 years, is likely to be tending the fires. The counterwomen are friendly, but solemnity pervades the transaction. The atmosphere is not convivial—you sit alone in a room, capacity 560, bent quietly over an array of absolutely beautiful meat, with no fork, sauce, or plate to disrupt the communion.

“We do things the hard way,” explained owner Rick Schmidt, who samples his fare at least once a day, usually for breakfast. “We don’t use these auto pits, where you load some sticks in, set your thermometer, and come back in eight or nine hours. What we do takes attention. You’re constantly working the fire, and you need to know how the meat’s supposed to look and smell and sizzle. It’s all feel and sight. We don’t even have a thermometer.”

The product is simple and potent. The brisket’s so smoky you can imagine the tree. Swoon-inducing pork ribs are encrusted with huge chunks of black pepper. The pork chop is submissive and the jalapeño-cheese sausage addictive. A pleasant surprise is the sauerkraut, which goes so well with brisket it ought to be more of a barbecue standby. My only complaint was with the regular sausage, the filling of which was ground so fine it slid out of the casing without much encouragement.

What sets Kreuz Market apart is its maniacal devotion to tradition. Noting the rise in the use of commercial smokers in Texas barbecue, Schmidt told me, “I call those things ‘no-brainer pits.’ What they do is give you consistent mediocrity. It’s easier. But as long as we can find people that want to learn, we’ll keep our way going.” Jake Silverstein

Rating: 5.

Primary heat source: Wood.
619 N. Colorado (U.S. 183), 512-398-2361. Open Mon-Sat 10:30-8. Closed Sun. [Map] kreuzmarket.com

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