Good Samaritan that you are, if you saw a school bus on the side of the road with smoke billowing from its roof, you’d probably call 911. Now, it might seem counterintuitive, but don’t dial those digits. Pull over, whip out your wallet, and prepare for some of the best barbecue you’ve ever had, from Old School BBQ and Grill.

We ordered a bit of brisket but were overwhelmed with the enormous pile of melt-in-your-mouth meat and the accompanying velvety fat that arrived. With just the touch of a plastic fork, it fell into bite-size chunks, somehow both smoky and light. Kreuz Market claims their meat doesn’t need sauce, but this beef put theirs to shame. That’s not to say the sauce wasn’t worth it, though. The unusually sweet stuff, with caramelized red onions basking inside, only heightened our bliss. Helping, too, were the piles and piles of thick, hand-cut french fries doused with salt and whole peppercorns.

Sadly, the famous mac-and-cheese wedge and homemade potato salad were both off the menu due to the salmonella egg scare. But like Anthony Bourdain and visitors from Men’s Health magazine, we didn’t go hungry. Our generous heap of jalapeño sausage was spicy, salty, and supplemented with white bread, thick-cut pickles, and sliced red onions.

And don’t get me started on the steak burger, a towering beef patty with caramelized onions, plenty of pickles, ripe tomatoes, and yellow cheese (“yo’ant cheese awn it get it free” according to the menu) piled on a fluffy, grilled bun. The monstrosity dripped not with grease but with goodness.

“It’s a covenant,” says co-owner Dan Parrott, a large man sporting an apron and a yellow bandanna. “The shit we serve goes straight into your body.” Indeed. Cursing comes as naturally as cooking for Parrott, who has worked in the food industry for decades (most recently as a conceptual consultant in L.A.). He takes care in choosing his ingredients, many of which are local, such as the grass-fed Angus he uses for his brisket and burgers. But customers aren’t the only ones he’s made a covenant with: He’s inseparable from Big Momma, his yellow school bus. Together they travel around Austin (find them on Twitter), starting fires, cursing like crazy, and serving badass barbecue.

Tagged: barbecue, brisket, burger, school bus, Trailer Thursday