On a recent trip to Austin, we needed to get a taste of some Southern BBQ. We decided to give the super hyped Franklin Barbecue a try. Our Austin friend and tour guide Mr. Carson Dickey of the famed Hershey Wilson band is a great BBQ man himself and even worked for a while at Ruby's, another contender in our choice for a brisket and rib fix. We decided to drive past Franklin around 10:30 am to see if the line was too much to handle. I thought it was obnoxious and was ready to try another lesser known Texan BBQ.
Carson insisted that the line would move fast and that he has seen it three times as long! We gave in and stood in that annoying line of people waiting to try what has been touted as the best BBQ in America. The doors opened at 11:00, and by then there were about 50 more people in line behind us! We finally made our way to the man behind the BBQ, greeting his customers with a warm welcome and pounds of fresh chopped brisket and ribs. Once you get to the front counter, you tend to order too much food -- better to have leftovers than to get back in line for another hour and a half!
Regan, Carson, and I shared a pound of brisket, a pound of pork ribs, a half-pound of pulled pork, one sausage, and a side of slaw -- and couldn't finish it all. The brisket and pulled pork were mighty tasty and did garner a WOW on first bite. I didn't even try the sauce. I just wanted to enjoy the natural juices of the smoky meat. The ribs were decent but underwhelming. They had some generic pepper rub all over them. The sausage was ordinary, and the slaw was nothing fantastic. (Carson made some dynamite slaw the night before that left me wishing I could've tasted his brisket before leaving Texas.) All in all, I'm glad we tried Franklin, and the wait was somewhat painless in the beautiful Austin sun. I don't understand the hype, but you can expect some good brisket at the end of that line -- nothing more, nothing less.
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