Community Meat-up

Texas Monthly launches tickets for Lockhart picnic with 30+ top BBQ joints

Festival-goers got to try smoked meats by Texas Monthly's No. 1 barbecue joint, Burnt Bean Co., at the last TM BBQ Fest.

Photo by Randi Reding

Texas Monthly is headed to Lockhart, 35 miles south of Austin, for its TM BBQ Fest on Saturday and Sunday, November 7 and 8. Tickets are now on sale to the general public for the day-after wrap-up event, the Top 50 Picnic, held Sunday.

Early bird tickets were only available to TM BBQ Club members, and are sold out. Today, July 1, marks the scheduled release of tier one tickets to the public; prices go up to the second tier September 7, Labor Day.

As an important source of news across the state, Texas Monthly covers everything from arts and culture to politics. It holds a special niche in barbecue, thanks to its definitive 50 Best BBQ Joints in Texas list, which comes out every four years.

The picnic happens more frequently, on an annual basis, giving Texans a chance to try 30-plus spots on the list in one place rather than having to traverse the state like barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn.

This year's lineup hasn't been released yet, but it's a good bet that locals on the top 50 list will come through. They include LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue (No. 2) and InterStellar BBQ (No. 6) in top 10 positions, and eight more in unranked lower 40 positions: Briscuits, Franklin Barbecue, KG BBQ, La Barbecue, Mum Foods Smokehouse and Delicatessen, Stiles Switch BBQ, Barbs B Q (Lockhart), Louie Mueller Barbecue (from Taylor). The Seguin (near San Antonio) joint Burnt Bean Co. is the reigning No. 1 spot and did participate in the picnic in 2025.

Saturday's event, the BBQ World's Fair, is a free public event. Anyone can enter with an RSVP and enjoy an artisan marketplace, live-fire cooking demos, live music, and the festival atmosphere. But to eat, they'll have to purchase a $51 tray. Both events support the nonprofit Feeding Texas and its network of food banks.

Texas Monthly, which is based in Austin, travels to Lockhart for the festival because it is widely known as the Barbecue Capital of Texas. In barbecue's infancy as a cuisine, it was a way to use meats that hadn't sold at the market. Lockhart's longtime barbecue scene — including restaurants like Kreuz Market, Smitty’s Market, and Black's Barbecue — stretches back to those days. There's also tons of local lore about the different barbecue families and their public feuds, as detailed in the documentary Family Beef.

Although Lockhart looms large in barbecue history and culture, Barbs B Q is the only Lockhart restaurant that made Texas Monthly's current top 50 list. If visitors to Lockhart during the festival want to take barbecue home for later, there are several local spots outside the fest that would be happy to wrap something up.

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SPECIAL DELIVERY

Hill Country winery pops the cork on new sparkling wine tasting room

Photo courtesy of William Chris Wine Company

Rebecca Caroline has popped open its tasting room in Hye.

Texas’ acclaimed William Chris Wine Company is now signed, sealed, and delivered. The Hill Country winery has opened its newest tasting room inside the historic Hye Post Office at 10261 US-290 to showcase its new sparkling wine brand, Rebecca Caroline.

The post office, featuring a folksy painted facade and Bavarian metalwork, is one of the Hill Country’s most famous landmarks. Hiram “Hye” Brown, Hye’s namesake, built the structure in 1886 from designs he scouted in a catalog. The building was moved to its present location in 1904, and has since become a symbol of community pride.

As with many sites in the area, much of the lore is tied to Lyndon B. Johnson. The future president reportedly mailed his first letter there when he was only four years old — a habit he kept up during his courtship of Lady Bird. 50 years later, he returned to swear in his new Postmaster General, Lawrence F. O’Brien.

Rebecca Caroline Hye Inside the tasting room, William Chris mixed contemporary furnishings with vintage touches like a stamped tin ceiling.Photo courtesy of William Chris Wine Company

More recently, the building served as a general store and restaurant. In a previous press release, William Chris said it honored its heritage by introducing a “refined, whimsical aesthetic” that just happens to showcase the popular winery’s latest Texas-grown brand.

“History gives a place its soul, and vision gives it a future,” said co-founder and CEO Chris Brundrett in a release. “Rebecca Caroline brings those two things together in a meaningful way.”

The sparkling wine brand, named for the combined middle names of co-founders Chris and Katharine Brundrett’s daughters, maintains the winery’s commitment to solely using Texas-grown grapes. Winemaker Seth Urbanek uses the méthode traditionnelle originated in Champagne, France, a painstaking process where the wine’s bubbles are created through a secondary fermentation inside the bottles.

Rebecca Caroline Hye The original mailboxes were incorporated into the decor.Photo courtesy of William Chris Wine Company

Guests can try the wines inside the new tasting room Thursday through Saturday, 11 am-6 pm, and Sunday, noon-5 pm. The $35-per-person fee covers a 60-minute experience that can be augmented with oysters and caviar. If that impresses the palate, oenophiles can join the R.C. Express Wine Club, a limited sparkling release membership program inspired by the Pony Express.

William Chris' ambitions, however, rise far above just creating a destination. The winery hopes to create a global stage for an industry that LBJ probably could have never imagined.

“Every bottle starts with extraordinary Texas-grown fruit and tells the story of the land it came from. And every guest who walks through these doors becomes part of the next chapter,” continued Brundrett. “Our goal isn’t just to make great sparkling wine. It’s to show the world that Texas deserves a place among the great sparkling wine regions.”

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