Our History & Gallery
Named one of the Top Barbecue Restuarants in Texas by Texas Monthly Magazine.
Voted Best Sausage, Best BBQ, Best Meat Market, Best Ribs, and Best Brisket in Caldwell County for 2015 by the Lockhart Post Register.
Smitty purchased Kreuz Market in downtown Lockhart in 1948. Thirty years later, in 1978, he added additional dining space by acquiring the 1906 dry goods store next door.
In 1999, Nina Schmidt Sells, his daughter, established Smitty’s Market in the building that housed her father’s Kreuz Market for more than 50 years, while her brother, Rick, moved Kreuz Market to a nice new location down the road.
In 2015, Nina purchased another twenty-eight hundred square feet in the 1920s building next door to Smitty’s Market for additional dining and banquet accommodations.
Although Smitty’s Market has expanded a bit, his market and his pit are still in the same location where barbecue has been sold in Lockhart since 1924 when the Kreuz’s built the building.
View Smitty’s history and barbecue:
Edgar A. "Smitty" Schmidt, left, purchase Kreuz Market in 1948 from the Kreuz family.
No matter what your mode of transportation, there is never a problem with parking at Smitty's.
When the new dining room was added customers were able to enjoy a bright spacious area to enjoy their barbecue
Many of you have walked past the pit through these doors, and we thank you!
Our smokestack, visible from South Colorado Street, is a Lockhart, Texas, landmark.
Customers would sit at the back of the market nears the pit to enjoy their barbecue and good conversation.
Smitty's keeps an ample supply of seasoned oak firewood on hand to make sure the smoke and flame never dies.
Rings of sausage hang in the pit ready to be smoked. Smitty's uses only the finest trimmings for its sausage.
The screen door that seperates the barbecue restaurant from the meat market has created customers for more than 50 years.
Smoke and soot cling to the wall behind the barbecue pit at Smitty's Market.
Customers get the full flavor of the smoking process as they walk past open fires to order the smoked meat of their choice.
These fires continue to smoke some of the best beef and pork and turkey in the state of Texas.
Smitty's has been family-owned and staffed since he bought it in 1948.
Smitty
John Fullilove, Smitty's grandson, is yet the next generation to carry on Smitty's tradition.
Smitty's sausage.
