We’re headed to Texas for the solar eclipse on April 8, then continuing on to spend three days in Big Bend NP before returning to New Orleans via US-90 (and then I-10 past San Antonio). Our overnights are in the three cities above (apart from staying in Chisos Mountain Lodge in the park, where we’re stuck eating their crappy food). I’m wondering if anyone can suggest dinner options, or lunch options along the route? Barbecue and Tex-Mex are most important to us on this trip, seeing as how there’s not a lot of good options for those where we live. Thanks in advance!
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In Fredericksburg
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My favorite barbecue place in Texas is right off 10 east of Sand Antonio – the Original City Market in Luling. For me it notably produces great brisket and sausages, but it also captures the quintessence of Texas. Don’t miss it. https://johntannersbbqblog.wordpress.com/2022/11/18/the-original-city-market-luling-texas/,
I was very impressed by Pinkerton’s in the Heights section of Houston. https://johntannersbbqblog.wordpress.com/2022/11/23/pinkertons-barbecue-houston-texas/
Virtually across the street from Pinkerton’s is Spanish Flowers where I ate often when I was doing voting rights work there some years ago, in part because they were open until midnight. Houston also is a sensational city for Vietnamese food – it has the 2d largest Vietnamese population in the US.
In Houston, I was very impressed with Pinkerton’s.
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Let me think - we went through Ft. Stockton back in '54, on the way to a family camping trip in the Davis Mtns. Sorry.
Pecos Co. was the center of the Texas cantaloupe industry but that has died way down and only small crops are grown now. It’s way too early for cantaloupe now but there may be some memorabilia, food items, etc.
I have a niece living at Fredericksburg after spending most of her adult life in Austin. She says there’s nothing good there, they have to go into Austin for a good meal. The town is such a hot spot I find that hard to believe but I haven’t been since the 60s when I was at UT and once in the 70s - but just for freestone peaches. That crop, like the cantaloupes, is in much shorter supply (partly due to fracking I think) and it’s a little early in the season but you probably will encounter some peach stands and peach desserts. Stonewall, just down the road, was the center of the peach industry and still is.
Here’s a list of Texas Monthly articles about Fredericksburg. I could find something on there to try but I haven’t been to any.
Dining Guide – Texas Monthly
I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten off the highway onto the streets of Seguin. You will find lots of Tex-Mex, it seems, as in probably all of your stops.
Luling is not far away, and I agree with John on City Market in Luling being one of the best places to experience Texas BBQ. That is the original location, but the word original is not part of the name. And beware of the competitor across the highway, a block away, that has painted their building the same color and put up big signs proclaiming “Luling BBQ.” Judging by some reviews, some people go to the wrong place and never realize it. Look up some pictures online to be sure you go to the right place.
If City Market is closed (6 pm, I think), Lockhart is not far away and Black’s and Kreutz both stay open till 8, if I recall correctly.
Sorry I can’t be more help. I hope @Jaymes stops in and sees this - she travels Texas a lot more than any of the rest of us and undoubtedly will have more suggestions.
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Thanks @brucesw and @johntannerbbq I might have to convince Mr. travelmad478 to add an extra day onto our trip at the end, just so we can eat BBQ. I have a feeling that by the time we make it to the Seguin/Luling/Lockhart area, it’s going to be too late in the day and these places will be closed or sold out of the good stuff. It’s a 7.5 hour drive from our starting point that morning to Luling 
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Stop and smell the barbecue. Spend a night in San Antonio. The City Market in Luling opens at 10. It makes for a great breakfast.
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City Market start4ed adding Original to its web site after some miscreants in Houston opened up a place called the Luling City Market in Houston and sold third rate barbecue. https://johntannersbbqblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/a-texas-barbecue-guide/
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Thanks John. I didn’t know that. I remember when it was a stink among foodies and bbq fanatics here but never saw any mention of this. I think food went downhill at the Houston place; never see it mentioned anymore. Food wasn’t bad under the original owners but I think it has changed hands. The charm/ambiance of the place never came close.
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Following! We’re heading to Fredericksburg for the eclipse, too, from San Antonio, after 5 nights in Big Bend. Actually on the road already (from NJ) in ABQ before heading south to far west Texas. Thanks to all for advice here!
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Just put that sentiment in front of Mr. travelmad478 and he is seriously considering it 
@beastca if you are still in ABQ, I implore you to go get takeout from El Modelo. Get the red chile ribs, get tamales. We loved that place so much we went there twice on our trip last September.
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@travelmad478 Yes, we’re still in ABQ. Thanks to your September NM trip’s report, El Modelo was already pinned for a visit on our way out of town (heading south). We’ll enjoy a picnic lunch of ribs and tamales! Where in Fredericksburg are you planning to watch the eclipse?
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Re: El Modelo, very glad to hear you got good use from my NM post! Boy, that whole state was a great eating experience. I look forward to one from you after your trip! Let me know if you find anything in Big Bend NP worth eating…I’ve been there before and the restaurant at Chisos Mountains Lodge is not inspiring, but I think that’s all there is. We’re staying there and I’m kind of dreading it—I was there 9 years ago and it was worse than a Motel 6 even then, and I doubt they’ve done any refreshing of the place since.
Re: Fredericksburg, we will probably be sitting outside the Airbnb RV we’re staying at the night before unless I hear from my friend who owns Hill Top Cafe and invites us to come there!
And thank you @brucesw and @johntannerbbq — Mr. travelmad478 agrees that we should change our plan, add a day to our trip home, and stay in San Antonio for a night and then Luling or somewhere just east of it another night, just for the BBQ opportunity
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We’re spending 5 nights in Big Bend, but camping at Chisos. I’m kind of dreading that too, as far as meals go, but we’re pretty good at bringing fresh food that’s easy to prepare (lots of pasta with greens mixed in). We decided to base ourselves in SA for the eclipse because after our camping trip, I demanded some city amenities and a washer/dryer in our Airbnb. But that means driving up I-10 on the morning of the eclipse to be closer to totality…We have our pooch in tow, so we selected a city park in Fredericksburg that is dog-friendly.
Looking forward to El Modelo tomorrow, and we plan to stop in Luling for BBQ on the way home to NJ. Thanks again, all!
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Just wrapped up our Day of BBQ in Luling and Lockhart. We hit City Market in Luling first, then Kreuz in Lockhart, and then (after a few hours of walking off some of the brisket-induced stupor around town and at Lockhart State Park) Black’s.
We got a half-pound of brisket in each place and also a sausage link at the first two—by the time we hit Black’s we were unable to contemplate ingesting another piece of sausage. We loved the sausage at City Market—fantastic—and didn’t like Kreuz’s at all. That one had an unpleasant “breakfast sausage” flavor with no smokiness really.
It was tough to declare a definitive brisket winner among the three, to be honest. City Market had a great taste but was just the tiniest bit dry relative to the other two. We had the brisket (fatty cut) rather than the clod (leaner cut) at Kreuz and actually found it TOO fatty—the fat content made the meat super tender and juicy, but almost half of the weight of the slices was just fat, which wasn’t great to eat. Black’s had a happy medium of fat content and was super juicy and tender, but somehow, we preferred the flavor of City Market’s brisket, unless we were remembering it wrong, and then we still feel that we need to go back to Kreuz and get the leaner cut…sheesh.
Being small people, for whom all that meat was very tough to handle in a single day, we mostly avoided sides. They didn’t look worthwhile for the most part anyway. I did go for the creamed corn with poblanos at Kreuz and it was excellent, as was the pecan cobbler at Black’s. City Market won in the pickle competition.
Other food reports on this trip to come in my next post
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You two are like old pros at this, aren’t you 
Sounds like you did it right. I’m impressed and feeling very full just reading about it.
Excellent report!
On the way into Texas from LA, we had lunch at 1701 BBQ in Beaumont. This was an appropriate stop, and good—but now that we’ve been to Luling and Lockhart, we realize what brisket can really taste like, so I won’t say it was great. The maque choux side was excellent, though.
We stopped at Buc-ee’s (of course) in Bastrop en route to my cousin’s house in Spicewood. Since we’d eaten not long before, we left with just a bag of Buc-ee’s house brand of Fritos (exactly like Fritos). But we did look at the chopped brisket sandwich, and it looked very fine.
In Fredericksburg, we had just one meal and unfortunately it was pretty disappointing, but I think it was more bad luck (by us) and weak execution on a very busy day (by the restaurant) than a truly bad restaurant. We went to Eaker’s BBQ, which was very well reviewed, but got there about 45 minutes before closing time. They were busy, which was definitely to be expected given the eclipse and huge crowds in town, but they were also doing a really bad job at efficiently serving customers. There were maybe 15 people in line ahead of us and it took more than 45 minutes to get those people their food. By the time we got to the counter, the only thing they had left was chopped brisket—no desirable sides, no other meat. So we got a half-pound of chopped brisket. No bread, no nothing else. The person working the register was so incredibly slow that our brisket was also cold by the time we managed to eat it. Oh well.
Our next stop was Fort Stockton, which is a decent-sized town but which apparently has only two restaurants open on Monday. We ate at Pepito’s Cafe, a Mexican/Tex-Mex place that was amazingly crowded with locals. My chili verde was good, Mr. travelmad478’s green chile burger was OK. Free chips and pretty good salsa! Gotta love that.
After that we headed to Big Bend. We brought our own breakfast and lunch food, courtesy of the Walmart in Fort Stockton, and ate at the Chisos Mountain Lodge restaurant for dinner. I had bad memories of that place from ten years ago, but they happily surprised me by serving pretty good food this time. We both got the exact same meal two days in a row (beef & chorizo chili and a spinach salad) and went for a cheeseburger and spinach salad on day 3. Very satisfying, and fast service sitting at the bar (vs. long waits if you wanted a table in the dining room).
Finally, we had our drive day to San Antonio, in which we ate a Tex-Mex lunch at Mi Pueblito in Del Rio (very good chilaquiles poblanos, meh enchiladas rojas…jarred sauce, sigh). We barely managed to digest that before our dinner reservation at Restaurant Mixtli in San Antonio. This was our one fancy-pants, splash-out meal of the trip, and it was very nice. They do an 8-course tasting menu that changes quarterly, and some of the courses were delicious. It’s the kind of place where tweezers are involved in plating, that’s all I need to say—but sometimes, after many days of eating sliced turkey and provolone sandwiches on increasingly stale rolls that have been carried around for hours in a backpack, you appreciate this sort of thing.
En route home to New Orleans, a few hours ago, we stopped for lunch in Houston at Feges BBQ, chosen by my Houston-based friend whom we met there. I think the key attraction of the place was that it was not too far off I-10. We had brisket that was actually quite good, a half-chicken that was pretty blah, some very good cornbread, and a side of Korean-spiced greens that was also pretty good. Afterwards we went across the road to get ice cream at a Mexican place called Michoacana, which was great.
Sadly, the last Buc-ee’s on our route was only a half-hour outside Houston, so we didn’t stop…
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