The barbecue experience is as big as Texas at Kreuz Market in Lockhart
Lockhart is known as the Barbecue Capital of Texas. Fittingly, the cathedral-like building you encounter driving into town is not a church, but a barbecue joint. Everything about Kreuz Market — physically, spiritually, historically — is big.
The history of Kreuz begins in 1875, making it one of the oldest continuously operating barbecue joints in the state, though with many historic twists and turns. That year, Jesse Swearingen opened a meat market in the center of town. It is one of the first documented examples of how Central Texas meat markets would eventually transition to selling barbecue.
In the June 12, 1930 edition of the Lockhart Post-Register, in an article noting the 30th anniversary of the market, this pre-history is established: “S.B. Swearingen, son of Jesse Swearingen, was perhaps the first man in Lockhart to begin the regular sale of barbecued meats in Lockhart.”
Charles Kreuz, the son of German immigrants who settled in Seguin, bought the meat market on Jan. 17, 1900 and renamed it Kreuz Market. In the same newspaper article, it is noted that he further established the tradition of meat markets that transitioned to barbecue:
“When one thinks of Kreuz Market besides all other wares handled by an institution he thinks especially of barbecue.”
Eventually, Charles sold the business to his sons, who would then sell a share to Houstonian Hugo Prove, who was married to their sister, Amelia Kreuz.
In 1948, the Kreuz family sold the business to one of the market’s butchers, Edgar
Schmidt. In 1984, Edgar’s sons Rick and Don bought the business from their dad. When Edgar died in 1990, he left the building to his daughter, Nina Sells. In 1998, Rick Schmidt, who still owned the rights to the restaurant, could not come to terms with his sister Sells, his landlord, who owned the building.
So, Schmidt took the name and the business and moved a half-mile north and built the current cathedral-like structure that bears the Kreuz name. Nina Sells still owns the original building, now renamed Smitty’s Market, also one of the most legendary barbecue joints in the state.
The new Kreuz location opened with a flourish in 1999. Back then, the old brick pits were lit continuously — the fire never went out. To create a spiritual connection between the old and new location, pitmaster Roy Perez and members of the Schmidt family piled burning coals from the old location into a steel wash tub and literally dragged it up the street to the new location, where they lit the first fire in the massive brick pits there.
Technically, they can say the fires at the new Kreuz Market have been burning for 100 years.
The pit room at the current Kreuz Market is undoubtedly one of the biggest in the state and fully embodies the entertainment factor in Texas barbecue. Indeed, if you compare the whole building to the floor plan of an actual cathedral, you enter and line up in a long, nave-like hallway, squeeze into the apselike pit room to place your meat order and then funnel into the dining rooms along the two side aisles where you can order drinks and other accoutrements, like cheese, bread and pickles.
If there is an altar to Texas barbecue, it is the order counter and round chopping block in the pit room at Kreuz Market. Pitmaster Perez still holds court in the smoky pit room, priest-like in his cowboy hat, white apron and mutton-chop sideburns. Big Texas barbecue calls for big Texas personalities, and Perez is one of the biggest in the state.