This past January, Tyler and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary (now that’s something to celebrate!) We decided to celebrate by taking a long weekend vacation to Austin, TX. Why Austin you may ask? Well, 1) we had never been their before 2) it was somewhere warmer than Colorado in January 3) We have heard great things about the town and we thought we would see for ourselves what it was all about.

The trip was memorable in many ways, we did a lot of walking around, a lot of eating and some shopping in between. The food in the town was amazing. I feel like we really didn’t have a bad meal while we were there. But one meal sticks out above all the rest, Franklin’s BBQ. BBQ in Texas…it’s one of those “when in Rome” situations. Using one of our best foodie friends, Yelp, it was a definite must stop visit.

We arrived at Franklin’s around 11:00am, right after finishing breakfast. The line was pretty long already, snaking out the door and down the street. We got in line and thought, this shouldn’t take too long….almost 3 hours later, we were getting ready to order probably the best BBQ we will ever experience. Worth the 3 hour wait? YES! And the 3 hours went pretty quick. The wait staff brought us sample sandwiches to munch on while we were standing in line, offered beer and water to those who were interested, it was great. But lets get back to the food. SO good, I am not even sure how to put it into words. We ordered a little bit of everything and like Tyler said, “it was so good, you don’t even need the sauce”.

We debated getting BBQ somewhere else the next day for lunch but then determined, we would just be disappointed because nothing is going to live up to that meal we had at Franklin’s.

Inspired by our experience, we got home and pre-ordered Franklin’s cookbook and look what gem showed up the other day.

This is not an ordinary cookbook, although it has recipes, it also tells the history and techniques that makes this BBQ so great. Tyler and I would take turns reading it until we both finished it. Inspired by the book, Tyler decided to make homemade BBQ sauce from the book and declares it “So good, we never need to buy BBQ sauce again”. And once we live in a place bigger than our 400 sq foot apartment and have a yard of some sort, I will not be surprised if Tyler builds a smoker and becomes best friends with the local butcher in town.

Moral of the story, if you are in Austin, go to Franklin’s BBQ, it is well worth the wait. And if you like BBQ, buy this book, it is a great read and the recipes are amazing.