Franklin BBQ in Austin

My dad introduced me to Kansas City BBQ when I was around 14 years old. My brother and I followed a few steps behind as he led us through the run down restaurant door and began speaking a language we didn't understand, ordering food that wasn't even listed on the menu, and chatting up everyone he encountered like they were old friends. He calibrated his dialect like he was Hillary Clinton giving a speech in Selma. Brent and I made eye contact  - "who is this guy?"

Once I took a bite of my "beef-ana-haff" brisket sandwich I was hooked for life.

My friend, Don, shares my love of KC BBQ and suggested that Kim and I check out Franklin while we are in Austin. He cautioned us that the lines can be long - but it is a "must do" thing in Austin.

We did a little research. We learned that Franklin usually sells out of meat by 2:00 pm and the line starts forming at 7:00 am. Yes, 7:00 am.

We started preparing the day before. We got online and reserved the last two soul cycles at Loves Cycling Studio on 5th street. I huffed and sweated and tried to follow along with the 1-pound miniature dumb bells inventing my own cadence and confusing the ladies around me who couldn't help but pedal out of rhythm by my off-beat spasms. I banked a few hundred calories. That should do the trick. 

We woke to our alarm and packed for the day. Since we expected to be in line for hours, I took my e-reader, my iPad, my data hot spot, and my headphones. I wanted to be sure that I didn't get too bored.

We began our 2-mile walk to Franklin...

Past Mini Mick Jagger at the funky antique store.

Past the new mural

Past the Texas State Building

Made it!

Arrived at 8:45 am

The people at the front of the line told us they arrived at 7:00 so they would be guaranteed to get an order of the Turkey. Huh? Turkey??? I didn't expect turkey to be the prized offering.

We grabbed a couple of folding chairs from the community bin and took our place in line. We were greeted by a hostess with a notepad who asked us what we planned to order. We misunderstood and thought that we were actually ordering. So we started asking specific questions about sizes and sides and such. She smiled and explained that she is just gauging the meat-demand for the day and setting expectations for those towards the back of the line. She set the expectation with us that there would probably not be any Turkey by the time we get there. Again with the Turkey. We told her that we would want brisket and ribs so she wrote down 1 lb of each and moved on down the line. Kim and I debated whether we told her the right things and a guy leaned over and said "don't worry about it - everyone changes their mind when they actually get to the window".

I saw that several people around us had bags from CVS full of beer. Being a pretty smart guy - I figured out that there must be a CVS nearby and even though it was only 9:00 am - the cold beers looked pretty good.

In the end, we didn't need iPads or eReaders or headphones... all we needed was CVS and a six pack of Lone Star tall boys. CVS was sold out of 12 oz six packs of everything.

Just around the corner

16 oz Tall Boys

Here are a couple of links to videos while we waited in line.

Tuesday morning line at Franklin's BBQ

Wall Art at Franklin's BBQ

The doors open at 10:59 am. The people at the front of the line start putting their chairs back into the bin about 15 minutes before that. Our time in line flew by too fast. There were a lot of interesting people and things going on and the beer had kicked in nicely. 

We found that once you get inside the door - there is about 45 to 60 minutes of wait time remaining. Each order takes more time because you are greeted at the counter by a friendly and knowledgeable meat concierge who engages each customer in a probing conversation to help navigate the ordering process. We learned during this process that there was still some Turkey available so we added some to our plate.  

We were eating by 12:00!

We had brisket, turkey, and pork ribs. Sides of potato salad and slaw. All of it was excellent and worth the wait.

It struck me that Franklin BBQ is all about the meat whereas KC BBQ relies more on the spice rub and sauce. In a youtube video, Franklin showed that they cook their brisket with just salt, pepper, and smoke from Texas Oak. How they get the result is amazing. All of the meat had just the right texture, moisture, and flavor. I can't wait to go back. Next time we will go at 7:00 am so we can have more time to enjoy the pre-lunch experience.

Since we finished our lunch earlier than we planned - we embraced a full afternoon ahead of us. We passed by the long line of anxious people remaining outside and embarked on our two-mile walk home under a brilliant blue Texas sky and contemplated the endless possibilities for the rest of the day. 

We arrived at our place and I sat for a moment to think through our next move. We could go for a bike ride, play some golf, hike along the river, find some live music...The choices were a bit overwhelming. 

Look out world, Here I come!

Another night in Austin

A commotion outside of our bedroom window jolted us awake this morning at 5:30 am. We could hear muffled voices coming from just outside of the apartment. I waited a few minutes to see if it would subside and looked forward to getting back to sleep. There had been a number of other interruptions during the night. Various sounds, clomping footsteps, garbage trucks, and engines revving up 6th street and back down 5th. 

Good, deep sleep is difficult here in Old West Austin.

A few minutes passed and there was still activity on the other side of the wall. I growled myself out of bed and put on a shirt to investigate. 

Our car is parked immediately outside of our door. There was no car in the "visitor" space next to it. There was, however, a body lying in a pool of blood. And a bloody handprint on the side of our white car. 

A small group had formed a semi-circle around the body and various lights were illuminating our car, the body, and the expanding pool of oozing blood. Someone looked up and noticed me standing at the window, taking this picture, in my boxer briefs, bed head, and wrinkled t-shirt. I went back to the bedroom and threw on some jeans and returned.

A car was parked in the alley with its headlights shining at the body and into our window. I saw a young girl in a nightgown get out of the car and walk cautiously towards the victim. She bent down -  without displaying any emotion.

I opened the door to step outside of our apartment and a guy shouted at me...

"CUT! Quiet on the Set!"

I guess we signed up for this Urban Austin experience... at this point I would really like to get one night of normal sleep.

I'm sure the filmmakers didn't have a permit. Probably UT students. At least they cleaned the bloody handprint off of my car. Mostly. 

Our First Night in Austin

{Warning - this post contains some adult oriented material. Read at your own risk}

We took a break from our life on the boat to spend a few months doing other things. We decided to spend this month in Austin, Texas, where we will check out the music scene, dip into some of the South By Southwest activities, and attend the PGA Match Play event.

We are also trying to explore locations where we may decide to settle once our nomad lifestyle has run it's course. Austin is one of those locations. Although it may no longer be called Austin by then. On the local news this morning I learned that the locals have decided to rename several of the schools in the area because the current names honor some individuals with confederate ties. And the confederacy supported slavery and that is bad. One scholarly gentleman was just on the screen pointing out that none other than Stephen F. Austin himself owned slaves. Uh oh... If we like this area, we may eventually settle in this yet-to-be-renamed town. A quick google search revealed that there are numerous and diverse candidates who have made significant cultural contributions to the region. I'm sure one of them is worthy of being a namesake. 

For this visit we decided to try urban living and searched for an apartment in the center of town. Upon finding a place that met our needs - we reviewed the comments from previous tenants. It was consistently rated "5 stars" with one recurring and cautionary theme - "noisy... lots of noises... close proximity to neighbors and all sorts of noise...". We also learned that the owner provides ear plugs and a white noise machine to help support sleep.

We have lived in densely populated urban areas before - so we are not too worried about the noise. The car alarms, garbage trucks, traffic, and occasional arguments just become background noise and we don't feel that is a serious deterrent for us.

We loaded our car with a month's worth of our stuff and drove from Florida to Austin. We arrived Saturday and settled in. Everything with the apartment was exactly as advertised. We even noticed the noise-proofing in and on the nightstand:

Ear Plugs

White Noise Machine

Footsteps in the apartment above us passed through our ceiling with very little damping and we raised our eyebrows a little at how clearly we could hear what was going on up there. Even so - the devices in our nightstand still seemed to be overkill.

We enjoyed some Mexican food and live music in the neighborhood before retiring for the night. We were exhausted from the long drive and fell asleep as soon as the lights went out. 

We were both startled awake at 1:35 am. Still groggy - I reached for my phone to call 911. There was a woman in the apartment above us who was crying out in extreme distress. She was being attacked, or stabbed, or ....  the fog cleared from my head ... spanked??

Kim and I sat up and blankly stared at each other in the dim light. We were frozen. Confused. 

We were starting to figure out what was happening directly above us - and then a metallic, spring-loaded reenk-uuhh reenk-uuhh reenk-uuhh accompaniment confirmed our thoughts. I doubt the noise-reducing stuff would have helped much and we didn't try because we assumed it would all be over soon. I mean ... that's how it works, right?

This went on for 40 minutes and at times I was seriously worried that our ceiling was about to collapse on top of us. I won't go into detail about what happened at the end of 40 minutes. Use your imagination.

I made a nervous joke about how I must do it wrong and we started to work our way back to sleep.

Just as we started to drift off - the whole thing started up again. At 2:25 am. 

And then again at 6:00 am.

We have 25 more days of this... I'm not sure we knew what we were signing up for.

p.s. I know a lot of you think I exaggerate and make stuff up in this blog - so the next time this happens I will try to get a recording and post it here.