Emmit Hendricks of Athens waits in line for some sausage at Southside. The fresh and smoked sausage also is available by mail.
Posted on 05/30/2007 6:09:21 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952
Sausage is the secret to the oldest 'cue restaurant in state
By Kitty Crider
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
ELGIN — Twice a week for 42 years, cotton gin owner Jimmy Sybert has made the 32-mile round trip from Taylor to Southside Market & Barbeque here for what he considers the best sausage around.
"I used to order a yard of it," he says, extending his arms to a 36-inch length. Now, he has cut back to 18 inches or so of the juicy fresh beef sausage.
But why drive to Elgin for lunch? Taylor is known for its 'cue.
It's the flavor of the sausage, he says. "A good sausage is hard to beat ... And Southside's sausage is consistent. I can always count on it to taste as good as it did the last visit.
"Ask for it right off the pit. It's so hot it will melt the plastic fork. That's when it is good. Right off the pit. It tastes like it smells."
Good fresh Texas beef sausage, cooked over oak, is worth the gas mileage for Sybert and others. It's this Elgin hot sausage that has made Southside Market & Barbecue so famous that its list of diners past and present include Lyndon B. Johnson, Dan Rather, Earl Campbell, Burt Reynolds, Robert Duvall and Nolan Ryan.
But this weekend Southside will celebrate more than being a sausage king. At 125 years old, it is staking claim to being the oldest continuously operating barbecue restaurant in Texas.
It was in 1882 that William Moon began selling meat door-to-door from the back of a wagon. Four years later he settled his meat business in downtown Elgin. And
suspenders and jeans, the senior senator of sausage looks around the present 22,000-square-foot Southside restaurant, meat market and sausage plant on U.S. 290 East. Racial, age and gender diversity is evident. Senior citizens are lunching. So are moms and kids, groups of business people, a high-school girls golf team.
The Bracewells made another bold change — relocating Southside Market to the highway 15 years ago. It involved many sleepless nights and a big departure in tradition and location. Ernest Bracewell and his son Ernest Jr., called Billy, had weathered a devastating fire in 1983 at the downtown site and rebuilt. But they needed more room, and when they tried to expand on the town square, they were stymied by lack of space and parking, and historic restrictions.
"I got to the point where I couldn't grow anymore. I knew I had to move or we would eventually close up," Ernest Bracewell, 77, says.
The family looked long and hard and finally purchased the old Security National Bank on U.S. 290, turning the drive-in windows into a dining room and keeping the old sign and safes.
But relocating meant leaving the nostalgia of downtown Elgin. It meant opening on Sundays to accommodate the weekend traffic on the highway. That was protecting their future, the Bracewells decided.
Even though Elgin had grown from a 2A high-school sports town to a 4A town and was proclaimed the Sausage Capital of Texas by the Texas Legislature in 1995, it needed hungry travelers. Southside was not the only game in town. Meyer's Elgin Smokehouse and Cross Town Bar-B-Que have followings, too.
"If we had tried to live off (Elgin's) 6,000 residents, we would have starved," says Billy Bracewell, 51, CEO from 1992 to 2005.
So they moved to the highway, to a location large enough to add a kitchen, a meat plant and restaurant pit room. They expanded the menu to include fixings such as beans, potato salad, tea, water and beer.
But, still, sausage is what brings everybody here, Ernest Bracewell says.
It's Southside's claim to fame. One of their T-shirts reads: "We've got sausage and stuff that's good with sausage." Another says: "I love their guts."
At least 60 percent of everything is sausage, adds Billy Bracewell, now executive vice president, who began working in the market at age 12. That includes the meat market, the restaurant and the sausage plant, which takes about 15,000 square feet of the space.
This might be a family business, but the staff has grown to about 80, and in 2007 Southside will sell 2 million pounds of sausage. "Elgin hot guts," the old-timers call them, because they are packed in natural casings. Generally, the term refers to the fresh sausage cooked in long ropes over oak on the restaurant's pit or purchased in the adjoining meat market, Ernest Bracewell says. But, increasingly, Southside smokes the same sausage recipe for links and ropes for grocery stores, other barbecue restaurants, wholesalers and online sales. (A peek into a nearby shipping room shows gift boxes awaiting transport to Oregon, Los Angeles, Michigan, Ohio and California.)
At Southside, sausage is made five days a week, with a health inspector onsite. The Bracewells say that they have long had a state inspector but added a federal one at the turn of this century so they could ship across state lines.
But they no longer slaughter their own cattle for their sausage and the full-service market.
"We couldn't do that now with 2 million pounds of sausage," says Bryan Bracewell, 31, Ernest's grandson and Billy's boy and the company's CEO for the past couple of years.
Still, "we want to hold onto our roots," says Bryan Bracewell, who also started in the business at age 12 and has a degree in meat science from Texas A&M University. "We are not real gung ho about change in the restaurant. We will grow in distribution and catering and maybe some new sausage in the markets and online."
He's not afraid to take the famous sausage on the road, showing it off at food events outside the state. In June, Southside cooks will head to New York City to participate for the third year in the Big Apple Block Barbecue in Madison Square.
"We're 125 years old. Let's get some swagger," says Bryan Bracewell.
That's sausage with a swagger. Southside will take on nothing that does not include its Elgin hot sausage. That's a cardinal family rule. Whatever they do — no matter how fancy a catering job — sausage must be served. It's the guts of their barbecue business.
kcrider@statesman.com; 445-3656
A Southside timeline
1882 William Moon started Southside Market on FM 1704 in Elgin. Meat was sold door-to-door from the back of a wagon.
1886 Retail business moved to Central Street in downtown Elgin in the form of a butcher shop. Moon started cooking BBQ on Saturday only in the back of the building, thus name changed to Southside Market & BBQ. Business would reside in two different building on the same block before settling into 109 Central.
1908 Lee Wilson bought the business from William Moon.
Early 1900s Bud Frazier started working at Southside Market & BBQ and stayed until his retirement in 1970. The business changed hands between Wilson and Frazier more than once – something about Wednesday night card games.
1942 Jerry Stach, Monroe Stabeno, and Charlie and Van Zimmerhanzel (brothers) bought the business from Wilson.
1948 Stach bought out his partners and brought on brother Edwin Stach as a partner.
1968 On Sept. 1, Ernest W. Bracewell, Sr. and wife Adrene bought the business from the Stach brothers.
Early 1970s Brisket added to the menu.
1972 Ernest reduced the heat in the sausage to appeal to the masses.
1982 Centennial celebration for Southside Market & BBQ. Congressman J.J. (Jake) Pickle cut the ribbon.
1983 A fire gutted the restaurant, causing smoke damage to the new dining room, meat market and offices. Business closed completely for a month. Sausage still made on FM 1704 during this time.
1991 Bracewells purchased Security National Bank building on U.S. 290. Remodeled the bank building and added a restaurant pit room, kitchen, meat market and a meat plant.
1992 First sausage stuffed at new location. Also added beans, potato salad, baby back ribs, tea and water. Prior to this the menu was meat by the pound eaten on butcher paper only accompanied by bottled soda water, pickles, jalapeño peppers and onions.
1997 Awarded plaque by Lance Corp. for over $1 million in cracker sales.
1998 Added onto existing building (meat market cutting room, smokehouse room and employee break room).
2005 First trip by Southside to New York City's Big Apple BBQ Block Party.
2007 125-year celebration in Elgin.
Emmit Hendricks of Athens waits in line for some sausage at Southside. The fresh and smoked sausage also is available by mail.
Me?? I like Baltimore’s famous Pollock Johnny’s with the works.
So do I. Nothing like it a the Lexington Market.
Last time I was at the Lexington market ,I got a Gyro from the Greek stand. They had Mexicans working there. LMAO.
Texas BBQ sausage ping. Look at the last picture on the gallery. I love the brown paper for plates.
Yup. Simply the best sausage ever.
I sure wish I had a big plate of that sausage for lunch today.
I had some homemade pork sausage on Monday that was packed with big, hot Hatch chile (i.e. jalapeño) chunks. Man, that was good. Then I followed that up with our friend’s homemade venison garlic sausage, plus plenty of cold Shiner to wash it down. Yum.
Just another reason I love living in Texas.
For Xmas a few years back I received a 25 lb box of their hotlinks. It took me about 4 months to finish it.
That looks good. I’ve had the Opa’s before. There is a sausage company in Austin - Texas Sausage Co., They make some really good hot sausage, Austin Hot Sausage.
Wouldn’t have taken me that long to finish. We usually get 3 - 5 lbs every time we go thru Elgin. That may last a week.
Nothing wrong with Opa’s.
Dang it, we’re having Macaront Grill catered and all I can think about is sausage.
Central Market has pretty good hand made stuff. I know it’s almost blasphemous but their chicken feta sausage is awesome.
Come on down to Kruez’s in Lockhart you know (Kriets) or the City market in Gonzales or Luling for Good sausage but order it Dry. Go with a local and you’ll get better service.
If you want to come to the City Market in Gonzales give a shout!
Great Sausage, Brisket and cheezy potatoes.
Another specialty is the Beanie Burger - sounds weird but is incredible.... hamburger patty, covered with refried beans, crushed fritos, nacho cheese and onions and jalapenos. It is worth the pain afterwards.
I think I’ll leave that comment alone or get busted
I’ve been to the City Market in Gonzales before. They do make good sausage. The City Market in Giddings used to have good sausage too, but now it is all so greasy. Their other BBQ is good.
I think to be near Wichita Falls you have to plan it that way but thanks for the info I’ll check it out if I ever need to go to the middle of nowhere (at least its in Texas though)
That is why I don’t live there. ;^)
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