AUSTIN (KXAN)– Nearly 200 restaurant owners, area leaders, and creatives integrated in Austin Wednesday to celebrate the premiere of KXAN’s barbecue docudrama, “Household Beef.”
The film, directed by KXAN’s Eric Henrikson and created by Tom Miller, follows 5 different barbecue restaurants in Lockhart, the state-designated Barbecue Capital of Texas.
In it, they check out the history of Lockhart barbecue, the legendary restaurant feuds that have been marinading for decades and their push to make the coveted Texas Regular monthly Top 50 Texas barbeque Joints list.
Among those present were participants of Texas Month-to-month’s Food Group, consisting of Barbeque Editor Daniel Vaughn. Visitors from Black’s, Terry Black’s, Smitty’s, Barbs B Q, and Franklin Barbeque– all dining establishments included in the movie– remained in participation.
The two discussed how the year-long bbq documentary happened at the premiere.
“Well, if you’re going to discuss anything, you think bar-b-que is a great place to start. It was enjoyable, yet fascinating,” Henrickson stated. “Tom and I discovered the history of these fights that have happened in Lockhart– the barbeque capitol of Texas and we resembled ‘Well that’s interesting,'” Henrickson said.
Miller added that they partnered with Texas Monthly and eventually was able to interview the 5 dining establishments that call Lockhart home.
“Via that combination we have some incredible stories and found that they aren’t all good friends, a great deal of them are opponents therefore we actually dive into that tonight,” Miller stated.
Miller revealed the most tough part of this job was getting “all five of these dining establishments to claim ‘Yes.’ This is their family beef.”
While some restaurants were extra open than others, Miller claimed “to have that was the delighted surprise for me.”
Both described behind-the-scenes work on this docudrama and discussed that this job was developed last June.
“We began last June and now we remain in June 2025 The reason it took the complete year was we understood we wished to end on [the] Texas Regular Monthly Top 50 Barbeque Joints position,” Miller specified.
The Texas Regular Monthly Top 50 Texas barbeque Joints Checklist came out on May 27
Miller included, “We knew that that would certainly be completion … that we were going to film the reaction. Our final shoot got on Saturday (May 31 and right here we are four days later doing the premier.”
Both of Austin’s freshly called leading 10 barbecue restaurants were additionally there: LeRoy and Lewis and Interstellar Barbeque.
Additionally, Caldwell Area Court Hoppy Haden and Lockhart Mayor Lew White provided their assistance.