Texas Monthly 2008 – A Queen Is Crowned (PART 3)

Tootsie Tomanetz - 2025

After back-to-back “Top 5” headliners in 1997 and 2003, the editorial team changed course. This time, there wasn’t going to be a shared throne.

By 2008, Texas barbecue was at a crossroads—one foot planted in century-old brick pits, the other inching toward the hum of stainless steel machines. The traditions of fire-fed flavor weren’t fading quietly; they were holding their ground in smoke-stained rooms, guarded by pitmasters who slept little and fed fires like monks tending sacred flames—where meat was transformed through hours of heat, wood, and willpower.

Still, the faithful held on. And at the center of this tension—between the old ways and the easy ways—stood a pitmaster unlike any other: Tootsie Tomanetz, the septuagenarian queen of smoke, who helped Snow’s BBQ in Lexington earn the first official #1 spot in Texas Monthly’s Top 50 list.

For the first time, there wasn’t just a Top 5 or a “best of the best”—there was a single place, a crowned champion. And the best part? No one saw it coming.

Snow’s wasn’t on anyone’s radar in 2003. It was open only on Saturdays, tucked into a small Central Texas town better known for rodeos than ribs. Then a staffer’s husband made a stop. One bite of brisket later, everything changed.

The pitmaster? A 73-year-old school custodian named Tootsie Tomanetz, who built fires by hand and mopped chickens like it was still the 1960s, but it was enough to impress every eater, every editor, and every fact-checker Texas Monthly threw at it.

When the dust (and soot) settled, Snow’s BBQ was crowned #1 in Texas.

“On a scale of one to five, it was a seven—no, a ten!”

— Patricia Sharpe, Food Editor

And thus, a Queen of BBQ was crowned.

(TOP 5) Kreuz Market – Lockhart, TX

Having moved to a massive new building in 1999 (while the original became Smitty’s, due to a family feud), Kreuz Market stayed true to the old ways.

Pitmaster Roy Perez claimed he hadn’t taken a vacation in 21 years—not out of obligation, but grit. He showed up every day like a man squaring off against progress, chopping wood and feeding fire like a barbecue version of Paul Bunyan, daring the steel mechanisms to try and take his job.

There were no buttons to push here. No beeping timers. No glowing screens. Just muscle memory, smoke, and the kind of know-how you didn't learn from a manual. Owner Rick Schmidt wasn’t shy about his contempt for what he saw as the death of the craft.

“Those things? They’re no-brainer pits,” he said, practically spitting the words.

“They don’t make barbecue—they make consistent mediocrity.”

To him, gas-assisted smokers were an insult. A betrayal wrapped in stainless steel. They didn’t require skill. They didn’t demand feel. They just pushed buttons, spun rotisserie racks, and churned out something that looked like barbecue but didn’t earn the name.

Kreuz Market refused to play that game. No thermometer. No sauce. No damn machines. Just heat, smoke, and instinct.

(TOP 5) Smitty’s Market – Lockhart, TX

Just down the street, the sibling rivalry still smoldered. After the split from Kreuz, the original pit location became Smitty’s Market, helmed by Nina Schmidt Sells. They stayed old-school. Indirect heat. Post oak. Low ceilings. Hot fires at your feet.

At the time, Texas Monthly pleaded that this place should never change.

(TOP 5) Louie Mueller Barbecue – Taylor, TX

Even in 2008, walk into this historic building in Taylor and you could feel it—the weight of decades, the gravity of smoke-stained walls, the silence of reverence. It wasn’t just about brisket. It was about time and tradition.

By then, Wayne Mueller had taken the reins from his father, preserving more than just the smoke. Every slice of peppered beef rib was bark, fat, and fire, and every glowing ember carried the smoke-seasoned echoes of the past.

Texas Monthly awarded them another perfect score that year.

Having just visited, this review from nearly 17 years ago still rings true.

(TOP 5) City Market – Luling, TX

In 2008, City Market’s pit room was separated by a swinging door. You’d walk in, order over the haze, and walk back out with butcher paper bundles—like relics pulled from the smoke.

Their beef sausage dominated, alongside brisket and pork ribs.

But the 2008 issue wasn’t just about meat—it was a smoke-stained manifesto for the craft of barbecue. The team visited 341 BBQ joints across the state with the goal not only to crown a champion but to document a culture in flux. Even then, the landscape of 'cue was shifting.

Only 13 joints from the 2003 list re-emerged in 2008. Gas-burning commercial smokers were becoming more and more common. Pulled pork and smoked turkey, once strangers to the pit, started making appearances—marking a shift from tradition to trend. Homemade sides were being replaced by mass-produced tubs from big food suppliers.

The concern at the time? Convenience was replacing craft. And while innovation is always inevitable, there was still a deep desire to protect the spirit of Texas barbecue—found not in a soulless stainless-steel rotisserie, but in glowing coals, patient hands, and sweat-soaked aprons.

In a state full of flame-fed legends, it was a school custodian with a steel mop and a stronger will who reminded everyone what mattered most. Tootsie wasn’t trying to win awards. She was just doing it the way she always had. And in 2008, that was enough to change the course of Texas barbecue history.

Long live the Queen!