Bringing a bit of the south out west at Bad Betty’s Barbecue
“If loving lard is wrong, I don’t want to be right,” reads the sign on the counter, a not so subtle indicator that at Bad Betty’s Barbecue flavor comes first.
Fiercely regional and deeply debated, for true devotees, barbecue is practically a way of life. One built around community and tradition, elevating the lowest meats to the highest levels of flavor through time-tested techniques. It’s edible alchemy, transforming the toughest cuts into the tastiest, the most tender.
Texas, Memphis, Kansas City and the Carolinas are the four corners of the barbecue world. Along with his wife Brandy, owner and pitmaster Calvin Richards has studied them all. “We’ve eaten our way through all of those places and kind of been able to pick and choose not only the styles of BBQ that we like, but the styles of service that we like,” says Calvin. With a shaved head, big bushy beard, a pig tattoo on his right forearm and a cow on his left, he looks like the guy you want behind your barbecue. His nickname is actually Bad Betty, but you’ll have to ask him that story yourself (it’s sort of a barbecue tradition to name the place after the proprietor).
“We’ve found in kind of the Lockhart area of Central Texas a style that we really latched onto,” says Calvin. “It’s a meat market style, heavy with brisket, heavy with sausage, heavy with beef ribs, and it’s very heavy salt and pepper.”
Everything comes out of the big Ole Hickory wood-burning pit outback, a reverse rotisserie style. “It’s simple thermal dynamics,” says Calvin. The key is a hot fire with thin smoke, ideally from hardwood fruit or nut bearing trees. “I like apple,” he says, “I think it gives it the best flavor.”
The menu rounds up all the usual suspects (ribs, chicken, pulled pork), and throws in a few rotating wildcards like the Tri-tip French Dip and the Smoked Salmon BLT. But while there are die-hard pork fanatics, beef brisket is the unequivocal king of barbecue, the ultimate expression of smoke, heat and meat.
They use whole brisket (called a packer) made up of both the leaner “flat” and fattier “point” portions (think sirloin and ribeye). It enters the pit a massive, awe-inspiring hunk of meat and emerges a drool-inducing chunk of perfection, impossibly tender with deep smoke and big beef flavor. If you eat meat, this is what heaven tastes like.
And of course you can get all the fixings, housemade Coleslaw, Wicked Beans, Jalapeno Cheddar Corn Muffins and always some plain white bread, the true barbecue staple. “The cheaper the bread, the better the barbecue,” Calvin says with a smile. “You want that cheap, white, sponge-like bread to soak up all that flavor.”
Great barbecue comes only from time and passion. Once you’ve tasted it, it’s hard to want anything else. No one likes barbecue. You either love it, or you haven’t had it right.
