Editor's note: This story was originally published on Aug. 17, 2018. We are republishing it because on Sept. 15, Tootsie Tomanetz, the 83-year-old pitmaster at Snow's BBQ, will be inducted into the Barbecue Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Kansas City. Snow's will be closed that day.
LEXINGTON -- Smoke hangs in the trees on a muggy summer night, the smell of burnt oak wrapping itself around the backyard of a red-painted restaurant in a tiny Texas town. Golf ball-sized bugs bounce off the overhead lights. An orchestra of cows hums in the distance.
It’s just before sunset on a Friday, the first hour of Clay Cowgill’s 18-hour shift. He’s wearing his barbecue uniform: a black T-shirt dampened with sweat, burnt jeans and rubber shoes with melted tips.
The nerves haven't set in yet, but they will. Fans will soon arrive -- from Dallas, Nashville, Hong Kong -- to visit the small arena of wood benches and steel pits in Lexington, one hour east of Austin, population 1,177.
They’ll bring lawn chairs and decks of cards, tired eyes and high expectations, waiting in line for the sun to rise to eat what many say is the best barbecue in the state.
The place is called Snow’s BBQ, where brisket can be sliced with a finger. It’s home to legendary pitmaster Tootsie Tomanetz, an 83-year-old soon-to-be Barbecue Hall of Famer, known for her pork steaks and tender half-chickens.
Twice, Snow's has been ranked No. 1 in Texas Monthly's Top 50 Barbecue rankings, released every four years or so. Most recently, it took the top spot in 2017, creating longer lines and a game-day-like pressure.
Because Snow’s is only open one day a week, on Saturdays, from 8 a.m. till the meat sells out.
Owner Kerry Bexley says the key to good barbecue is heat and smoke, which require constant attention. If it's bad, he says, 90 percent of the time it was human error.
That’s why Cowgill gets the nerves. He’s in charge of the brisket, pork ribs and turkey. On this Friday night, just before 8, he’s the first to arrive, feeding logs into the pits and lighting the fires.
Every week, he seeks what he calls the perfect cook -- flawless ribs, moist turkey and textbook briskets, perfection down to the very last detail.
“Because,” he says, shutting the lid of the pit smoker with 12 hours until Snow’s opens. “We’ve got one shot every week to get it right.”
Born of a hobby
Most of barbecue is waiting. It takes at least 10 hours for the briskets to smoke, eight for the turkey, six for the chicken and so on. The heat must be a perfect temperature. The smoke must be clean.
Bexley arrives just before 10 p.m. He bends low and picks up fallen pieces of the red, white and blue streamers that hang above the outdoor benches.
The streamers are from March, when Snow’s celebrated its 15th anniversary, a number Bexley still can’t believe. The former rodeo clown, prison guard and auctioneer started the business in 2003 as a hobby. At the time, and to this day, he works full-time at an energy company, and also sells real estate.
He recruited Tootsie as his pitmaster. She’d been smoking meats since 1966 at local meat markets, and was known in town as an expert. But this, too, would be her side job. During the week, she was a custodian at a nearby middle school.
The location of Snow’s was perfect, just down the street from the weekly Saturday cattle auction. The moniker comes from a childhood nickname. Before Bexley was born, someone asked his then 4-year-old brother if he wanted a boy or girl. He said he wanted a snowman.
Business was fun at first. But after five years, it was barely profitable. Bexley wanted to spend more time with his kids on the weekends. So in 2008, he put Snow’s on Craigslist.
Days later, he met with a couple, prepared to sell everything. But they backed out of the deal.
In the following weeks, Texas Monthly reporters visited Snow's, and a new normal would soon take shape.
The first Saturday after it was crowned No. 1 in the magazine’s 2008 Top 50 Barbecue rankings, a long line stretched outside the front door.
By 9:30 a.m., Snow’s was out of meat.
Mop sauce splash
Cowgill’s favorite moments are right now, after midnight, when it’s just him and the pops of the fire.
To power through his 18-hour shift, he starts with a Red Bull, then transitions to a full pot of coffee. Later, when the customers arrive, he’ll switch to water and cold beer.
By now, he’s already loaded the briskets -- 7-pound, pre-trimmed cold slabs rubbed with salt and pepper -- into the pits, along with the turkey and pork ribs. He’ll check and rotate them throughout the night, massaging the briskets with thick rubber gloves to test their tenderness.
He was hired three years ago, after Tootsie’s son, who also worked at Snow’s, died of cancer. At the time, Cowgill was far from an expert. He was simply a die-hard fan, stopping by Snow’s almost every Saturday, until one day Bexley offered him a job.
For six months, Bexley taught him how to master a smoked brisket. As for Tootsie, Cowgill quickly realized it was best to just watch.
“I had to learn how to work a lot harder around her,” the 36-year-old says, sweeping the floor. “To do more.”
Tootsie arrives just before 2 a.m. with less than three hours of sleep. She still works full-time on maintenance and grounds for the school district during the week.
Her shoulders are broad, skin tan, short white hair pushed back. She says she doesn’t feel like an 83-year-old. More like 60. In silence, she grabs her shovel and digs into the glowing coals, then sprinkles them under the box pits.
Next, she boils a tall pot of water with onions for her famous mop sauce, which will be knighted onto the chicken, pork steak and ribs, releasing a buttery plume of mustard smoke that Cowgill purposefully leans into.
Then she prepares the beans, which are free for customers. After that, she cleans the sausage pans, arranges the outdoor register and retrieves more logs.
An hour and a half after she arrived, Tootsie finally takes a seat.
Most people who visit Snow’s want a picture with her. She’s a celebrity in the barbecue world. Yeti did a short documentary on her. Major newspapers and magazines have done profiles. At first, she was uncomfortable with the attention. She enjoys it now, even asking some customers if they’d like her autograph.
This year, she was a semifinalist for the James Beard Award. And on Sept. 15 in Kansas City, she’ll be inducted into the Barbecue Hall of Fame, even though months ago, she was unaware that either honor existed.
“I’m a country girl,” she says with a smile, standing up to shovel more coals. “I don’t know about that crap.”
With Tootsie’s fame and a No. 1 ranking, many wonder why Snow’s hasn’t expanded business hours or opened another location. Bexley has thought about food trucks in Austin or College Station. But he’s concerned about quality.
“If we can’t do it right, we don’t do it at all,” the 51-year-old says, sitting in his Snow’s office, which has a blue cot for power naps, a walk-in freezer and stacks of packaging supplies. Every week, he ships pre-cooked frozen meats all over the country. That’s another job in itself.
His main concern is Saturdays. He knows that most of his customers are traveling long distances, and wants to make sure it’s worth their while.
Right after last year’s No. 1 ranking, the line was longer than ever. It zigzagged from the front porch to the street, 300-plus people stretching down the block.
Lines like that stress Bexley out.
Because if you don’t arrive early enough, you don’t get to eat.
Front of the line
Footsteps clank on the wooden porch just after 5:15 a.m. It’s dark outside, with a forecast of thunderstorms. But there they are, a hungry couple from Houston.
“I’ve been cooking a lot of barbecue lately,” says Pete Rodriguez, setting up his lawn chair outside the front door. “I have to see what No. 1 looks like.”
An hour later, 14 more people have joined. Brett Ashcraft from Georgia takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the smoky smell, a smell so good that a customer once wanted to capture it, so he bought a Snow’s T-shirt and asked Tootsie to lay it near the pits, which she did.
Today’s haul is well over 1,000 pounds of meat, including 70 briskets, 36 whole chickens and more than 30 pork steaks. At the front of the line is a whiteboard that reads “Out of.” It’s what people glance at most, like a green light that will soon turn red.
By opening time, there are 60 people in line. Bexley welcomes the crowd like a referee, explaining the rules and what to expect. This is his favorite part. The interaction.
He asks the crowd to number off for a raffle. The prizes are a free hat or T-shirt, 10 percent off your meal, a bottle of sauce and the most coveted -- a trip to the front of the line.
The winners of the grand prize include sisters from Washington state. When the doors open, and it's their turn, they order a plate for themselves, as well as a couple pounds of brisket and ribs to take home, which they hope the airport dogs don't sniff out.
The servers are a mixture of family and friends. One of Bexley's longtime neighbors slices the brisket, while his two daughters switch between cash register and wrapping.
As the line moves along, Bexley brings out a cooler of free Lone Star Beer. Country music blasts from a loudspeaker.
Zeke Bermudez orders a little bit of everything. He can’t pick a favorite between the pork steak, ribs and brisket. After his meal, he walks outside and shyly approaches the famed pitmaster. Her back is turned.
“Excuse me, Miss Tootsie,” he says softly, and she turns around, flashing a toothy smile, ready and excited for her eighth picture of the day.
The compliments overflow toward Bexley and Tootsie: “Best ever” and “worth the drive.”
By 10 a.m., the chicken has run out. But that’s it. Come noon, Snow’s BBQ still has everything else. Bexley is shocked. He can’t remember a day like this in years. Maybe it was the stormy forecast. No matter, he’ll freeze the leftovers and ship them as online orders.
At 2 p.m., they clean the pits and close up shop. Tootsie is tired, a good, hard day’s work tired, ready to slip off her shoes and take a nap at home.
Cowgill stands by the pits, watching the final bites on people’s plates. Today was close, but it wasn’t the perfect cook. One brisket was a tad too tender for his liking. A rack of ribs was a touch too dark.
“I’m going for perfect, and I’m not going to get it,” he says.
Next Saturday, he’ll try again.
Details
Open: Saturdays, 8 a.m. until the meat runs out
Address: 516 Main St., Lexington, TX 78947
Phone: 979-773-4640
Online: snowsbbq.com; snowsbbq@yahoo.com
Pro tips: Snow's is roughly a three-hour drive from Dallas. Best to arrive by 7 a.m. if you want your choice of meat. Austin is an hour away. The nearest hotels are in Rockdale. Credit cards accepted.
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