5. Franklin Barbecue is a two-trailer operation in the parking lot of a former Texaco station in East Austin. The smoky flavor and moist texture put Franklin’s brisket up there with the best in the state. The meat is smoked with white oak at 275°F for eight hours or so, then wrapped in butcher paper for a few hours more. The briskets are ready to serve when a toothpick passes easily through the meat.

Thirty-two year-old Aaron Franklin has devoted his young life to smoked meat and music. He grew up in the barbecue restaurant his parents owned in Bryan. His grandfather, a steel guitar player who toured with Bob Wills, had a music shop where Franklin learned to cook barbecue and repair guitars. He moved to Austin to try his luck as a drummer but ended up cooking barbecue for a living. He worked for a while at John Mueller’s barbecue restaurant on Manor Road in Austin. When it went out of business, he bought Mueller’s pit, a cylindrical steel smoker made out of an old propane tank.

With a ten-thousand-dollar inheritance, Franklin created his barbecue business by welding John Mueller’s old pit onto a tandem axle utility trailer and building a screened enclosure around it. Then he bought an old camping trailer and outfitted it with the sinks and water tanks required for a health department mobile food license.

Franklin Barbecue opened in December 2009 and quickly became a sensation. On the Sunday morning I stopped by, there were twenty-four patrons waiting when the chain-link gate opened at 11:00 a.m. By 1:30 p.m. the meat was sold out. Franklin closed his barbecue operation an hour and a half after he opened it with a full cash register and no leftovers.

If you want to sample some of the best brisket in Texas, you’ll have to stop by his trailer. He has no intention of opening a restaurant anytime soon.

6. Boogie’s Barbecue in Southeast Houston did move from a trailer into a restaurant space. Boogie’s barbecue was outstanding, but the trailer was so badly ventilated, pit boss Carlos Edmonson had to wear swim goggles inside. Shortly after I visited, the trailer went up in flames.