The walk from Congress Avenue to East 11th, home of Franklin BBQ, is a 15-minute stroll through what feels like the backlot of Austin, Texas. You pass almost nothing of note, cross over a highway, and wonder if you’re headed in the wrong direction at least twice. It’s ninety five degrees and cloudless in Austin the day I'm headed to Frankin, and by the time the bright blue building comes into focus, I’ve worked up an appetite—and thank God, because the heat sweats are about to meet the meat sweats.



“I’m guessing you didn’t come here not to eat,” says Aaron Franklin, offering me a beer before he even finishes shaking my hand. I’m accidentally an hour early, and despite the line outside—you’ve heard about the epic line—and two hours worth of barbecue left to sell, he’s nothing but gracious in the face of my over-punctuality. His air of regular-guy-ness diffuses my nerves immediately.



But before we go out back, where I’ll finally try what Anthony Bourdain calls "the finest brisket I’ve ever had," or what Pete Wells of The New York Times doubts he'd trade for anybody's, I begin to understand that there's more to this operation than just the meat.

As I’m hanging by the cash register waiting for Franklin, a customer receives his order: a cafeteria tray filled with a little bit of everything. The smells hits me, and I whip my head around quickly to catch the look in the customer’s eyes—they’re nearly popping out of his head. I can almost hear the glands inside his mouth salivating.

Meanwhile, ten feet behind him I see Franklin, one hand on his hip, one on the back of a chair, speaking to a table of six, all smiles. The first BBQ chef to earn a James Beard Award is making his rounds, and we’re not going out back until he's checked in with each and every customer.

Franklin gives a damn. And later I'll learn that the no-bullshit, distraction-free nature with which he approaches his business and barbecue is why the food industry will be talking about Aaron Franklin for a long time.



Wyatt McSpadden

The man behind Franklin BBQ grew up about two hours from Austin in Bryan-College Station, Texas, where he spent time with his grandparents at a local barbecue joint called Martin’s. They'd play dominoes while he rolled pool balls around, and he admits he was more interested in eating candy corn than in learning what creosote was (the ash left over from burning wood), or investigating why the place always smelled so smoky (probably the creosote).

When he was in fourth or fifth grade, his parents opened a barbecue restaurant of their own. Franklin wound up working lunches there: cutting lemons and onions, making sauce, scooping potato salad—easy enough for an 11-year-old. He started homeschooling and spent those formative years at the restaurant. His parents eventually sold the place, presumably ending—or at least delaying—his career in smoked meat.

He did what any 20-something with a half-brained idea does next: he called his dad.

When he was 24, he and his wife Stacy moved into their first place, and the itch returned. Franklin went to Home Depot, bought a cooker, and did what any 20-something with a half-brained idea does next: He called his dad. Dad's response? "I don't know, just throw it on and cook it."

After asking dad (and Jeeves), he got to it. "I remember the first night, sitting out there on the back porch drinking a beer, smelling the smoke," says Franklin. "Not only did it smell like my whole childhood, but it was just exciting watching the fire. I was pretty much hooked from then on."

The brisket turned out terrible, but the seed of opening his own spot had been planted.

"I kept thinking about it, milling over the details like, 'Yes, you know, I don't have any money,' but that was a cool thing about barbecue," he says. "The meat itself is really expensive, but you can get wood for free. You can build a smoker out of almost anything. People have been doing it since the beginning of time."

For Franklin, that turned into doing whatever it took to build barbecue pits for cheap. He’d dig a hole in the ground and shovel coals, or build a smoker out of an old refrigerator.

Wyatt McSpadden

Aaron and Stacy set up a roadside trailer in 2009 to sell their meat, and two years later, they opened the doors at Franklin. But even with as much success as a self-taught smoker could imagine, Franklin refuses to settle.

"I can look at everything on this plate and know exactly what's wrong with it and what it tastes like," he says, pointing at my tray. Wait, errors? "Too much pepper on the turkey, and it isn't quite rubbed right." (The turkey tasted phenomenal.)

When I ask him who else in the country is getting barbecue right, he drops the bomb.



"I don’t really know. I don’t eat barbecue," he says. I laugh nervously, but Franklin doesn’t waver. "I don't eat that stuff, but I love to cook it. If I'm in a special place like up in the Carolinas hanging out with Sam Jones (whose family has been in the BBQ biz for more than 70 years), I’m absolutely going to get a pork sandwich. If I'm hanging out with Rodney Scott (a world-renowned BBQ chef from Charleston), I'm absolutely going to get some of that pulled pork. Time and place, but as far as scenes and stuff, I don't really keep up with it. My concentration is right here."

"I don’t eat barbecue."

He's at the top of his game, in everyone’s eyes but his own.

"Better is what we're trying to do," says Franklin. "Just do everything better. Better fat render, better collagen breakdown, better bark formulation, cleaner smoke, different smoke, different flavors out of the smoke, more beefiness."

The guy who told me he made a crappy brisket in his backyard 15 years ago based on Ask Jeeves’ search results is talking to me about barometric pressure, humidity, rubbing, graining, air flow, fluid dynamics, and what cows eat. But all I can think about is, wait, he doesn't eat it?

"I've worked real hard for this dad bod and I'm keeping it this way," he laughs, before admitting, "I don't know. I'm just surrounded. It's really heavy, fatty, salty food. But I'll take a bite, I taste it all the time."

Wyatt McSpadden

What I realize is that Aaron Franklin doesn’t need to eat it, or at least not in the animalistic way that you and I do. Sommeliers spit out their wine and the guy making your omelet at the continental breakfast probably avoids eggs at all costs after he takes off his apron. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that Franklin doesn't feel the need to stuff his face with pulled pork.

Franklin is more worried about perfecting his craft than indulging in it. He's more worried about his customers and employees having a good time than impressing Anthony Bourdain or Pete Wells. That's why a guy who didn’t know what he was doing earned a James Beard Award. It’s why nobody working at Franklin BBQ seems to be stressed, or angry, or anything but thrilled to be working. It's why twice during our interview, he asks if we can take a break for him to visit some regulars and talk to some people who are still waiting in line outside.



Franklin embodies the sort of kindness that any person who meets him would hope to emulate, and the sort no person who meets him might expect from such a decorated chef. And he applies that same attentiveness to his food. When Aaron Franklin does something, it’s never half-assed. He's obsessed with the details, because to him, perfect may not even exist. And the fact that he stays purposely ignorant to anything that's not happening in his own universe allows him a whole new level of focus.

When Aaron Franklin does something, it’s never half-assed.

He's taking that approach beyond the doors of his own restaurant. This April, Franklin teamed up with fellow James Beard winner Tyson Cole to open Loro, an Asian smokehouse that offers exactly what that sounds like: the deep, smoky flavors of Texas barbecue paired with the bright, clean taste of Asian cuisine. Franklin says that when Cole opened Uchi, his "all-time favorite restaurant," it was the real start of the food scene in Austin. There is no shortage of hype about Loro, but it sounds enchantingly approachable. Franklin wants to keep it that way.

"Hopefully it's about a five-minute ticket time, super casual, flip flops, shorts, batch cocktails. I’m really excited about it," he says.

Franklin is also gearing up for his second year of Hot Luck, a food and music festival he co-founded that brings 20 to 30 chefs from around the country to Austin for Memorial Day weekend. Franklin runs it like he does everything else he does: with kindness and authenticity. Think of it like a city-wide tailgate. Franklin says it’s just how he wants to operate.

Ben Boskovich

"It's not some rad chef from wherever making all these perfect little bites and little bamboo boats on a white tablecloth," he says. "If a dude wants to make hotdogs, he's going to make hotdogs, and that's all right because we're all hanging out and you're cooking for your friends."

A portion of the proceeds from this year's festival will be donated to Austin's SAFE Alliance, which serves the survivors of child abuse, sexual assault and exploitation, and domestic violence.

And if all that isn’t enough, Franklin, who also has a welding shop and builds homes on the side "for fun," is flexing his industrial muscles with a new line of home barbecue pits. Now, inexperienced barbecue lovers like his 24-year-old self can buy the same pits Franklin and friends will use during Hot Luck, and maybe one day challenge the man himself for intergalactic barbecue domination.

If someone’s going to do it, though, they need to find a way to put the blinders on the way Franklin does. And honestly, it seems like Franklin is uniquely equipped because he's rounded up the perfect skill set to kill five birds with one stone: the love of his craft, the welding, the house building, the importance of family, and the traveling rock-band mentality that brings good people together to do cool shit as a team.

Franklin explains it differently.

"Just care," he says. "All you've got to do is care. Care about the people you're around. Care about the place you're working at. Care about whatever your craft is. Just care, and be thoughtful."

Ben Boskovich Ben Boskovich is the Deputy Editor of Esquire, where he also writes about style.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io