Mesmerized Meat Mavens Line Up At Franklin BBQ In Austin Ritual

AUSTIN, TX -- For most people, the main milestones in life consist of key events common to all our personal narratives: The day a child is born; one's wedding date; college graduation; high school prom. For Austinites, there's another guidepost: The day they decided to spend hours in line just to get in for lunch at Franklin Barbecue.

But even then, these motivated meat mavens wouldn't even think about cutting in line at this joint, for fear of permanent banishment.

People often wait for five to six hours in line to get their hands on the meat within the Austin institution -- even under the brutal heat of a Texas summer (giving new meaning to the term "meat sweats). There's just something about Franklin's Barbecue offerings that inspire such madness.

It's like waiting outside a Walmart for Black Friday deals but without the fist fights.

It's the tender brisket, the pulled pork, the sausage, the ribs all in Texas-sized-portion glory that mesmerizes and beckons these meat lovers as they wait patiently in a true study of delayed gratification. This is why they do this. It's like climbing Mount Everest and later basking in the afterglow of having reached the peak but lined with meat -- and the object of their aim being the Mt. Olympus of barbecue.

On any given day (save for Mondays when they're closed because they can), the long, meandering lines attest to the barbecue joint's success. Its strong pull among Austinites -- and out-of-towners wanting to scale Mount Meaty like a native -- enables the eatery to open only for lunch.

And yet there's no guarantee there'll be any meat left by the time you get to the front of the line. It's open from "11 a.m. to sold out," words strung together in a fashion that would, were it not by Franlkin Barbecue, be seen as a word assemblage clumsily linked to yield unintentional non sequitur or frantically like a typo.

But this is no word jumble. They mean it: If you reach the doors after hours of waiting, you're out of luck. Try again next time. There's nothing that can be done. Katy, bar the door.

Recently, restaurant officials starting noticing aberrations in the famously long lines: an abundance of single people -- as in just one person, not marital status -- standing in line silently trying to not look conspicuous, presumably to dine alone. But Franklin's Barbecue is a known group experience, just like standing in line for a roller coaster ride or to get into a must-see movie. One doesn't normally do such things alone.

What was up with the single individuals dotting the queue? They were professional line waiters (yes, that's a thing), taking the space for others for a fee while the impatient carnivores took in the sights and cooled their heels upon returning to their "reserved" spot closer to the entrance

Once Franklin Barbecue officials got wise to the practice, it was quickly banned. Like a Twitter-savvy Seinfeldian Soup Nazi, they issued a warning of banishment to professional stand-in-liners from the place forever.

"No brisked for you! Next!"

In the process, the restaurant's proprietors crushed the entrepreneurial dreams of clever capitalists cashing in on the craze.

That included teenager Desmond Roldan, a whiz kid whose brainchild, BBQ Fast Pass, was launched to earn money for a car and have money left over for Austin Dog Rescue -- his pet charity (pun intended). Roldan's plight was featured by Eater Austin and other media. Numerous Craigslist-listed professional line waiters were also banished.

"I am sad to hear that @FranklinBbq has banned professional line sitters," young Desmond tweeted after the policy was implemented, with palpable sadness. "I respect the decision and I'm grateful for the opportunity to make BBQ wishes come true," he offered in a follow-up tweet.

Awww. Sweet kid, but rules are rules.

Don't mess with Texas, you say? Don't mess with Franklin Barbecue! They do not play.

Needless to say, cutting in line if verboten. When President Barack Obama cut in line during one of his visits to Austin, there was a collective gasp heard across the city -- the ginormous sucking sound of disapproval. Yes, he's the Leader of the Free World, but this is simply not done.

People were aghast at the Presidential Cutting, a mass outrage making national headlines and alerting outsiders to the way things are done in Austin. Ever gracious, Obama picked up the tab to those lucky diners inside once he realized his faux paus.

He's from Chicago, and he didn't know. But still, it was shocking. We were all horrified, and still trying to recover from it.

To dissuade -- or at least mitigate -- such behavior, the diner set up a method for people to order their products online -- eliminating the need to wait in line. But Franklin Barbecue being Franklin Barbecue, the pre-order protocol is as meticulous as its exquisitely detailed line-waiting guidelines, as Austin Eater reported:

• One can order from the full array of the beloved hot meats -- briskets, pork butts, racks of rib, sausages, the works -- to include the popular travel-ready cooled-and-packed briskets. If you prefer to order by the pound, you can -- from five to 30 lbs of sliced of marvelous, mouth-watering meats. But get this: There's a required, non-refundable deposit of $75 for each order.
• Yes, you can pick a specific pick-up date, but on Franklin Barbecue terms -- only when the joint is open, with timed slots every half hour.
• Oh, and act fast. Pickup slots on the pre-order portal fill up fast, and would-be diners are reminded they can start pre-ordering at 9 am. sharp, on the first Monday of every month. And if you think you can saunter over on a Monday to start the work week off on the right foot, think again: Franklin Barbecue ain't open on Mondays. Deal with it.

Such is the mania for good barbecue in Austin, with Franklin Barbecue being the standard-bearer. Despite the recent availability of the pre-ordering process via computer or smart phone, people still wait in line. You can drive by the place come lunch time (again, except Mondays) and watch the meat-loving masses huddled together, yearning to be overfed.

Why do they wait? Why do they subject themselves to the elements for a brief moment of digestive ecstasy? The same reason why people scale a mountain: Because it's there, and because it's a quintessentialy Texan experience to tell the grandkids about one day.

At the end of the day, it's an Austin thing. You'd never understand.

>>> Video by Phillip Lybrand for Patch. Image of a toothpick -- an accoutrement that is de rigueur for the discriminating barbecue eater after a meal of meat -- via WikiMedia Commons