Two Black's on One Stretch of Common Street: Where New Braunfels Is Getting Its Brisket This Fall

In 1932, Edgar Black Sr. opened a barbecue restaurant in Lockhart. As of this fall, you can eat at two restaurants descended from it in New Braunfels, and you can walk from one to the other in about three minutes.

Terry Black's Barbecue opened its doors at 1310 E. Common St. on Tuesday, Sept. 15. The Herald-Zeitung reported that it sits "just across the parking lot from The Original Black's Barbecue." The Express-News puts the distance at a three-minute walk to Black's at 936 Loop 337. Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que is at 1125 Loop 337, so it's close by too. That gives one short stretch of the loop three barbecue names that all started somewhere other than New Braunfels.

The pits with deep New Braunfels roots are on the other side of town. Once you see how the map has shifted, it gets a lot easier to pick a spot on a Saturday.

Two restaurants moved into buildings that already served food

Neither Black's restaurant on this corner was built from scratch, and that tells you something about how this area grew.

MySA reported that The Original Black's opened in New Braunfels on June 20, 2018, in a building that used to be a Rudy's. Eight years later, Terry Black's did the same kind of thing. It bought the empty building that had housed Los Cucos Mexican Cafe and started converting it at the beginning of 2026. That was a first for the company.

"Typically, we buy dirt and we build ground up," Darien Kapture, the company's senior vice president of food and beverage operations, told the Herald-Zeitung. "But we knew that this building had been around for a long time within the community, so we decided to keep the structure as best we could."

So, for longtime locals, this corner holds two former restaurants that now serve smoked brisket. Folks who remember when they were Rudy's and Los Cucos will spot the old shapes from Loop 337.

One family business, two menus

Both restaurants trace back to the same Lockhart kitchen. KXAN's "Family Beef" documentary report says Edgar Black Sr. founded the Lockhart restaurant in 1932, and Edgar Jr. and Norma Jean Black owned it later. KXAN reports that the family's branches went their separate ways around an Austin expansion in 2013. Austin Monthly dates the first Terry Black's opening in Austin to 2014.

Today, Black's Barbecue and Terry Black's Barbecue are run as separate businesses. Terry Black's has opened in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Lockhart and Houston, and New Braunfels is its seventh location. San Antonio and Nashville are on the way.

That history is why the two places feel related without being the same. Here's how they compare from the parking lot:

The Black's menu items come from MySA's write-up, not a posted menu, so check blacksbbq.com for the current lineup. Terry Black's lists its sides as mac and cheese, pinto beans, green beans, Mexican rice, cream corn, potato salad and coleslaw. Kapture told the Herald-Zeitung the smokers run 24 hours a day, 364 days a year, and Christmas is the only day off.

The new place looks like New Braunfels on purpose

Every Terry Black's is designed around the city it's in, and the New Braunfels one leans into German heritage. The walls have German-inspired motifs, real German steins and photos of Gruene. Out front there's an outdoor area the company calls a beer garden, with custom murals. Inside, there's a private event room.

"The photos on the wall, a lot of them are from Gruene Hall," Kapture told the Herald-Zeitung. In Community Impact's opening-day story, he said the company wanted a "timeless atmosphere."

The Gruene Hall photos on those walls borrow from New Braunfels history. The barbecue that grew up here is still cooking on the west side and downtown.

Cooper's has been in town since 2008

MySA reports that Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que expanded to New Braunfels in 2008, a decade before The Original Black's opened here, and that it cooks its meat over live mesquite coals. Its official site calls the business family-owned and operated and lists the "Big Chop" as its signature.

With three names this close, the 2026 version of a barbecue run in New Braunfels can be a loop instead of a drive. For out-of-town guests, that means you can compare Lockhart-style brisket from two branches of the same family and mesquite-cooked meat from Cooper's without getting back on I-35.

Across town, the pit that opens at 6:30 a.m.

Granzin Bar-B-Q at 660 W. San Antonio St. keeps a completely different schedule. It posts hours of 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and is closed Sunday. That's three and a half hours before The Original Black's opens at 10 a.m. The early start makes sense once you see the menu. Along with brisket, chicken and sausage, Granzin serves breakfast tacos on house-made tortillas.

MySA reported in 2024 that Miles Granzin had been running the restaurant for 40 years, and it called the Granzin family an established New Braunfels name. Granzin's hours page doesn't show an update date, so call ahead before an early Saturday run.

The longest local barbecue story in town ended as a restaurant but kept going in another form. The Herald-Zeitung reported that the New Braunfels Smokehouse restaurant was closing Aug. 7, 2020, after 68 years in business. The company's own history page says the restaurant and country store closed for good in 2020, and a retail shop opened in 2024 at 441 N. Guenther Ave. So the Smokehouse name is still around for anyone picking up smoked meats to take home. You just can't sit down to a plate there anymore.

A fall barbecue day, mapped

Since Terry Black's opened, here's one way to spend a day eating barbecue in New Braunfels:

1. Morning at Granzin Bar-B-Q, 660 W. San Antonio St. Breakfast tacos on house-made tortillas. Doors open at 6:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday.
2. Shopping stop at the New Braunfels Smokehouse retail shop, 441 N. Guenther Ave. Pick up something to take home from the name that served New Braunfels for 68 years.
3. Lunch on Loop 337. Pick one of the two Black's restaurants, or split a tray between them, and hold Cooper's at 1125 Loop 337 for another day or for guests who want mesquite.

Terry Black's will have been open a little over five weeks by the third week of October, so the corner of Loop 337 and East Common Street is still new to plenty of folks in town. Two branches of a Lockhart family that started cooking in 1932 now serve brisket a short walk apart. And the pit that's been in the same local family for four decades still opens at 6:30 a.m. on the other side of town.

Out on the land, a smoker and a long table are part of how a lot of us like to live, and if you're thinking about a place with room for both anywhere in Comal County, I'm happy to talk it through. Kalor West can help you find acreage where the brisket can run as long as you want. Let's Connect.