 "Photo: Anne-Marie Huff/Daily Texan Staff")
Try walking anywhere near 21st Street on campus, and you’ll experience something that students along that route have noticed since the start of the semester — the robust smell of smoked meat on the fire pit.
For years, Texas’ tasty barbecue has been held in a class of its own, and now, Texas Picnic Company is helping to solidify that.
Based in the parking lot next to the University Catholic Center, owners Marc Stimak and Mark Avalos can be found daily in their small wooden trailer churning out endless pounds of savory meat.
Stimak and Avalos bought the trailer in 2008, and shortly after, the pair decided to add barbecue to the traditional Texas Picnic Company menu of gourmet sandwiches and bakery items. Texas Picnic Company’s original location off Sixth Street serves a spread of sandwiches, but the location near UT is primarily barbecue, a decision which has proven valuable for the pair.
“We serve about 200 tickets a day,” Stimak said. “And more so, about 20 percent are repeat and daily costumers.”
Beginning in March 2009, Texas Picnic Company’s barbecue was enjoyed first by crowds at the Austin Convention Center. Stimak claims that business at the convention center was outstanding.
“On the first day, we’d have to hand out some flyers and menus,” he said. “But by the second day, we got really busy. Then for the rest of the week, we had lines of people waiting for some good barbecue.”
So how did the barbecue trailer end up on UT’s grounds? The decision to move the business to campus was a careful one, Stimak said.
“We literally came to the [UCC parking lot] and said a prayer that a door would be opened,” he said.
After many local businesses had tried for over 15 years to set up an establishment in the lot, the center gave Stimak and Avalos the nod of approval. Soon after, the tandem began producing the same finger-licking barbecue that attracts crowds today.
Through the theme of trailer dining, eating on the run has spread throughout Austin.
However, Stimak and Avalos’s work ethic allows them to stand apart from the competition.
“Here, we like to create opportunity,” Stimak said. “We have given people jobs and chances to work who normally wouldn’t have a job.”
The Texas Picnic Company has created jobs for numerous people, often the homeless, who may need a chance to turn their lives around. The relationship amongst the employees helps explain the atmosphere within and around the trailer as a constantly friendly and exciting one.
The stand’s menu is limited, featuring only a few items, but that doesn’t keep the customer from being able to tell just how important barbecue really is to Texas Picnic Company.
Lunch meals average at around $7, and items range from the pork sandwich to barbecue wraps loaded with flavor.
If customers are looking for something a bit less filling, the trailer also features breakfast tacos for the hungry student. Loaded with eggs, bacon, potato, sausage and cheese, these tacos provide costumers with a full stomach at a low price.
The Texas Picnic Company has only been on campus for about a semester, but expect to see the little brown trailer, smoking throughout the day, around for quite a while.
Texas Picnic Company is located on 21st and University Street, and is open from 7:30 a.m. — 8 p.m., Monday-Friday.
