KXAN Documentary 'Family Beef' premieres at Austin's Long Center
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Nearly 200 restaurant owners, community leaders, and creatives came together in Austin Wednesday to celebrate the premiere of KXAN’s barbecue documentary, “Family Beef.”
The film, directed by KXAN’s Eric Henrikson and produced by Tom Miller, follows five different barbecue restaurants in Lockhart, the state-designated Barbecue Capital of Texas.
In it, they explore the history of Lockhart barbecue, the legendary restaurant feuds that have been marinating for decades and their push to make the coveted Texas Monthly Top 50 Texas BBQ Joints list.
Among those in attendance were members of Texas Monthly’s Food Team, including Barbecue Editor Daniel Vaughn. Guests from Black’s, Terry Black’s, Smitty’s, Barbs B Q, and Franklin Barbecue — all restaurants featured in the film — were in attendance.
The two explained how the year-long barbeque documentary came to be at the premiere.
“Well, if you’re going to talk about anything, you think barbeque is a good place to start. It was fun, but interesting,” Henrickson said. “Tom and I found the history of these feuds that have happened in Lockhart– the barbeque capitol of Texas and we were like ‘Well that’s interesting,’” Henrickson said.
Miller added that they partnered with Texas Monthly and eventually was able to interview the five restaurants that call Lockhart home.
“Through that combination we have some incredible stories and found that they aren’t all friends, a lot of them are rivals and so we really dive into that tonight,” Miller said.
Miller expressed the most challenging part of this project was getting “all five of these restaurants to say ‘Yes.’ This is their family beef.”
While some restaurants were more open than others, Miller said “to have that was the happy surprise for me.”
The two explained behind-the-scenes work on this documentary and mentioned that this project was created last June.
“We started last June and now we’re in June 2025. The reason it took the full year was we knew we wanted to end on [the] Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ Joints ranking,” Miller stated.
The Texas Monthly Top 50 Texas BBQ Joints List came out on May 27.
Miller added, “We knew that that would be the end…. that we were going to film the reaction. Our final shoot was on Saturday (May 31) and here we are four days later doing the premier.”
Both of Austin’s newly named top 10 barbecue restaurants were also there: LeRoy and Lewis and Interstellar BBQ.
Additionally, Caldwell County Judge Hoppy Haden and Lockhart Mayor Lew White offered their support.
