XL Food & Drink

Central Texas Barbecue Guide - Big Oak Bar-B-Que nails it

For a while, Stacie and Larry Ludemann sold ribs alongside rivets, but with meats and sides this good, it's no wonder they ditched the hardware

By Dale Rice
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT CRITIC
Wednesday, June 07, 2006

The crowd milled around the booths at the TDS Exotic Game Ranch, where savory, mouth-watering barbecue items lured them away from wine-sampling and two-stepping at one of the premier events of the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival.

At one station, Sue Torres, chef-owner of New York's upscale Mexican restaurant Sueños, was offering shredded duck with a ginger barbecue sauce on a cinnamon corn tortilla.

Not far away, Stacie and Larry Ludemann of Big Oak Bar-B-Que in Buda were serving pulled pork, brisket and pork ribs with homemade potato salad, cole slaw, beans and their secret-recipe barbecue sauce.

It took less than a minute to reach a barbecued duck taco, but it required several minutes in line to get the brisket and pulled pork.

That's the way it is in Texas. Even diners at a trendy wine event refuse to hide their passion for barbecue made the old-fashioned way, where the meats are encased in smoke, the sides have a character of their own and the sauce — if there is one — isn't bottled in New York City.

Blame it on Home Depot

Although the Ludemanns, through family connections, had been on the periphery of the restaurant industry, they did not plan on opening a place themselves.

"I always used to say I would never be in the food business," Stacie Ludemann said. "It is a business where it's truly a labor of love."

Instead, the couple joined Stacie Ludemann's parents in the hardware business in Buda at 210 S. Main St. But it wasn't long before they began considering the potential of doing something different.

"We knew Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Lowe's would eventually come this way," Stacie Ludemann said. Plus they knew Cabela's would be bringing tourists and new businesses into Buda on top of all the residential development in the area.

So they began discussing ways to branch out, to secure their future, and decided to mix barbecue and hardware.

At least barbecue was a field where they had connections and knowledge; Larry Ludemann's father has been traveling the country to compete in cook-offs for more than 15 years, and the Ludemanns had their own recipe for sauce.

So they converted Stacie Ludemann's office into a kitchen, and on Aug. 31, 2004, they took the plunge and began selling brisket along with the bolts and barbed wire. However, less than five months later, Home Depot arrived in Buda. Within days their sales dropped so dramatically that they knew it was time to put the tools and plumbing supplies behind them. In May 2005 they sold the last of the hardware supplies and became an all-barbecue business.

"Why try to compete with those guys?" Larry Ludemann said. "At least I can compete with other restaurants. Besides, people are much nicer now. They aren't grumpy when they come in; they don't have broken pipes."

Now the large, bright space is filled with tables covered in checked vinyl cloths. A colorful mural, with a real picket fence, stretches across one wall, and colorful metal retro lawn furniture brightens the patio outside. Just inside the door there's a counter where customers place their orders for a wide range of items that run from chopped beef sandwiches to a delicious, golden barbecue chicken.

Beef versus pork

This might be cattle country, but there's a whole lot of pork out there (as I can attest after 800 miles of driving and eating barbecue throughout Central Texas), and the Ludemanns exemplify the trend.

"We're not real beef heavy, and we don't know why that is," Stacie Ludemann says. "We haven't found a great way that we like doing beef ribs, and we're not going to do them just because we're a Texas barbecue place."

So they offer pork ribs, like the vast majority of barbecue joints across the area. But they take the pig a step further; they produce pulled pork, something more familiar in other parts of the country. They even do that in their own style: Larry smokes the pork and shreds it with forks, without adding vinegar or sauce as is common in some regions.

Of course the Ludemanns prepare plenty of smoky brisket with a peppery spice coating every day; that's the mainstay of Texas barbecue. They're also having fun with the beef, concocting items seldom found in a barbecue joint.

The Big Oak Philly is a hefty sandwich, with thick-sliced brisket, grilled onions, peppers, jalapeños and melted cheese on a toasted roll. (The sandwich is so good that if Big Oak were in Central Austin, the restaurant likely would sell a hundred of them a day.)

The Ludemanns' Frito pie replaces the traditional chili with chopped beef and pinto beans over Fritos topped with shredded cheese, jalapeños, sour cream and chopped onions.

"The adults love it," Stacie Ludemann said. Sure enough, a woman who sat a few tables away was having one for a late lunch, clearly relishing every messy bite.

On the side

Ask the folks taking your order if the sides are homemade, and many across Central Texas will shake their heads no. At some places, they'll make one of the sides, likely the beans. At some places, they say they make everything from scratch, but their potato salad tastes so suspiciously close to a commercial brand that they're wasting their time if they are making it themselves.

But at Big Oak, there's no doubt the side dishes are homemade.

There's a creamy, sweet cole slaw, beans with a light barbecue flavor and the pièce de résistance: the chunky, nonsweet potato salad with red onion and chopped parsley (and no eggs or mustard).

Commercial food purveyors tried to persuade the Ludemanns to buy prepared side dishes, arguing it was more economical.

Stacie and Larry Ludemann, however, decided to do it the old-fashioned way. They wanted sides as good as their meats, and they achieved that.

Ready for prime time

Now that the Ludemanns have had a good taste of the barbecue business, they're ready for more.

"We want to grow," Stacie Ludemann said.

Their plans include expanding the meat offerings — perhaps adding prime rib on some nights — and offering more side dishes. They've started catering, and they're considering bottling their sweet-tangy barbecue sauce, as well as a spicier version of it.

"We're having a great time," Stacie Ludemann said. "We want to grow with our craft."

It's that kind of enthusiasm that'll keep diners lining up for the Ludemanns' barbecue.

drice@statesman.com; 445-3859