Texas BBQ

 McKinney, TX

Hutchin's BBQ in McKinney, TX

Eating Local

Today is the day we planned on checking out Hutchin's BBQ.  When I was in L.A. I was thinking about our travels and I realize we would be able to have Texas BBQ and Kansas City BBQ back to back, so I started looking for "The Best" BBQ in Dallas, TX.  That search brought me to this list.  I usually use online lists as a guide and not as gospel, but Eater is a site all of my foodie friends use and a site I used in San Francisco quite a bit.  They opened at 11am and I wanted to slot myself in-between the opening crowd and the lunch crowd so I got there at 11:15 and there was a little line.  If I had waited a few more minutes there wouldn't have been a line at all. I was a Monday after all.  On the 4th of July the place was crazy busy.  

I like the fact that they don't say "The Best", they say Top 50.

They have been around

Smoking wood

The line.  You have to wait in line for To Go orders too, which is what I am doing.

The checker also directed traffic and sold $20 shirts.  Maybe I will get a shirt that says McKinney on it.

They had the articles that were published about them on the wall

The menu! 

This is where some of the magic was happening!

The magicians at work!

The gentleman at the counter was friendly and asked me what I wanted.  Oh wait no, this is leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The gentleman at the counter was friendly and asked me what I wanted.  I wanted 1lb of Ribs and 1lb of Brisket.  I was asked if I wanted Lean or Marbled Brisket.  Marbled is the correct answer.

The person next to me was eating there so they piled the meats up on a tray and printed a sticker price tag for each cut so you could pay at the register

They had all kinds of sides.  I chose the brisket pinto beans and they gave me a tub of delicious (spoiler) sauce

For some reason white bread with BBQ is a very Texas thing.  I saw it in Austin at Rudy's back in the day.

Everyone was really friendly.  The guy cutting my meat even chatted me up about where I was from and was this my first time there.  On the way out I stopped in the dining room to take more photos.  It looked like a cool place and if we had unlimited funds I would go there a few times for lunch.

Cool neon!  I would have liked to try the smoked sausage but we had plenty already.

It looked like a lot of people came in for lunch during their work day.  Oh wait, this is Texas Chainsaw Massacre again. Sorry about that.

More Neon

And maybe an original 1978 sign?

We wanted to have the full BBQ experience so we decided to make some of the sides ourselves.  We went to our local WinCo and picked up fixings to make our sides.

98 cent Mac and Cheese vs the $7 pint of theirs.  I am positive Hutchin's is better but 7 times better?

The Bulk Food section at WinCo is really good.  They have a ton of flours and grains and nuts and granolas and candies.

Check out that giant bin of Orange Gummies!

Oh wait!  The bin is all lies!  It isn't full at all!

We watched people sample and contaminate the bulk items for a while and then bought the other ingredients we need for our BBQ day at home.  

Our lunch snack was smaller because we hadn't finished the sides

Oh and it was freakishly hot today and will be warmer tomorrow!

I took a photo of the sun just to show how fierce it is.  (Don't look at the sun ever kids)

Here is our dinner complete with the beans, our Mac and Cheese, and our homemade coleslaw.  We even had some beer to go with it.  

Dinner was delicious and we even have enough for lunch tomorrow.  Oh and for the rest of the evening we watched Disney+.  We use the Hilton Honors American Express to get free hotel rooms and they also have 100 offers live at any given time.  It's basically advertising and impulse buys, so I look at them from time to time.  

Most of them are crap and I would never use them.

 Every once in a while I will find a deal that we would already be using.  You have to add it to your card and then use that card to pay for it so there is a little bit of work.  This time I found this deal and added it to our card and then subscribed.  There have been quite a few additions since we were subscribers so it works out great.  

6 months of Free Disney+!

If you haven't read about yesterday's adventure check them out here.