“Opie's is housed in a metal building with several pit cookers and a couple of pit servers out front. As soon as you drive up, someone is there to help you. The ambience is friendly and focused on food. The service is down-home chummy. From the center of Austin, it takes about one hour to get to Opie's. The drive is worth it, even if all you get is a pork chop and some beans.”

“Opie's look exactly like a Texas Hill Country barbecue joint should; it's in a big metal shed-like building surrounded by a gravel parking lot with a great retro-style sign on the roof. And it smells exactly right too; the smoky aroma wafts around you the minute you step out of your air-conditioned car. Everything's good at Opie's, from the baby backs to the meltingly juicy prime rib, but the must-have is the brisket, cooked at high heat on a smoker so it's tender inside, with a nicely blackened crust. Extras like the tater-tot casserole also set Opie's apart.”