A fire that will not go out: Remembering Chisholm Trail BBQ Founder Floyd Wilhelm, Sr.
By Anthony Collins
LPR Editor
Lockhart lost a legend who helped shape its barbecue legacy last week with the passing of Floyd Wilhelm, Sr., founder of Chisholm Trail Bar-B-Q. Wilhelm died Aug. 13, 2026, at the age of 84, leaving behind something far greater than a restaurant. He left a family legacy, generations of employees and customers, and a place in the story of the community he called home. Long before Lockhart became known around the world as the Barbecue Capital of Texas, Wilhelm was already doing the work, tending fires, trimming briskets, serving customers and learning a trade that would eventually define much of his life. His story was not one of overnight success. It was a story of hard work, perseverance and refusing to give up when others told him his dream would never work.
Wilhelm began working at The Original Black’s Barbecue while still in high school through a Distributive Education work program. Under Edgar, Jr. and Norma Black, he spent approximately 16 years learning the barbecue business from the ground up. Eventually, he decided it was time to take a chance on himself and open a barbecue restaurant of his own.
In 1978, Wilhelm rented Mary Ann’s fruit stand for $300 a month at a small location across U.S. 183 from where Chisholm Trail stands today. He also rented a barbecue pit on wheels for another $200 a month. He had the experience and the willingness to work, but what he did not have was enough money to purchase the briskets, ribs, food and supplies needed to open. Wilhelm approached local banks seeking a $1,000 startup loan, but he was turned down. With Kreuz Market and The Original Black’s Barbecue already firmly established in Lockhart, bankers questioned whether another barbecue restaurant could survive. One banker reportedly compared Wilhelm’s idea to building a new stadium across the street from Yankee Stadium.
For Wilhelm, however, the rejection was not the end of the dream. He sold his old fishing boat to a local plumber for $1,000 and used the money to get his business started. With that, Chisholm Trail Bar-B-Q was born. On June 19, 1978, Wilhelm opened the doors with his wife, Janie; their oldest son, Floyd Jr., known as “Tinker”; and a few family friends. There was no large investment behind the business, no polished corporate plan and no guarantee that customers would come. There was a rented building, a rented pit, $1,000 from the sale of a fishing boat and a man willing to bet on his ability to make good barbecue.
In those earliest days, Wilhelm could not afford sausage-making equipment. Instead, he purchased raw sausage from Elgin, cooked it on his pits and sold it until the business became successful enough for him to buy a grinder and stuffer and begin making sausage himself.
Slowly, the little barbecue stand grew, and before long it became a true family business. As they came of age, Wilhelm’s children Danny, Melinda and Brenda joined Floyd Jr. in working alongside their parents. Grandchildren, relatives, family friends and loyal employees followed. By the time the Wilhelm family sold Chisholm Trail in 2015, the restaurant had grown to roughly 35 employees. Combined with Wilhelm’s approximately 16 years at The Original Black’s Barbecue, his 37 years’ operating Chisholm Trail gave him more than half a century in the barbecue business, 53 years spent around smoke, fire and the pits.
Wilhelm and his family-built, Chisholm Trail around what became known as his “old pit style BBQ,” serving straightforward Central Texas barbecue without pretense. Chisholm Trail was never about chasing trends or turning barbecue into something elaborate. It was about feeding people well, treating them fairly and giving customers a meal they could afford. The restaurant became known for generous portions, affordable prices and the kind of food that brought customers back week after week. Even as tourists discovered it, Chisholm Trail never stopped feeling like a place built for Lockhart. That philosophy reflected Wilhelm himself, practical, hardworking and committed to doing things the way he believed they should be done.
Former customers still remember his family pack, which sold for $13.95 plus tax and included one pound of sliced brisket, two rings of sausage, three pints of homemade sides, bread and barbecue sauce. They remember the 32-ounce jumbo tea for 90 cents and a large, chopped beef sandwich for $2.75. Most of all, they remember that Wilhelm tried to keep barbecue affordable for working families.
Since his father’s death, Floyd Jr. said messages have poured in through Facebook, emails and text messages from people sharing stories about the ways Floyd and Chisholm Trail touched their lives. Some remembered Wilhelm giving them their first job and teaching them the value of showing up, working hard and taking pride in what they did. Others remembered him catering their weddings decades ago for $4 or $5 a plate, including two meats, sides and a drink.
Churches and organizations remembered his donations to fundraisers, while families remembered that no matter how popular barbecue became, Wilhelm worked to keep his prices within reach. Those memories reveal something about Wilhelm that cannot be measured in restaurant sales or years in business. He understood that feeding people could also be an act of service to the community.
Around 1988 or 1989, Chisholm Trail moved across U.S. 183 to its present home at 1323 S. Colorado St. By then, the man who could not borrow $1,000 a decade earlier had built a business strong enough to make a remarkable investment. Floyd Jr. remembers the new building costing approximately $110,000, with the property costing about the same. His father was able to pay cash, a striking contrast to the rejection he had received from local banks only 10 years earlier. Floyd Jr. also recalls being told by someone at City Hall that the Chisholm Trail project may have been the only building permit issued in Lockhart that year, an indication of just how difficult the local economy was at the time. Yet Wilhelm built anyway, believing that the business he and his family had worked so hard to establish still had room to grow.
When Wilhelm designed the new restaurant, he wanted a drive-thru window. The idea was not simply about convenience. He was thinking about older customers and those who might have difficulty standing in line for long periods of time. The drive-thru allowed them to pick up their barbecue without leaving their vehicles. Decades later, Chisholm Trail remains unique among Lockhart’s historic barbecue establishments for having remaining the only BBQ drive-thru in town; a small detail that says much about the man who insisted on putting it there.
Wilhelm’s influence also traveled well beyond the restaurant’s walls. Among those who learned the business under him was Riley Salas, who worked with Wilhelm for nearly a decade before eventually opening Riley’s Pit BBQ. Riley’s location coincidentally is the same place where Wilhelm started. Salas learned different sides of the business, from tending pits and preparing food to understanding the discipline required to keep a barbecue restaurant operating day after day.
Wilhelm’s grandson, Justin Pearson, also spent summers and part-time hours working for his grandfather. Pearson later became the owner of San Marcos BBQ, with locations in San Marcos and Wimberley, carrying a part of the Wilhelm family barbecue tradition into another generation. In that way, Wilhelm’s influence lives not only through Chisholm Trail, but through the people who learned the trade beside him and carried those lessons forward.
In 2015, after Wilhelm was diagnosed with dementia, the family faced the painful decision to sell the restaurant they had spent nearly four decades building. Mike and Melissa Capello and their family took over Chisholm Trail, beginning a new chapter while preserving the restaurant and the foundation Wilhelm had created. Although ownership changed, Wilhelm’s presence never disappeared. Following his death, Chisholm Trail paid tribute to the man whose determination made everything that followed possible. “My family has had the privilege of carrying Chisholm Trail forward since 2015, but we have never forgotten whose hands built its foundation,” the restaurant’s tribute stated. “Floyd’s name and legacy will forever be woven into the story of this restaurant.”
The restaurant also expressed appreciation for the generations of employees and customers who have helped sustain Chisholm Trail for nearly five decades, reserving its deepest gratitude for the man who started it all. “Most of all, we are incredibly grateful for Floyd, for his vision, his hard work, and the legacy he left behind,” the statement said. Those words speak to something larger than barbecue. Restaurants can be measured by the number of years their doors remain open, the meals they serve or the customers who pass through. A legacy such as Wilhelm’s is measured differently. It is found in the teenager who remembers getting his first job from Floyd and learning the meaning of a strong work ethic. It is found in the couple who still remembers Chisholm Trail barbecue being served at their wedding 30 years ago, and in the church or organization that remembers his generosity when it needed help.
His legacy lives in the grandson standing beside a pit years later, carrying forward something his grandfather taught him. It lives in families who returned to the same tables year after year and in employees who spent enough time working together that they became family themselves. It can even be seen in an old drive-thru window, built because Wilhelm was thinking about customers who might have difficulty standing in line. For nearly half a century, smoke has risen from Chisholm Trail Bar-B-Q. During those years, Lockhart’s barbecue tradition grew from a Central Texas treasure into something recognized across the nation and around the world. Travelers began arriving with maps, cameras and appetites, searching for the restaurants and pitmasters that made this small Texas town famous. Chisholm Trail became part of that story, and so did Floyd Wilhelm.
He did not start with much, a rented fruit stand, a pit on wheels, a fishing boat sold for $1,000 and an idea that bankers told him would fail. What he did have was a willingness to work, the courage to take a chance and a belief that if he treated people fairly, served them well and gave them their money’s worth, they would come back.
Floyd Wilhelm believed in that simple formula, and generations of Lockhart customers proved him right.
Each day, when another fire is lit inside the pits at Chisholm Trail and smoke once again rises above South Colorado Street, a small piece of Floyd Wilhelm, Sr.’s story rises with it. Nearly five decades after he sold a fishing boat and took a chance on a barbecue stand that others said would never survive, Lockhart is still gathering around the table he built. Floyd Wilhelm, Sr., founder, pitmaster, husband, father, grandfather and one of the men who helped make Lockhart barbecue what it is today.
