Salt Lick 360

Good BBQ+byob=a full stomach and an early night.

It’s all been said before. Damn good brisket. My four stars here is for the classic delivery of Texas BBQ. Rightfully, it’s probably a three star just cause there’s no dining frills — but I stand by the four stars — if you want this style of BBQ, it’s here or Rudy’s.

I hate to say it, but it has been many years since I’ve had Salt Lick BBQ. I went to college in Austin, TX so it’s been a few years since I’ve been there. But I still remember it fondly…
You get massive portions of food! It’s up in the mountains, well as mountain-​y as it gets in Austin, kinda cabin like and the whole area there just smells like darn good Salt Lick BBQ! There’s a creek that runs behind the restaurant.
I’m attending the LA BBQ festival to refresh my memory on how good this place is! I can’t wait!!!

Hey y’all, this location is now closed.
Check out the original Salt Lick in Driftwood off FM 1826, or the new location in Round Rock near the Dell Diamond. Don’t forget the cooler of beer if you head south!

The only reason why this place didn’t get a 5 is because I think I got food poisoning after eating there (the fact that I’m still giving it 4 stars still has to tell you something).
I love me some Texas bbq. Beef, it’s whats for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and to drink. Salt Lick 360 does bbq like it was going out of style. The place itself looks a bit «country» but don’t let the surroundings fool you, this place feeds you, and feeds you, and keeps on feeding you until your sinuses are congested with meat.
My favorite hands down has to be the brisket. It’s so tender and juicy, I get semi-​aroused just thinking about it. The ribs and sausage are excellent as well, and the sides are the icing on the (meat) cake.
If I ever come back to Austin, this is where I want to be taken.

Visiting my brother and family in Austin for Thanksgiving 2007.
Good Lord. I ordered BBQ sausage (I love processed meat!) and brisket — what a huge plate of food! I literally full for the next 24 hours. The BBQ sauce is very tasty — it’s sort of sweeter than most BBQ sauce, which is unexpected and delicious.
The service took F-​O-​R-​E-​V-​E-​R, but once the food was in front of us, it was worth the wait.
Also, I can totally appreciate what the other folks are talking about in regards to this place being a little on the «swanky» side. It was really nice inside, not the casual, by the side of the road kind of place that I’d had in mind. Nevertheless, the food was very good.
Check it out if you are in the Westlake part of town!

Went here 2 years ago while visiting Austin for a conference. Best city in TX for obvious reasons. The hotel recommended this place and I had heard good things about the original location. Just did not like the BBQ here. But that may be because I like the BBQ in FL/​GA or that in NC. Sorry, Salt Lick!

I passed by Salt Lick 360 many times and always wanted to go into Davenport Village to check out the places there. So we did today… the verdict? 3.5 stars for the food. But somehow the menu, the price, the service and the place just don’t go well together. The patrons were all well dressed and wine-​drinking baby boomers and we felt like the waitress didn’t bother to pay attention to us because we won’t possibly be paying more tips than those wealthy rich folks who paired a merlot with bbq brisket. For the experience of it, it just felt too uptight to be eating bbq at the atmosphere that SL360 presented.
I had the roasted quail (bedded on top of mashed potatoes, stuffed with venison stuffing, drizzled with vinaigrette) while my friend had a BBQ half chicken. My food was wonderful, the quail was very, very flavorful but then again, we are talking about the main item they are selling– the bbq… so this 3 star, again, is for the bbq. The chicken was dried and it was still red at some part of the meat. My friend told me she is giving it a 5.9 out of 10 (not even worth a 6).
Dessert — perhaps the best of all… we had the chocolate brownie sundae something. It was very rich and decadent.
Service — yeah. We decided not to be a good tipper after a cold service. I could get better service at Stubbs and Rudy’s than at the pretentious 360 location.

Uhhhhh… we are reviewing Salt Lick 360, correct?
First off, a location does not an excellent restaurant make. The location is excellent. The prices are exorbitant (per the location). The food makes me think of a beautiful woman who wears too much makeup. It’s like, baby, you don’t need all that makeup, you are beautiful just the way you are. Why reinvent Salt Lick’s original concept at the sacrifice of the food — the actual draw of the Salt Lick?!?
*sigh*

Good barbecue, but does NOT deserve its current Unilocal ranking as the best barbecue in Austin if you, like me, are a brisket lover.
Things that are good about Salt Lick: it is a fun «adventure trip» to drive out to the Driftwood location; if you like their sweeter mustard-​based barbecue sauce, there is not really anything else like it; they have a good all-​round meat selection, of which their ribs and sausage are the standouts.
Things that are not good about Salt Lick: their brisket. In my opinion, neither the Salt Lick nor County Line furnishes a good lean brisket. Salt Lick’s tends to be tough and not spiced well. I always feel like I am eating bad meat when I get their brisket. So I end up stashing up on sausage and ribs. For my money, I have not found anything better than Rudy’s extra lean, with Iron Works also competing with a good brisket. Another negative is that the 360 location, in my opinion, just isn’t a good Texas barbecue experience for out-​of-​town guests. It feels like an upscale restaurant that is trying very hard to be down-​home, and failing.

I don’t eat pork. Nor do I like to sit in large tents on picnic tables for dinner. I’m just not your round-​of-​the-​mill hoedown kind of girl.
But, I lost myself in that pile of meat. Forget the sides. Chomp chomp chomp on brisket, and I LOVED their pork ribs. Those ribs, are not pork. I don’t know, call it denial — whatever. They were juicy, tangy deliciousness.
Personally, I could do without the sausage, ’cause, well, I don’t eat pork.
All of a sudden, I felt right at home sitting in a huge tent, sharing a picnic table with a family from Missouri. Saltlick meat will do that to you I guess.

Fantastic BBQ without having to drive to hell and gone into the Hill Country. And what says Austin more than a BBQ joint with a wine list and linen covered tables? Yuppie meets Redneck atmosphere with some of the best ribs, sausage and brisket in the world.

Wow, this was much better than Ruby’s. Ribs were hearty but tasty, and their bean dish was great. I wasn’t able to go to the restaurant, but my former coworker recommended me to try it at Austin Airport. I didn’t regret my decision even though the meal ended up being a large portioned breakfast.
I had another opportunity to go to Austin several months later, and, again, ate at their airport store. It tasted as good as I remembered that I had to buy their T-​shirt!
When I ever go to Austin again, I’ll definitely get the taste of their BBQ…

Good facsimile of the original, with a pretentious touch that fits that part of town.
First of all, I have to confess… I effing LOVE barbecue… and I REALLY love The Salt Lick… I mean the original one in Driftwood… I used to go and get the family-​style and eat about three plates of brisket and ribs and links… I can’t get enough.
So when this place opened up, I figured I’d give it a shot since it’s closer to town. Verdict: The meat is just as good as the original, but the ambience is lost. You can’t duplicate the experience of sitting outside with a beer and live music.
They added weird sh… stuff… to their menu, like something flambé and spring green something or other… they have fish dishes, steaks, etc… stuff that the original wouldn’t dream of. I am told the food was good, but if you go, go for the damned BBQ!
One thing holding it back: You can’t do the family-​style all-​you-​can-​eat… but for this Austinite, it sure beats a blank when I get a craving.
P. S. The sides suck and always have. The cole slaw tastes like cabbage and vinegar, and the potato salad tastes like… potato. It’s all about the meat.
P. P. S. I’ve never seen anyone with guns there. I’ve never even seen a cowboy there. Just Westlake types ordering wine. (Yes, this one has a wine list. *snicker*)

Ok, so in the reviews for this place I just read that it was «too yuppified» for one, and that another person saw «real cowboys with guns» when they visited.
I don’t suppose there’s any chance those same people were describing the same place, is there?
Salt Lick is an Austin (well, I believe it’s outside Austin, to be exact) landmark. If you’re going to be in Austin, hoping to sample some of that famous Texas BBQ, and have a little extra time to make a trek outside the city, this should be your destination.
Authentic (on Sunday they serve beef ribs comparable to those delivered to Fred Flintstone during the opening credits) and delicious.

The legend on the menu says it was named the «Salt Lick» because that’s where animals conglomerate. And like horses to salt, humans flock to the SL for round after gut bustin round of brisket, sausage, and ribs. The coleslaw and bread seem to be obstacles in the way of the meat. Mesquite is plentiful in dem part of the hills and the sausage hangs ornamentally over the open pit BBQ soaking up the flavorful aroma like sponges. I ate so much I actually had a meat hangover the next morning. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz… The staff must be soaked through the bone with mesquite vapors. Dogs must chase them home everyday. I pity them.
Bring your own cooler of beer because it is a dry county. Wait for a table and wave at the truckers who blow their horns in respect as they past by.

Let me get this straight… I can bring a cooler of booze, its all you can eat, and its $ 16? Did I mention how much I love The Great Republic of Texas?
Fixings include brisket, ribs, sausage, bread, slaw, beans, pickles, and onions. An awesome out of the way spot with character.
Don’t mess around with the Salt Lick in the airport… drive out to the real deal. Its well worth it.
This was my 2^nd visit and it was just as good as the first.

Andrew — cowboys with guns? I didn’t see any! =(Aside from that though, all true! This place is great. Of course, my friends and I chose the all-​you-​can eat option. How else should a person eat BBQ? I really liked how there were pitchers of BBQ sauce so you could pour as much sauce on the meat as you pleased. The coleslaw was indeed vinegar based, and was delicious. Eating the vinegary coleslaw seemed to help decrease the heaviness that one feels after devouring an entire cow and a bucket of BBQ sauce.
Oh yea — my friends and I drove all the way to this place, in the middle of nowhere, only to realize that it was graduation weekend. The place was packed, with several graduation parties going on. I think we only waited for 15 minutes or so… not bad!

True Story:
I was in a bar in Vienna Austria doing what tourists do in bars in Austria or Texas bars anywhere, chatting with the other tourists and having a brew or two or three. One of the group was an ex– exchange student from Sweden that had attended UT a couple of years back. When Austin Texas came up all he could talk about for the next three hours was the great food and good times he had at the Salt Lick.
Thank You Salt lick for being so memorable to that Swede. He bored one lovely Aussie lady so badly with the praise of the place she would never see, she asked me to please take her someplace else away from from the wanker.
Thank-​you Thank You Thank-​you.

Awesome and unique BBQ at bargain basement prices, especially if you are child or senior. Awful for vegetarians. I loved their cole slaw which was vinegar rather than mayo based. I came home with one of their sauces. There is no tomato in it, believe it or not. There are cowboys with guns that lead you to your car, but they are not threatening.