Austin Barbecue Restaurant LeRoy & Lewis Is Closing Its Truck

An acclaimed Austin new-school barbecue restaurant is closing its South Austin food truck this summer. Garrison Park smoked meats restaurant LeRoy & Lewis will be closing its Dawson neighborhood food truck parked at Cosmic Coffee & Beer Garden at 121 Pickle Road on Sunday, July 21.

When the LeRoy & Lewis team — co-owners pitmaster Evan LeRoy, Sawyer Lewis, Nathan Lewis, and Lindsey LeRoy — opened the food truck in March 2017, their goal was to always open a physical restaurant. (The truck won Eater Austin’s award for the best food truck of that same year.) That finally happened in February 2024 in the Garrison Park neighborhood. The truck at temporarily closed for a little bit from late February and then reopened in mid-March. But then it was time for them to permanently close the food truck so they can turn their attentions fully to the restaurant.

With the impending shutter of the truck, the restaurant team is going to focus on creating packaged foods and expanding LeRoy’s grab-and-go retail section. That means adding items like flat iron steaks, citra hop sausages, beef cheeks, beef-fat tortillas, cornbread mix, pimento spread, the bacon-onion dip, pickles, kimchi, and much more.

LeRoy & Lewis’s final food truck day will be a party starting at 11 a.m. until everything is sold out. The day will have a limited menu of brisket, burgers, the Sichuan beef ribs, kale Caesar salad, and Frito pies. People are encouraged to write notes to the truck too.

When LeRoy the food truck closes, host site Cosmic will be looking for a new food truck to take over its slot. Other trailers parked at the cafe/bar/beer garden include locations of taco truck Pueblo Viejo and chicken wing truck Tommy Want Wingy.

In the meantime, LeRoy (the pitmaster) is also working on publishing a cookbook, New School Barbecue, aiming to be published in 2026.

This isn’t the only barbecue food truck shutter happening this year, either. Central East Austin truck Micklethwait Craft Meats will close when its owner and pitmaster Tom Micklethwait turns it into a physical restaurant in the East MLK neighborhood in the early wintertime of 2024.