Central Texan BBQ celebrates 30 years by remaining a meaty and memorable trip.

The best fancy restaurants in the world like to say they provide more than sustenance. They want to furnish a memorable experience, to tell a story propelled by ingredients, place and personality.

Castroville’s Central Texan BBQ (633-2285) is not one of the best restaurants in the world. It’s far from fancy. But boy, does it have an experience – and a story or two – for you.

I went by because they’re celebrating 30 years of brisket business, and I wanted to learn more about an institution that, depending on whom you ask, is A) a glorious love note to one of the great barbecue styles of the world – the heavy-smoke, light-seasoning style from the heart of Texas, or B) an affront to human decency, thanks to its dingy decor and the bedside manner of its life force, Don Elkins.

A half mile or so down Merritt Street from the highway, looking like a squat red barn straight out of Red Rock, Texas – where Elkins started learning to smoke meats at age 11 – the place fits the bleak, dusty, time-warped feel of Castroville. Inside it gets more memorable, starting with the incredible smells. Walls are blanketed with cowboy hats, bumper stickers, old-school Texas maps, vintage beer lights and more than a few portraits of Willie Nelson – oh wait, some are a young Elkins rocking a beard and a bandana.

Lone Star State license plates peek from shelves and counters. No fewer than a dozen bottles of various hot sauces cover a table. The salad bar would lose a duel versus most, but that’s only appropriate for a place one online commenter calls “a vegetarian’s nightmare.” A bar offers four draft taps ($4/pint, $13-$15/pitcher, including Texas Longhorn Amber) in the corner of a sizable second parlor, next to a jukebox loaded with country and surrounded by saddles. Everything is wood, from the booths to the floors, which collect sawdust in clumps.

Ordering is an interactive experience that starts with ringing the Don’t Mess With Texas bell and takes on a stream-of-consciousness style with offers of various samples and unsolicited opinions. Once Elkins, whose compact frame presents a contrast to his outsized character, appears from the back with a ’50s-movie-star squint and a matching swoop of silver hair. He starts slicing meats, tossing out cuts that are a little tough and weighing choice pieces on the scale – while he weighs the worth of his current customer.

When I order a sampling of celebrated smoked brisket, pork ribs and pork shoulder ($12.50, $11.50 and $12.50 a pound, respectively), he barks out the prices to his son, who’s now in another room. I try yelling out lower prices. He gives me a look.

When I ask what annoys him the most, he says, “unlearned motherfuckers.”

When I ask when he knew barbecue was the life for him, he says, “1949.” He’s a third-generation master of meat, using many of his dad’s and granddad’s recipes.

When he asks if others can order ahead of us, we say sure, grab Shiner Bocks ($3.75) from the cooler and look around.

When I ask about the sides, his advice includes an aside about grandma: “She was ugly as a mother but she made good beans. Coming out of that family, it wasn’t easy.”

I’m not sure if he means the hard part was quality beans or just emerging intact, but I’m sure he was right about the frijoles – they are robust but not heavy, rounded and rich from bacon, and cohesive from four hours of slow stewing.

Other tastes are mixed, with flashes of marvelousness. The potato salad is nicely plain and creamy, a platform for the hot sauces. The brisket – tender, super flavorful and crisp on the edges – is the class of the meal, and 2 pounds of fatty slices, sloshed in sauce, disappear immediately between four carnivores.

“YOU EVER SEEN BRISKET LOOK LIKE THAT? HELL NO.”

The ribs are shockingly stiff, tougher than Don’s grandma was – which is doubly tough because, like everything, it ain’t cheap – and even salvaging a bite or two is challenging. On a second visit I find his housemade sausages ($3.25 per “ring”) are a thick-skinned, dense and delicious discovery born of brisket, bacon ends and what he calls “bits ‘n’ pieces,” with a beef-jerky pepper quality. The fluffy fried artichoke hearts ($4.50/six; $7.50/dozen) represent the thistle capital admirably. The smoked chicken ($3/quarter; $7/half; $10/whole) isn’t as moist and tender as the turkey ($12.50/pound), but it’s still good. And two pickles come free with every meal. (Lunch/dinner deals include salad, beans, bread and a choice of meats for $11.50-$13.50; two meats are $14.50; three $19.50.) Elkins sources his meats from Del Monte Meat Company of Marina and Pacific Meat Co. of Castroville.

Another highlight is the house sauce: complex and smooth, without too much viscosity and with a heavenly zing that makes me hoard the leftovers. It’s so good it’s $4 for 8 ounces. And I pay. When the server forgets to include it in my to-go bag, I almost drive back for it.

The truest highlight, though – the heart of the experience and the storytelling – is ol’ Don who, after 20 years in the military (including special forces) and the loss of his wife to cancer, raised his son and replacement-to-be, Chris, in the shop.

Don shows me the mind-bending amount of meat in the huge wood-fired brick pit in back, which he uses to coax mighty flavor into brisket overnight, 22 hours all told.

“Them never seen brisket like that over in Monterey,” he says. “That’s a fact. You ever seen one look like that? Hell no.”

He could’ve been asking me if I’d ever met a barbecue man like him. Either way, the answer’s the same.

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