Snack & Smack BBQ

Paul Brooks, the proprietor of Snack & Smack Bar-B-Que, formerly Big Mama's Soul Food restaurant, at 820 New Braunfels Ave., cooks barbecue brisket, ribs, sausage, and other local favorites over seasoned mesquite wood six days a week. He rests on Sunday. After he loads up a portable barbecue pit with mesquite wood and lights it, Brooks wraps a rack of marinated pork ribs in aluminum foil and lays it on the grill. He then hitches the pit to a van that bears the Snack & Smack Bar-B-Que sign, and pulls it into the parking lot of the Government Hill restaurant. The smoke attracts loyal customers who come for a barbecue plate with a choice of soul food sides: rice, spinach, beans, mashed potatoes, corn, cabbage, chitterlings, yams, black-eyed peas, homemade macaroni and cheese, and bread, all for $5.50. - Michael Cary