A viral, 77,000-follower barbacoa truck just left Georgetown for good — well, for now. El Grandpa Mexican BBQ, the Hidalgo-style lamb barbacoa operation that spent three and a half years drawing lines out the gate of a Williamson County barn, serves its first Austin tacos Saturday, Oct. 3, at Clara's Day Dive on Menchaca Road. According to ATX Things' review of the restaurant's own announcements and local coverage, the first 60 minutes are free.
When and where, exactly
El Grandpa opens at Clara's Day Dive, 10700 Menchaca Rd., in South Austin near Slaughter Lane, on Saturday, Oct. 3. Anyone who shows up between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. gets one free taco — a soft launch before the truck settles into its regular hours. The venue itself, a bar on an expansive covered patio, doesn't officially open until 11 a.m. on weekends, so for that first hour the parking lot belongs to the taco line.
Clara's Day Dive is a new name on an old lot — it rebranded from South Austin Beer Garden under new ownership about a month ago. Google's review count for the new name is still in single digits, so treat the current 4.4-star rating as early, not settled.
Why a Georgetown food truck is suddenly Austin's problem
El Grandpa's last day at 150 Haverland Drive in Georgetown was Sunday, Sept. 27 — the end of a run that started almost by accident. According to Texas Monthly's 2024 reporting, Javier Vargas, a Mexico City attorney whose law license didn't transfer when his family moved to Williamson County so his son Emilio could play football at East View High School, started cooking barbacoa de borrego — the Hidalgo-style lamb his own father taught him to make at age eight — on land a local builder let him use outside Georgetown. The first version, opened in March 2023 under the name Barbacoa El Abuelo, drew a cease-and-desist from a restaurant chain over the word "Abuelo" and a visit from county health inspectors who flagged the operation's lack of proper permitting.
Rather than fight it, the Vargas family closed for five months, fixed the licensing, and reopened the day before Easter 2024 as El Grandpa Mexican BBQ. The fix is the most interesting part: Williamson County's health rules required the wood-fired hornos — the brick-lined ovens barbacoa de borrego is traditionally cooked in — to be mobile. So the family had Ennis-based Johnson Custom BBQ Smokers build the ovens directly into a trailer. That single requirement is also what makes Saturday's move possible: the hornos were built to be driven, and now they're being driven to Austin.
The food is cooked low and slow — a minimum of eight hours over oak and charcoal, the lamb wrapped in maguey leaves the way it's done in Hidalgo. That's also why this isn't a lunch-rush operation: it runs morning hours until the meat sells out, same as it did in Georgetown.
What's actually on the menu
Six proteins, by the half-pound or pound, according to El Grandpa's own online menu:
| Item | ½ lb (3–4 tacos) | 1 lb (7–8 tacos) |
|---|---|---|
| Barbacoa (lamb) | $17 | $34 |
| Cabeza de borrego (lamb head) | $17 | $34 |
| Cabeza de res (beef head) | $17 | $34 |
| Lengua (beef tongue) | $18 | $36 |
| Pancita (lamb belly) | $15 | $30 |
| Chorizo de cordero jalapeño (jalapeño lamb sausage) | $15 | $30 |
A consomé — the rich broth drained off the lamb — is sold on the side, and a six-taco sampler covers one of each. In Texas Monthly's own 2024 tasting, the montalayo (lamb stomach packed with seasoned offal) and the sweet costillas (ribs) were the standouts, and the menu posted on El Grandpa's own site centers on the six cuts above. If you want a broader tour of what Austin's taco scene is doing with cuts this specific, our insider guide to the city's best taco spots is a good next stop.
Hours for the ongoing, non-opening-day schedule haven't been published for the Austin location yet. In Georgetown, El Grandpa historically ran mornings until the meat sold out — often by early afternoon. Call (737) 444-9382 or check @el.grandpa.barbacoa on Instagram before making a special trip after 10 a.m.
The part that makes it a scoop, not just a listing
El Grandpa isn't the only operation in Central Texas trying to serve lamb barbacoa cooked the traditional way — Texas Monthly's reporting found at least three other Texas businesses (in Houston, San Antonio, and Austin itself) navigating the same health-code tension between earthen-oven tradition and modern permitting. Austin's own La Santa Barbacha has said publicly it's still working through the city's requirements to install hornos. El Grandpa's mobile-trailer workaround is, per that reporting, one of the only ways anyone's found to do this legally in Central Texas — which is also exactly why a food truck can relocate across county lines overnight without a single building permit showing up in any city database. ATX Things checked our own permit-tracking data: there's no construction or health permit on file for 10700 Menchaca Rd tied to this opening, because there doesn't need to be one. (For a restaurant move that did require permits, see how a tequila-bar taqueria is taking over Austin's old Megabus stop.)
What locals should know
- Go early Saturday. Free tacos run 7:30–8:30 a.m. only, and the bar itself doesn't open till 11.
- Bring cash-adjacent expectations for a sit-down tab. A full pound of barbacoa runs $34 — pricier than a taco truck, in line with a specialty-meat market.
- This is a South Austin address, not a South Congress one. 10700 Menchaca Rd sits south of Slaughter Lane, close to the Slaughter/Menchaca intersection corridor — a different part of town than most of Austin's taco-truck press.
- The venue is brand new under this name. If an old review mentions "South Austin Beer Garden," that's the same lot, pre-rebrand.
- Georgetown isn't gone forever. The family's own announcement said, in part, they'd be back.
It's one of several South Austin food-and-drink moves worth watching this month, alongside Joshua Weissman's first restaurant opening in East Austin and a $2 million bar nearing completion on Shady Lane — part of a citywide wave of new food-and-drink openings our things-to-do hub tracks as they land.
Clara's Day Dive
$$""If you were here before the rebranding, parking is identical. The inside bar, patio, outside bar is identical. They have immensely updated the bathrooms... Daytime drinking is perfect." — one Google reviewer, on Clara's Day Dive post-rebrand
FAQ
Is El Grandpa's Austin location permanent? It's billed as an open-ended move, not a pop-up — the family closed the Georgetown spot entirely rather than running both, and said only that they'd eventually return to Georgetown, with no date given.
What is Hidalgo-style barbacoa de borrego? It's whole lamb, seasoned simply with salt and garlic, wrapped in maguey leaves and slow-cooked for at least eight hours in a wood- and charcoal-fired horno — a method from the Hidalgo region of Mexico, distinct from the beef-cheek barbacoa most Texans know from breakfast-taco menus.
Do I need cash? Not confirmed either way for the new location; call ahead if that matters to your trip.
Is parking available? Yes — Clara's Day Dive has its own surface lot at 10700 Menchaca Rd, per Google's listing and recent reviews.
Where can I follow for real-time hours? @el.grandpa.barbacoa on Instagram (77,000 followers) has posted every major update about this move so far. CultureMap Austin first reported the Oct. 3 reopening date and free-taco window.
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