“Hot guts” for sale at old Pflugerville market

“Hot guts” for sale at old Pflugerville market

Written by Pamela Stephenson Saturday, 07 July 2007

When Gladys Pfluger had her baby in Austin in 1962, she remembers coming home with her husband Leon in his pick-up truck. With them came the town’s meat supply. That was part of owning the local meat market.

Portions of the meat they carried became barbeque that even drew the favor of one of the University of Texas’ basketball coaches.

“Customers would come from all over Central Texas to get that barbeque,” Gladys said.

Downtown Pflugerville had a long heritage with the meat market, although the store went by many different names. Some of the first records call it the Bohls & Eisenbeiser Meat Market in the 1850s.

By the early 1900s, Albert Bohls, who had partnered with a man with the last name of Hutto, bought Mr. Hutto’s share of the business.

Bohls purchased calves from local farmers and took them to the slaughterhouse located on the creek by Theodor Timmerman’s farm, east of Pflugerville, and provided residents with fresh meat in the time before freezers. Over the years, the market was operated by a series of owners until it came to Damon Collier.

In 1958, Leon Pfluger and his cousin George Pfluger took over the market from Collier, and named it Pfluger Market. At first, it was located on the south side of Pecan Street, next door to what is now a pet grooming shop. The market eventually moved across the street to the old Steger’s Dry Goods building, which later became Pecan Street Antique Store that only closed recently.

Many of the farmers would kill their own beef and bring it to the Pflugers to process. Other residents ordered a half or a whole cow to be packaged for freezing. The Pflugers purchased meat from local farmers and slaughtered it in Austin until the slaughterhouse closed in 1962.

In the winter, the Pflugers also sold homemade pork sausage. They had a tin cistern behind the market where they smoked the sausage, known as “hot guts.” During deer season, Leon often cooked a pot of deer chili on the black stove in the middle of the store and shared it with friends.

Many folks ordered barbeque for special events, such as the opening day of dove season. It was an early “fast food” restaurant with people stopping in on Saturday to get a sausage wrap or sliced barbeque. Gladys recalls how her husband wished that the butcher who worked for the Bohls, Ted Banner, was still around to make hot bologna for the Pfluger Market.

“He made the best bologna sausage, but only once a week. Unfortunately, he never shared the recipe,” she said.

Only a door separated the meat market from Tuff’s Tavern, located where Yates Lawnmower Shop is now, and regular customers would slip in and out of each establishment to get a beer or grab some food.

Leon Pfluger sold his share of the business to George Pfluger in the mid 1960s. After 25 years, the market closed April 9, 1983, when George auctioned off all the equipment.