This Austin staple has been delivering barbecue to satisfied customers since 1975, and everyone there (most prevalently owner and operator Don “Skeeter” Miller) is very enthusiastic about the restaurant’s 30th anniversary.

The County Line has weaved quite a narrative in its three decades of existence… but the real story doesn’t start with the restaurant. The site of the original County Line on the Hill, located on Bee Caves Road, was first home to the “Moose Head Lodge” in 1930, which served bootleg whisky and steak dinners. After the lodge burned down, a local gambler bought the site and built the current stone building for use as a roadhouse and gambling parlor. Of course, with such a vibrant past, you’ve got to have a resident ghost. Not to disappoint, the County Line is reportedly haunted by a young woman who met her end there back in its roadhouse days. “We always think the staff has just been drinking,” Skeeter says. “But they claim they’ve seen her.”

Though the restaurant - bought in 1975 by Bruce Walcutt, Randy Goss, Ed Norton, and Skeeter - has undergone much renovation and modernization, the current décor still retains much of the roadhouse feel. Exposed beams and original stone floors add a rustic look, while walls decorated with an original mirror from the Moose Head Lodge and a talking longhorn head give the building that lodge look. The best part of County Line’s ambiance is the panoramic view of Austin that can be seen through the large windows of the dining room and from the spacious outside porch.

The location isn’t the only part of the restaurant that’s changed over the last 30 years. The food has gone through quite a metamorphosis of its own. According to Skeeter, the guys started the County Line because they saw a need and a market for an upscale barbecue restaurant… but they may not have exactly known what they were doing.

“The briskets were like bricks,” adds Scott Ziskovsky, director of marketing and advertising.

After lots of experiments, the food now wows from start to finish. Hot homemade bread with a hint of sweetness could easily make a meal by itself. Tender pork ribs practically fall off the bone, and the brisket has just enough spice to add a little zing. Skeeter says the barbecue keeps the customers coming back, but the menu offers much more than the standard brisket and sausage. Daily offerings range from chicken fried steak and grilled tenderloin to Cajun shrimp and gourmet salads. Try a juicy Capitol Burger with grilled green chili strips for a surprising twist on the traditional burger. To aim a bit healthier, order a grilled salmon Caesar salad with a whole (not chopped) grilled filet.

The portions here are huge, so don’t expect to leave without strategically unfastening the top button on your pants. This proves especially true if you order one of the three all-you-can-eat style dinners. The biggest of the bunch is the “All You Can Stand” meal, complete with chicken, sausage, brisket, pork ribs, smoked peppered turkey, smoked peppered pork sirloin, and beef ribs so huge they look as if they’ve come from a wooly mammoth instead of a steer. If that isn’t enough to fill you up for a week, they add in potato salad, coleslaw, beans, bread, and some of their sweet homemade ice cream for dessert. The idea for this platter came from a patron trying to order the Country Style all-you-can-eat meal and instead asked for “that ‘all you can stand’ thing.”

“We thought, that’s a great name, we’ve got to do something with that,” Skeeter says.

The one thing that impresses the most, however, is not the food but the family atmosphere of the restaurant. Many workers have been with the company for upwards of 20 years. One manager even had four family members work at County Line. And everyone is happy to sing the praises of the staff and the quality of the restaurant’s menu. It’s for this reason that Skeeter and Scott stress that County Line is not a typical chain.

“They call us a chain because we have multiple locations in four states,” Skeeter says. “I think the thing that really bothers us about that is that we’re really unique. All our locations are really different; same core of the barbecue, but the look, the food… they’re all very different. We’re very involved in the business. The average tenure for someone working for us is 18 to 20 years. Now we’ll come in and we’ll see somebody new and it’ll be the kid of someone who worked for us in the past.”

So if you feel like becoming a part of the ongoing saga that is the County Line, grab some friends, sit on the patio, order up a big helping of “All You Can Stand,” and don’t forget the margaritas. Then just enjoy the view and - like all the best storytellers - wax philosophic over a big bottle of barbecue sauce.