ABOVE: Learn more about the extra-bold crimes of Texas’ so-called “BBQ Bandit”
TORONTO – Pack up your porterhouses, secure your steaks and bury your briskets – the BBQ bandit is on the loose.
Police in San Antonio, Texas are on the lookout for a man they believe broke into four different smokehouses and BBQ restaurants in the last two months.
His target? Hundreds of dollars worth of meat and beer.
His latest target was Augie’s Barbed Wire Smokehouse, where this past weekend the mystery meat marauder made off with 13 briskets, 10 cases of beer and—for some reason—a brand new trash can.
“Obviously, he has good taste,” Augie’s owner Augie Cortez told NBC News-4 in San Antonio.
Security cameras at the smokehouse captured the meat heist, as well as the face of the man behind the caper as he casually strolled about the restaurant’s kitchen area.
Cortez’s establishment is normally staffed 24 hours a day, but the thief struck during a shift change.
Clearly, this is no amateur food filcher.
On Jan. 31, the unknown man stole over 200 pounds of various meat from the B&B Smokehouse, valued by the restaurant at $700.
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He also snagged 450 pounds of raw meat from the Two Bros. Meat Market on Jan. 16, at an estimated cost of $2,500.
“Barbecue is a hard business and these guys work really hard,” Jason Dady, owner of Two Bros. told KHOU News in Houston. “And to take that from independent restaurants just trying to make a living, it’s really a bummer.”
“This guy is going to feel pretty weird sitting in the slammer, y’know, ‘What are you here for?’ ‘Oh, I ripped off a couple of briskets,'” Augie Cortez joked.
The Smoke Shack restaurant was also a burglarized, having 12 pork butts, a total value of $500 dollars, stolen from the pit in the middle of the cooking process.
Police are asking anyone with information about the alleged BBQ thief to come forward. The suspect is a white male, seen wearing a baseball cap and blue jacket – and likely suffering an extreme case of the meat sweats.
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