Lily’s Craft BBQ: Where Down Home Runs Deep (Hull, MA)

Authentic, traditional Texas BBQ is happening low-and-slow right here on Boston’s South Shore at Lily’s Craft BBQ in Hull, MA. Chances are that you may have driven by High Tide at Nantasket Flatts, seen the “BBQ TONIGHT” sign on your way down Nantasket Avenue, but had no idea that this dual kitchen restaurant is also home to some of the best BBQ outside Texas state lines.

Co-owned and operated by Pitmaster, Chef Chris Cahill, and local Hingham resident (and Texas BBQ aficionado), Jon Siegmann, Lily’s pays homage to family, food, friends, and the craft of Texas BBQ, itself. Jon, who had lived outside of Houston when he first fell in love with Texas BBQ, was connected to Chris, a South Shore native working in local restaurants for over 20 years, here on the South Shore in early 2024.  While inking a deal to purchase an existing BBQ restaurant together in Marshfield (which ultimately proved not to be the location they would call home), the concept of Lily’s Craft BBQ had been born: authentic Texas BBQ on the south shore for dine-in, take-out and catering.

Just a few months later, Chris and Jon found a perfect spot inside of High Tide at Nantasket Flatts with their own separate kitchen and plenty of space for their smokers, stacks of unflavored wood (allowing the true flavor of the high-quality meats to shine), creativity, and commitment to honoring the life of Chris’s mother, Lily, and her love for country music, great food, and a place to gather with friends and family for hours surrounded by love and happiness.

Lily would be very proud of what Chef Chris has created and you should consider this your sign to head to Hull and see for yourself.

Lily’s is open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays (but follow Lily’s on social media for the alert when an extra day pop ups here and there). Many weekends, when the wind is blowing in the right direction, you can smell the infectious aroma coming from the kitchen. Follow your nose and pull up a seat at the bar, grab a seat inside or at an outdoor patio table, or create a BBQ tray to go and enjoy it right on your own beach chair.

The smokers are lit mid-week and Chef Chris spends several days preparing for the weekend crowd. The highest quality ingredients begin to roll in (thanks to Land & Sea Provisions, Pig Rock Sausages, McGuires Mushrooms, just to name a few local purveyors in the Lily’s lineup), cornbread is made, coleslaw is minced in Chef Chris’s playful ode to his KFC childhood favorite (a controversial, yet beloved, preparation that moves away from the traditional shredded-style vegetables), housemade sauces are bottled, mac & cheese sauce is made, right along with everything else that comes out of Lily’s scratch kitchen that is prepared fresh daily. This is homemade, down home, pure homestyle cooking throughout the entire menu from starters to barbecue trays, to desserts.

And, let’s not forget about the sell-out specials: pork steaks on Fridays (seasoned simply with sea salt & ground black pepper, smoked and finished on the plancha), giant beef ribs on Saturdays, and Chef Chris’s own smoked meatloaf on Sundays (made from brisket and rib trim plus anything that comes off the pork shoulder).

I love the fact that you can build your own BBQ tray depending upon your appetite and your mood. The One-on-One gives you the choice of one meat, one side, housemade pickles and that amazing homemade cornbread with Chef Chris’s own maple butter. The Two Meats Tray or Three Meats Tray comes with the same corresponding number of sides plus the pickles and cornbread, of course. The Meats include smoked ribs, smoked sausage, beef brisket, pork belly burnt ends, pulled pork and smoked turkey breast. Sides include collard greens, coleslaw, three bean salad, mac & cheese, potato salad, street corn, and cowboy beans (these are fantastic).

You also don’t want to miss the smoked chicken wings, pulled pork sandwich (which is a show-stopper (see below – right?)), the smoked pulled mushroom (this is where your vegetarian friends will be psyched to know that Kevin McGuire himself is foraging for the mushrooms and hand-delivering them to Chris) and, you HAVE to order a “Mac & Meat Bowl” to share – especially if Chef Chris decides to go crazy in the kitchen and make his own sausage (although we all know Pig Rock Sausages are the local OG around here, too). Hot Tip: Chef Chris is working on a homemade Jalapeno Cheddar Sausage so be on the lookout for that to pop up on the menu soon…

I had met Chris once before while picking up a special-order of his pulled pork for a collaboration with Clandestine Kitchen (Lily’s x CK Pulled Pork & Street Corn Flatbread) menu item last year. Just one conversation with him and he will absolutely mention how much he loves what he does, how much he loves his family (both daughters, Stephany and Ashleigh, work alongside him at the restaurant), and how thankful and truly grateful he is to have the creative freedom in the kitchen to truly bring his mother’s legacy to life.

The “Chef Chris infusion” into this Texas BBQ menu can be seen in so many of the favorite menu items created in the Lily’s kitchen. When perfecting the menu’s mashed potatoes, Chris couldn’t decide if he wanted to do a mashed potato or a potato salad. The result is a “mashed-potato-salad” with hints of cumin, paprika and mustard. His brisket is very traditionally and simply seasoned with sea salt and butcher grind black pepper with a very thin layer of yellow mustard before it is cooked low and slow for about 15 hours.

Building his career on “beans and greens”, it’s no wonder that one of the most popular sides at Lily’s is the collard greens. It’s the closest thing to a salad you will find, aside from the coleslaw, as Lily’s playful unofficial slogan states “you don’t win friends with salads” (The Simpsons) – but, it appears that you probably can win friends with Lily’s locally-famous collard greens, for sure.

It’s also very important to note that nothing comes “sauced” out of the kitchen. You get to choose your adventure with the 4 housemade sauces and here is what Chef Chris recommends (although he also states that this is purely his opinion and you can and should try every sauce with everything and report back on your favs, too):

• KC Sunshine on the ribs
• Gold Rush on pulled pork (I wholeheartedly concur, by the way)
• All My Exes on the brisket
• Big Bob on the smoked wings

Lily’s also offers a few fun, unique items that you have to try when you visit. The Texas Twinkies are smoked, raw, hollowed-out jalapeno peppers that are stuffed with cream cheese and brisket, then wrapped in bacon, dry rubbed, and smoked for about another 40 minutes. A labor of love bursting with flavor and begging you to order a local craft beer (the Untold Brewing East By Northwest is perfection to cut through the richness of this flavor bomb).

The Pig On A Stick is basically a smoked sausage corndog that is equal parts “nostalgic” and “new” and is the perfect street food to grab as you walk down the street to the carousel, or to grab ice cream, on hot summer nights.

Speaking of dessert, the Tallow Chocolate Chip Cookies are amazing and made with beef tallow as the shortening element – which is so genius when operating a small batch, 100% scratch kitchen focusing on the highest quality ingredients used throughout the menu. This is also directly inspired by the fact that Chris grew up in Bridgewater where Toll House was THE cookie of his childhood. If you close your eyes, you can taste the inspiration and the tribute he gives to the food memories of his youth.

I had no idea that Lily’s also caters to our 4-legged friends with smoked pigs ears available to bring home to your pups. My own two yellow labs are now huge fans of Lily’s, so it’s a complete family affair when Lily’s is on the dinnertime menu around here now.

As a small business owner in the food space here on the South Shore, I am going to shout it from the rooftops that we MUST support the local chefs producing amazing food in our towns. Lily’s is a hidden gem with incredible, authentic Texas BBQ that you are just not going to find anywhere else around here. Chris and Jon have created a place where comfort meets innovation and slowing down creates depth of flavor that you just cannot find outside of a kitchen in which legacy, love, and passion are the cornerstone and all backroads lead to a memory, a moment, and a piece of down home nostalgia – whether your roots are country or you are diving into southern BBQ for the first time.

Pull up a chair or grab a tray to go, take a deep breath, and lean into Lily’s legacy by surrounding yourself with great food, great friends, and the moments that make friends out of strangers. This is the summer to make Lily’s “your place”. Try every sauce on everything and compose your own country song that transports you to a place where authenticity reigns and innovation inspires.