Before It Was 3rd Street Deli

Lexington's infamous barbecue pitmaster, Tootsie Tomanetz & her late husband White owned Lexington's City Meat Market from 1976 until 1996.

In the early 1970s Saturday mornings in Lexington meant a trip to the meat market to pick up barbecue at Tootsie & White Tomanetz's City Meat Market. In 1996 when they made the decision to close their business, who would've had fun to predicting the path Tootsie is on today? Tootsie is an internationally recognized, "Queen of Texas Barbecue," who has twice been a semifinalist for a coveted James Beard award and was inducted into the Barbecue Hall of Fame in 2018.

The location is now home to 3rd Street Deli. However, in its early days from the late 1800s until the late 1940s, it was home to Mrs. Kate Mathis' Millinery Shop. The shop was the longest continuously operating millinery shop in the nation at the time of her death in 1956.