National Championship Chuck Wagon Cook-Off®, Lubbock

Every first weekend after Labor Day the city of Lubbock transforms itself into a cowboy capital as a national symposium honoring the western spirit gets underway.

Cookoffs

The annual Cook-Off boasts one of the oldest chuck wagon gatherings in the nation, with teams competing for trophy buckles, cash awards, and prizes.

Each wagon is required to prepare a complete meal of chicken fried steak, pinto beans, potatoes, fruit cobbler and sourdough biscuits or yeast rolls.

Cowboy cooks gather round the campfire in a culinary battle for the best meat, beans, potatoes and overall presentation at the annual National Chuck Wagon Cook-off, a Texas-size tribute to the dough punchers of the past.

If the cowboy’s concoctions leave you hankering for some down home vittles, join the chow line at the world’s largest chuck wagon breakfast on Sunday morning, where you can enjoy heaping helpings of eggs, bacon, sausages and biscuits before nourishing your soul at a non-denominational cowboy devotional service.

Shopping

Whether its a saddle or spurs for your equine companion or jewelry, cowboy-style couture and Texas-themed trinkets for your personal collection, over 200 booths will be brimming with Western wares for souvenir seekers.

Events

The event features more than 50 musical entertainers, cowboy poets and storytellers, western writers, re-enactments, history presentations, horse handling demonstrations, a horse parade, Native American activities and exhibits of western merchandise.

Your cowboy boots were made for walkin’ to the many concurrent sessions that take place during the symposium.

While experts in the area of Texas tales regale audiences with stories in one banquet room, Western warblers pass on the skills needed to be a Texas tunesmith at the symposium’s theater.

Horses are held in high regard during the four-day fete, with seminars teaching horse-training methods and an equestrian parade.