When Pastrami Met A Pitmaster

Lunch at Mum Foods.

Geoff Ellis ladles a matzoh ball into smoked chicken broth before pivoting to the deli counter where he begins to cut into a rack of ribs, Texas style. A menorah sits beside barbecue sauce and chocolate syrup atop a shelf.

This culinary dichotomy isn’t accidental: it’s a byproduct of Ellis’ multi-state upbringing. Though he grew up in Lubbock and Austin, Ellis was exposed to the magic of the New York deli scene during summer visits with his grandparents in Queens.

His grandmother Rachel’s photo hangs on the wall of his Tex-ified deli, Mum Foods. He also named a sandwich on the menu for her. As a kid, Ellis’s grandmother brought him to a diner in New York where she shouted back and forth with a friend in Yiddish, he said. He couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he did recognize one thing: a sense of Jewish community and heritage that was missing back in Texas.

“It was a huge difference coming from a little town in the panhandle of Texas to Queens in New York,” Ellis said. “I think it broadened my horizons and gave me this idea that would become Mum Foods later on.”

In hindsight, the similarities between Texas barbecue and New York delis are almost obvious to Ellis.

“There's a guy with a big knife, they're cutting sandwiches, there's a big chopping block and they'll give you a sample,” Ellis said.

Ellis’s immediate family didn’t openly practice Judaism when he was growing up in Lubbock. Frankly, he said, it was tough to be openly Jewish in a city with a low Jewish population and understanding of the culture, so his family practiced Judaism behind closed doors, not in a synagogue.

So in 2015 when he began Mum Foods as a pop-up at Austin farmers’ markets, he inevitably began to lean into the side of his heritage that he hadn’t much explored outside of Queens.

“I call the deli my synagogue,” he said. “It's a way for me to reconnect with my ancestors, with our heritage, with our traditions.”

Mum Foods’ pastrami sandwich.

It was Ellis’s dream to go to culinary school, but with a college payment plan already in place, his parents dissuaded him from doing so. Instead, Ellis studied food science at Texas State University where he was still able to nurture his love for food and restaurants.

His passion for food started young. Both his parents were good cooks, he said, and he was used to his father barbecuing in the family’s backyard. Ellis was a self-proclaimed “latchkey kid”; While his parents were at work, he was concocting homemade salad dressings for an after-school snack. As a teenager, he juggled jobs at Café No Sé and Jeffrey’s in Austin.

In 2010, his older sister’s then-boyfriend gave him a cookbook by culinary icon Alice Waters. Ellis realized that all food wasn't the same, which deepened his interest in the culinary scene and sourcing locally. When he saw that barbecue was underrepresented at Austin’s farmers’ markets, he decided that he’d create a place that served just that.

Though Ellis knew he wanted to smoke meats, Mum Foods’ now-iconic pastrami was born by accident.

When a surplus of briskets arrived from Mum Foods’ farmer, Ellis had an idea. He thought back to the pastrami he ate growing up and used his Texas barbecue know-how to create something that blended both sides of his heritage. The team brined briskets and smoked them how they would traditionally smoke Texas brisket, and their esteemed pastrami was born organically.

“In 2017, Texas Monthly came to the farmers’ market and Daniel Vaughn said it was the best pastrami he'd ever tried in the state of Texas,” Ellis said. “From that point on, we were kind of committed to making it. It got more and more popular.”

The deli-meets-barbecue spot has gained recognition locally and nationally. Mum Foods was included in the Michelin Guide in 2024 and 2025 and was featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.

“In recent years, we’ve seen plenty of Texas barbecue joints combine traditional smoked meats with other cuisines, and Mum was one of the first,” said Texas Monthly dining critic Paula Forbes.

While the team opened up a brick-and-mortar in 2022, they never veered far from their roots. They remain committed to being a part of farmers’ markets across Austin and sourcing their meats locally.

“I really like us to be involved in that community,” Ellis said. “I like my staff to know farmers, to develop relationships with people who are growing things and raising animals. I think it keeps us grounded. It keeps us remembering what's important.”

Now, Ellis said, Mum Foods has brought a variety of groups together across the multicultural city of Austin, and has provided many with a sense of nostalgia from their home cities.

“It's really cool that we can be both a Texas barbecue place and also a place that provides nostalgia for folks who may be craving something from back home, whether it's corned beef from Chicago, pastrami from New York or the double baked rye bread from Detroit or Los Angeles,” he said.

Ellis is hopeful for the future of Mum Foods. The team plans on expanding to another brick-and-mortar location this year and also popping up in the Austin-Bergstrom airport as a “micro-deli.”

Though he’s excited about the development of the brand, he wants to remain true to his entangled Texan and Jewish-American roots.

“Some things are good to be preserved like a time capsule,” he said. “Deli is one of those things. Same classic dishes, stuff people brought over from the old country. It’s not fancy.”

Ellis hopes that he has made his grandparents proud through Mum Foods and his way of connecting with his religion, albeit untraditional, he said.

“I like to think that [my grandparents] are watching what we're doing here in Austin and they're really proud of the way our heritage and culture has been able to spread and how much people love it here,” Ellis said. “I like to think that they're looking down and they can really appreciate that.”