Road Tips

LC's Bar-B-Q - Kansas City

I've eaten at a number of Kansas City barbecue places over the years in my travels to the city that started in the late 70's.  Working for a company in the Kansas City area in the late 80's/early 90's opened my barbecue horizons to more than just the big names most associated with area barbecue joints - notably, Arthur Bryant's and Gates Bar-B-Q.  But there are still a number of places that I have yet to try out and I was able to knock one of those off my "wish-list" when I was able to finally get into LC's Bar-B-Q in Kansas City, MO.  

LC Richardson was born in Mississippi in 1934.  The oldest of 9 children, Richardson learned at an early age that he was going to have to fend for himself if he wanted to get ahead in life.  A born entrepreneur, Richardson found that he could make a few bucks by buying cotton seeds, planting them, then picking the cotton to sell at markets later in the year.  

The young Richardson also found that he loved to hunt and fish.  His love for outdoor sports followed him to Kansas City after he left Mississippi at the age of 19.  Two years after he moved to Kansas City, he married a local girl - Rosa Williams.  Rosa and LC would welcome a daughter, Tonya, to the world not long after they were married.

It turned out that LC was a pretty good cook.   He was never properly schooled in the art of cooking, but he picked up little things at each stop he made at restaurants in the Kansas City area.  By his mid-30's, Richardson's reputation of being a top-flight cook opened up many doors of opportunities for him as a head chef at some of the better places in Kansas City.  

In the mid-1960's, Richardson ended up getting a job as a corporate chef for Farmland Industries, one of Kansas City's largest employers.  Richardson headed up the corporate kitchen at the company until he decided to retire in 1986 at the early age of 52.  

Pictured right - LC Richardson enjoying a good laugh, something I understand that he liked to do a lot.  Photo courtesy LC's Bar-B-Q Facebook page.  

LC had a second chapter in life already planned.  An avid barbecuer at home, friends and family told LC that he needed to allow the general public to enjoy some of his great barbecued meats.  

Using his pension from Farmland Industries as a kick-starter, Richardson found a small open space next to a liquor store on Blue Parkway in east Kansas City, less than two miles as the crow flies from the Truman Sports Complex which housed his beloved Chiefs and Royals.  LC's Bar-B-Q came into existence in 1986 with a basic walk-up counter service with his meats getting smoked on a kettle tank behind the building.  

LC's Bar-B-Q started to get quite the following and when the building owner offered him the liquor store's space to take over, he quickly jumped on that offer.  This would offer LC's customers a place to sit down and enjoy his barbecue rather than having to take it away in styrofoam boxes.  

One of the first things he had added to the place was a new pit that was designed and installed by renown Kansas City pit-master Bill Chaney.  Chaney first worked at Arthur Bryant's when it was previously known as Charlie Bryant's and eventually built the brick smoker that restaurant still uses today.  Chaney designed and built a number of brick ovens at barbecue joints around the city, and Richardson reached out to Chaney to have him build an in-house smoker.  

LC Richardson's wife, Rosa, and their daughter, Tonya Hammett, helped in the restaurant, and they were often helped by Tonya's daughter, Tausha.  Barely tall enough to see over the cash register, Tausha started working in the restaurant at the age of 12, and by her high school years she would regularly work the weekends when her friends and classmates were out at sporting events or at the movies.  

Tausha fell in love with the business and wanted to learn all she could to help her grandfather out.  By her mid-teens she was beginning to take care of a lot of the day-to-day operations of LC's Bar-B-Q.  When it came time to go off to college, Tausha went to Tennessee State in Nashville where she studied business with a plan to go back to eventually run her grandfather's business.  

You could always find LC sitting in his "office" - basically a dining table on the side of the dining room piled high with sheets of papers, an organized mess, if you will.  Seated in his black padded and oversized office chair, LC would carry on with customers about anything, but mostly liked to talk about the Chiefs or the Royals.  LC's Bar-B-Q was closed most Sundays with the exception of Chiefs and Royals home games where fans would stop in before or after the game to get their barbecue fill.

LC Richardson passed away in February of 2021 at the age of 86.  His granddaughter built a shrine to his legacy with his "desk", his chair - turned around so no one will sit in it - and pictures of LC on the wall above the table.  

It wasn't that I hadn't tried to get into LC's Bar-B-Q before.  Even after they expanded over 30 years ago, the place still only seats 30 to 35 people.  And parking can be a problem with people having to park down the street from the restaurant once the small lot out front gets filled up.  One time I stopped by during the evening a few years ago and the line was out the door to get barbecue.  This time I had a plan. 

It was late morning and just before the noon rush when I pulled into LC's at the corner of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd/Blue Parkway and Sni-A-Bar Road.  (see map)  The place was pretty much empty save for a couple people waiting on to-go orders.   LC's isn't fancy dining, but it's clean and cozy.  It doesn't look like there's been any updates to the decor since LC took over the full building all those years ago.  

The menu is on an old Pepsi sign with removable letters - the type of menu board that you'd see in restaurants in the 1960's or 70's.  It added to the homespun atmosphere LC's Bar-B-Q has.  The drinks were off to the side in self-serve refrigerators.  I grabbed a bottled beer before I went up to the counter to order some barbecue.  

Behind the front counter is the large in-wall smoker that was built for LC's by Bill Chaney.  Not long after LC passed away, Tausha Hammett found that the smoker needed to be reworked.  She closed the restaurant down for a few days while the whole smoker underwent an internal "tune-up".  It was the first significant upgrade to the place since LC Richardson moved into the full building.  

The pit-master at LC's had the doors wide open when I got up to the counter and was beginning to pull meats out of the smoker.  The big metal doors on the smoker were blackened from years and years of smoking meats. The smell of hickory smoke which permeated the restaurant was making my stomach jump with joy.  

Ribs, smoked turkey, smoked chicken, smoked pork and smoked brisket were the mainstays of the menu.  LC's is sort of locally famous for their smoked chicken wings - always a favorite of fans who are heading to a game for a tailgate party.  LC's also had smoked pork burnt ends and brisket burnt ends.  Sides included fries, okra, spicy green beans, potato salad and fried mushrooms.  

I really wanted to try a couple three things, but their mixed plate for $23.99 didn't allow for a choice of brisket to go along with some ribs.  And I really wanted brisket that day.  I thought about getting a combo sandwich with beef and pulled pork, but then just decided to get the sliced beef brisket platter.  I got two sides to go along with the brisket, so I got baked beans and cole slaw.  Two slices of white bread came with the brisket.

The young lady who took my order misunderstood me and had it all in a plastic to-go sack when she handed me the food over the counter.  (For as many people coming in to get to-go orders while I was there, it turned out to be understandable.)   I took the meal to a table and opened it up.  

The sliced brisket was plentiful and slathered in LC's barbecue sauce.  I had never eaten at LC's before, but I have picked up some of their Kansas City-style sweet and thick sauce during visits to Smoke 'n Fire in Overland Park over the years.  If you don't like barbecue sauce on your meat, you'd better tell them beforehand at LC's.  

I don't mind barbecue sauce on my smoked meats.  However, this was a bit much.  I was able to mix some of the sauce in with the baked beans, which is something that I like to do with my baked beans.

The amount of sauce notwithstanding, the beef brisket was tender and had a great hickory-smoke flavor to each slice.  And they certainly didn't skimp on the portion.  There had to be a pound of beef brisket included in the box.  It was all I could do to finish most of it.

The baked beans were good, but a bit better (for me) after I added some barbecue sauce to them.  The cole slaw was just all right - nothing special.  The brisket was the main event in this meal and it was as good as I hoped it would be.  

It's been too long for me to have not tried LC's Bar-B-Q before this first visit.  It's a great little place - friendly people, great smells and excellent barbecue.  Don't expect a fancy sit-down experience at LC's, but that just adds to the legacy LC Richardson started when he opened his doors in 1986.  If you're looking for good, no frills barbecue in the Kansas City area, you have to absolutely consider heading to LC's Bar-B-Q.  

First Watch - Lee's Summit, MO

A guy who had worked for one of my accounts for over 20 years had made a monumental decision last summer to leave that store and open his own store on the opposite end of Kansas City.  He and I had been in talks about picking up some of my lines and he was getting ready to open his doors last fall.  We made plans for a breakfast meeting near his home in Lee's Summit, MO just outside of Kansas City.  I told him to name the place and he suggested we meet at First Watch, a breakfast/lunch bistro located in the new Streets of West Pryor mixed-use development in Lee's Summit.  

I had seen First Watch restaurants in some of my travels, mainly on vacations to the South and Mountain West.  But I had no idea the extent of the number of First Watch locations.

John Sullivan was living in Denver in the late 50's and early 60's managing a steak and seafood restaurant.  He hated the long hours and wanted to try a concept of a breakfast place that focused on just breakfast, brunch and lunch that would close in the mid-afternoon.  He chose the ski village community of Aspen to open his restaurant.  In 1963, Sullivan started Le Peep, one of the first - if not the first - upscale bistro-style restaurants that focused on early and mid-day dining only.  Many of the dishes at LePeep were egg-based because eggs were more of a stable commodity than beef was at the time.  (Well, and that's certainly true today.)  

Le Peep, of course, was a hit - and continues to be so today - and it wasn't long before Sullivan opened more locations in the greater Denver area.  He was joined in the firm by Ken Pendery who worked for the same steak and seafood restaurant as Sullivan.  Pendery eventually became the president and CEO of Le Peep and by the early 80's they were looking to sell the growing chain of restaurants.  

Another veteran of the Colorado restaurant industry, Buddy Waldman, headed a group of investors who ended up buying Le Peep in 1981 with the plan to take the concept nationally.  Sullivan and Pendery stayed on during the transition, but the two soon left the company after a falling out with the new corporate ownership.  

(My French-Canadian colleagues used to get a kick out of seeing the Le Peep restaurants when we would be in Denver for trade shows years ago.  The term "peep" is evidently a Quebecois word for a certain sexual act.)  

Looking for a new challenge, Sullivan and Pendery moved out to California to start their new breakfast/lunch venture.  The two found a place overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Pacific Grove, CA, just outside of Monterey.  They opened their new restaurant - First Watch - in 1983.  The name First Watch comes from a nautical term for the first duty time of the day on ships.  They opened a second First Watch location in San Mateo, CA in the South Bay area of San Francisco.  

In 1986, Sullivan and Pendrey moved their base of operations to Bradenton, FL and continued their growth of the First Watch concept.  They decided to keep many of the restaurants company-owned with a handful of franchise locations.  In 2014, First Watch bought the 20 locations of the Phoenix-based Good Egg breakfast/lunch cafe chain, then a year later they purchased the 114 locations of the Colorado-based Egg and I restaurants eventually converting them to First Watch restaurants.  

Today, there are nearly 400 First Watch restaurants in 20 states - primarily in Texas, Florida, and Arizona.  (Ironically, there are no First Watch locations in California, the state where they first started.)   The Lee's Summit location opened in the summer of 2021, the fourth location in the Kansas City area.  (A First Watch location in the Corporate Woods business park in suburban Overland Park closed a little over six years ago.)  

First Watch locations are open from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. daily.  They won't seat anyone after 2:15 p.m. and the restaurant locks their doors at 2:30 sharp.  They rely upon the freshest ingredients and produce for their food, and they don't have a deep fryer in any of their restaurants.  They feature a number of vegan items, and they also are conscious of dietary restrictions or allergies with many of the foods they offer.  And to celebrate their 35th year in business, Fresh Watch released a cook book - "Yeah, It's Fresh" - that showcased 75 of their more popular breakfast, brunch and lunch items.  

We had agreed to meet at the Lee's Summit First Watch location at 8:30 a.m.  I got there a little early and I'm sort of glad I did as I had a little bit of trouble navigating through the area as it's just off I-470 and U.S. Highway 50 off NW Pryor in Lee's Summit.  (see map)   But once I saw it in the distance in the Streets of West Pryor complex, I was able to drive right to the front of the place.  

I went inside and my breakfast meeting guest had not yet arrived.   The restaurant featured dark wood flooring with matching dark wood tables and chairs.  An open kitchen was in the back of the place with and outdoor dining patio off to the side.  There weren't a lot of people in the place for a weekday morning.

I was greeted by a young lady at the hostess stand and I was taken to a table with banquette seating along one of the outer walls of the place.  I detest banquette seating, but since there wasn't a lot of other people in the place, I settled in for breakfast.  She dropped off a couple menus for me to look through as I waited for my guest to show up.

Our server that day was a pleasant young lady by the name of Sydney.  She asked what I wanted to drink and I asked if they had espresso.  "Uh..., no, I'm sorry," Sydney said hesitantly.  "We don't have espresso."  I was sort of incredulous that a place like First Watch wouldn't have espresso.  They did have fresh brewed coffee, but no espresso.  I ended up ordering a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. 

My guest made it in a little late, but no big deal.  "My mom doesn't live far from here," he explained to me after he sat down.  "We go out for breakfast every once in a while and we came here a few weeks ago.  She won't go anywhere else for breakfast."  

The breakfast items feature omelets, benedicts (including a BLT benedict and a smoked salmon benedict that got my attention), frittatas, pancakes (including a lemon ricotta pancake that sounded sinfully delicious), Belgian waffles and a couple of French toast breakfasts including the Florida French Toast that featured French toast covered in sliced bananas, strawberries and kiwi fruit.  First watch also had quinoa or granola breakfast power bowls and three or four Mexican-inspired breakfast plates including a spicy chicken/chorizo chimichanga served with grilled potatoes.  Lunch items on the menu featured grilled and deli-style sandwiches along with four or five types of salads.

I was torn between a number of items, but I was still sort of full from the meal I had the previous evening.  Although the Farmhouse Hash with house-made corned beef hash topped with two eggs and avocado slices sounded good, as did the green chile/chorizo omelet, I ended up going light and getting the avocado toast with two over-easy eggs.  The plate was dusted with paprika and chopped parsley.  

They have combination breakfasts at First Watch such as the Tri-Fecta - choice of either a Belgian waffle or a pancake (multi-grain, regular, blueberry or a banana-crunch or carrot cake-pecan pancake), eggs made-to-order and a side of either smoked bacon or pork sausage links.  My guest got the blueberry pancake with eggs over-easy and a side of bacon.  The pancake - which was the size of a hubcap - took up most of the plate and Sydney had to go back and get a smaller plate with the bacon on it.  A side of strawberry compote came on the side with the pancake.  

My avocado toast was OK - the avocado spread was salty, however.  But the multi-grain bread that is made special for First Watch was very good.  My eggs were good - nothing special.  The breakfast was a little expensive - $11.90 for the avocado toast and eggs - but it was fine for what it was.   

For my first visit to a First Watch location, I thought it was fine for what I had.  It's pretty difficult to do anything real special with two eggs over-easy and avocado toast.  My guest - who had eaten at this First Watch a handful of times - was more than happy with his Tri-Fecta breakfast consisting of a blueberry pancake, eggs over-easy and a side of smoked bacon.  I did like the fact that they had fresh-squeezed orange juice, but I was sort of blown-away that a place like First Watch didn't have espresso or cappuccino.  It didn't matter, however.  Breakfast, brunch and lunch bistros/cafes are extremely popular and with the lineage of being the offspring of the first restaurant of this concept, First Watch has had a large head start over all the other places of its kind across the nation.  

BB's Lawnside BBQ - Kansas City, MO

Kansas City has so many great barbecue places and even though I've been going to the city for years and years, it's been difficult to try all of them.  While I was down in Kansas City earlier this year, I had the hankering for some barbecue and decided to go to one of the places I had tried to get into a couple times before, but it turned out the place - which is also a destination for live blues music in Kansas City - was packed both times.  I finally got a chance to have some barbecue at BB's Lawnside BBQ.  

Lindsay Shannon grew up in Kansas City and used to go to ball games at the old Muehlebach Field (later called Municipal Stadium) that was the home of the Kansas City Blues minor league baseball team, the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Baseball League, and eventually the Kansas City Athletics from Major League Baseball.  Municipal Stadium was located near the heart of the famous barbecue neighborhood surrounding 18th and Vine.  Shannon developed his love for barbecue at some of the more famous barbecue joints in the area including Arthur Bryant's, Harris' Barbecue and Gates Barbecue.  

When Shannon got into his teens, he found joy in listening to jazz music from a local Kansas City station during his lunch hour at home from high school.  At night, he could listen to blues music from stations such as KAAY in Little Rock, AR and XERF located across the border from Del Rio, TX.  He soon fell in love with some of the blues music of the day and began to immerse himself in the history of the blues.  But his first love was barbecue and while he was in college, he acquired his first barbecue smoker.

After college, Lindsay Shannon was living in Des Moines, IA for a time.  It was there that he met a young lady who was living downstairs from him in a duplex.  Jo Davis had moved from Pittsburgh after graduating from high school in 1968 to be closer to family in Des Moines and the two hit it off.  Jo and Lindsay were married in 1971.  

Jo and Lindsay Shannon moved to Kansas City soon thereafter as Lindsay started on a sales career and Jo started working for an advertising company.  By 1977, Lindsay was hosting a weekly show playing blues music on the local public radio station.  He was the founder of the Kansas City Blues Society in 1980 and was the booking agent for the blues stage at the Kansas City Spirit Festival for a number of years.  

In 1986, a local classic rock radio station - KCFX 101.1 The Fox - contacted Lindsay to see if he would move his popular weekly blues program over to their station.  KCFX had a much larger audience than the local public radio station and Shannon thought that anything he could do to help promote blues music would be a plus.  In 1987, Shannon began his career at KCFX and his Sunday night blues show from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ran for over 25 years.  

But Lindsay really wanted to run his own barbecue restaurant.  He found a place in south Kansas City that had been built in 1950 as a roadhouse that was able to sell beer and liquor as it was just across the street from the Kansas City city limits.  It eventually became a barbecue joint in the 60's as Kansas City filled in around the restaurant.

Pictured right - Jo and Lindsay Shannon.  Photo courtesy KCFX - 101. The Fox

Lindsay had a guy who used to work at Harris' Barbecue who came down to the building to inspect the barbecue pit that was in place.  It was an old-style pit which burned wood and not pellets and it met with the approval of the veteran pit master.  The Shannons signed the lease on the building in the summer of 1990 as Lindsay quit his solid sales job.  BB's Lawnside BBQ opened in October of that year - the "BB" in the barbecue joint's name came naturally from blues great B.B. King.

In 1992, Jo quit her job with the advertising company to join Lindsay full time.  Jo ran the kitchen and books, and BB's Lawnside started to serve some of her Louisiana-inspired dishes such as jambalaya, red beans and rice, and gumbo.  

Lindsay had always wanted to combine his barbecue with blues music.  In 1991, Lindsay hosted his first music event - BB's Lawnside Blues & BBQ Festival - showcasing blues artists over a couple days in early September.  The event expanded over the years and in 1999 the Shannons added an outside deck for the festival.  The Blues & BBQ Festival now runs for nearly a week as blues artists and blues fans from all over the nation come to BB's for the annual event.  

For years, Lindsay and Jo's son Michael worked side-by-side with his parents in the business.  However, in 2012 Michael passed away unexpectedly dealing a personal and professional blow to the Shannons.  And earlier this month, I'm sad to report that Jo Shannon also passed away after 50 years of marriage to Lindsay.  

BB's is located just east of Troost Ave. on E. 85th Street.  (see map)  There is no cross street at Troost and E. 85th and Troost is on a viaduct over 85th.  To get to BB's, you have to turn onto a frontage road at E. 84th Street and head back to 85th.  BB's is located about 250 feet east of Troost on the south side of 85th.  

There was a moderate late lunch crowd in BB's when I went inside.  The rectangular dining space featured a bar on one end with some high-top tables nearby.  The inside stage area was on the far side of the bar in front of a wall of windows that let in a lot of natural light.  Vinyl red and white checkerboard table cloths covered the tables in the joint.  

There was posters from previous shows at BB's Lawnside as well as a number of posters of local blues festivals from over the years.  Photos of performers as well as other memorabilia covered nearly every inch of the walls.  I found myself lingering after finishing my lunch to check out some of the things they had on display.  I especially liked the sign that simply said, "BBQ, Beers, Blues!"  Music from blues artists such as Son Seals, Carey Bell, Pinetop Perkins (who I saw years ago at the old Blues Etc. in Chicago) and, of course, B.B. King played in the background during my visit.  

I sat down at one of the high-top tables near the bar area and was greeted by a young lady who asked what I wanted to drink.  They had Boulevard American Pale Ale in bottles available and I asked for one of those.  

The menu at BB's Lawnside consists of a number of smoked meats - turkey, beef brisket, ham, chicken, pulled pork and ribs.  Appetizers such as double beer-battered Spanish onion rings, beer-battered shrimp, pulled pork nachos, and chicken tenders were available.  Sandwiches such as a battered chicken breast, smoked Italian sausage, and a mixed meat sandwich featuring a little bit of everything were on the menu.  Dinners such as a barbecue meat loaf, smoked catfish, and half or quarter chicken plates were part of the offerings.  

I usually get a combo platter when I first go to a barbecue joint that I hadn't been to before.  They had a three meat platter with a choice of brisket, ham, turkey or pulled pork with two sides on the menu.  They also had a combo plate with ribs, Italian sausage and a choice of meat available.  But I was sort of in the mood for burnt ends.  

I ended up getting the getting the burnt ends dinner - a pile of brisket tips with battered fries and pit beans.  The burnt ends were served on a piece of white bread and dill pickle slices came on the side.  

Now, when I first started to go to Kansas City years and years ago, I tried burnt ends.  I found them to be dried out and somewhat tasteless.  I really resisted burnt ends for the next few years before I finally tried some as part of a combo platter at a rib joint.  I found those to be succulent, tender, and delicious.  I've warmed up to burnt ends over the years and found that the first time I had them was an anomaly.  The burnt ends at BB's Lawnside were outstanding. They were tender and juicy with a nice hickory smoke flavor throughout.  And at BB's Lawnside BBQ, they give you a pile of burnt ends for $14.50.  

The battered fries were interesting.  They were basically potato wedges, or more like potato spears.  When the platter was placed in front of me, I thought the battered fries were actually fried pickle spears.  The outer side of the battered fries were crisp and the inside of the wedges were light and flaky.  They were actually very good and they were made even better by squeezing some of the barbecue sauce on to them.  

Speaking of barbecue sauces, BB's Lawnside had 3 different sauces to choose from.  They had their version of a mild Kansas City sweet-and-smoky sauce, a hot sauce that was basically the same as the mild only kicked up a bit with some cayenne pepper, and a sweet peach habanero sauce.  Now, I usually stay away from anything habanero, but for some reason I squeezed a little out onto the battered fries and gave it a try.  It was cool, sweet and tangy on the front end.  But moments later this taste explosion erupted on the back of my tongue.  It was spicy, but not burn-your-face-off spicy.  It was probably too spicy for sensitive tastes, but I thought it was just outstanding.  In fact, that's all I used for the rest of my meal.  The pit beans mixed with some of the sweet peach habanero sauce had such a wonderful flavor.  

But I screwed up.  I should have asked to see if I could have purchased a quart of the stuff.  I've done that a couple three times with some sauces that I've really enjoyed in the past that I knew weren't available for retail purchase.  But I didn't.  And that sort of sucked.  Oh well...

I finally got the chance to experience BB's Lawnside BBQ after getting shut out on a couple of previous visits when the place was packed because of live music playing in the joint.  I have to say that I liked nearly everything about the place.  It was the quintessential dive barbecue joint.  The blues memorabilia, alone, is worth a visit to BB's Lawnside. The burnt end platter was outstanding and the battered potato fries were surprisingly good.  And everything was made even better from the deliciously sweet and spicy sweet peach habanero sauce that they make in house at BB's Lawnside.  It's not a fancy place compared to some other barbecue places in Kansas City, but don't let that fool you.  BB's Lawnside is a top-notch barbecue joint in a city famous for their barbecue.  

Summit Grill - Lee's Summit, MO

I was down in Kansas City recently and I invited a couple people who work for one of my accounts out for dinner one evening.  I had them make the suggestion and knowing that I like to keep things local, one of them suggested the Summit Grill in Lee's Summit on the far east side of the Kansas City metro area.  I had heard about the Summit Grill in the past, but I had never been to one.  We decided to meet up at the Summit Grill later that evening.  

Andy Lock and Domhnall Molloy met in 2009 while they were both working for McCormick and Schmick's in Kansas City - Lock was the regional manager for the chain of upscale steak and seafood restaurants while Molloy was a chef for the company.   Lock and Molloy decided to pair up for a new concept of an upscale casual American restaurant that would be called Summit Grill.  The two talked another executive chef at McCormick and Schmick's, Taiwan-born/Kansas City-raised Po Wang, to come on board with them as their culinary director.  

The first Summit Grill opened in Lee's Summit in 2012, while a second one opened in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City in 2014.  The Waldo location moved to its present day location just off Wornall Road at W. 75th St. in 2016.  And in 2018, a third Summit Grill opened in the north Kansas City suburb of Gladstone.  In addition to the three Summit Grill locations, Lock and Molloy's Summit Group also oversees two Third Street Social locations, Boru Asian Eatery, Lakewood Local, and Pearl Tavern. 

The Lee's Summit location is sort of set back off I-470 just off the Bowlin Road exit.  In fact, I've probably driven right past the place for the past nearly 10 years without ever noticing the place.  After exiting I-470 at Bowlin Road, I took a quick right on NE Lakewood Way and drove about a quarter mile back south before coming up to the Summit Grill.  (see map)

Given how packed the parking lot was when I pulled into Summit Grill in Lee's Summit, I figured that it had to be a very popular place.  My guests hadn't shown up yet, so I ended up hitting the bar while I wanted for them.  The bar area was very nice with alcove ceiling panels with recessed lighting.  The bar top was the exact same color and pattern of our counter tops at home.  I ordered up a Boulevard Brewing Co. Bob's 47 Oktoberfest beer while I waited for my guests to show up.  

Once my guests showed up, we all met at the hostess table and we were shown to a booth in the dining room.  The dining room was warm and cozy with a lot of dark wood accents.  Booths lined the walls with a smattering of booths with banquette seating in the middle.  We were given menus to look over and our server for the evening, a young lady by the name of Peyton, came over to greet us and take our drink orders.   One of my guests ordered a vodka and lemonade, while the other ordered up the Summit Punch - a concoction consisting of raspberry vodka, St. Germain liqueur, pepper simple syrup, lemon juice and finished off with raspberries and a basil leaf.  It was quite the concoction.  

It was a somewhat upscale menu at Summit Grill.  Appetizers such as seared ahi, phyllo-wrapped baked brie, and fried shrimp made with togarashi peppers with a sriracha-lime aioli were the more prominent items.  They had gourmet burgers on the menu, as well as a braised-beer/5 cheese grilled sandwich, a corned-beef rueben, and a prime rib dip sandwich.  Main entrees featured some seasonal items including a dry-rubbed ribeye steak and an herb-grilled shrimp with risotto.  Blackened mahi mahi tacos were part of the entree section of the menu along with a seafood mac & cheese with shrimp and scallops, and a chicken-fried chicken dish with mashed potatoes and country gravy.  

My guests got the exact same thing - the center cut Black Angus filet.  The steak came with potatoes that appeared to be mashed then fried, as well as a medley of sautéed vegetables.  The filet was finished with a light demi-glace.  There were absolutely no complaints from my guests on how their steaks were cooked and how they tasted.  

I went with one of the pasta dishes they had that evening - the Cajun chicken fettuccine.  It featured grilled chicken strips with Cajun spices, thick house-made fettuccine noodles mixed with sautéed mushrooms and cherry tomatoes in a black pepper light cream sauce.  It was an excellent choice.  The meal was spicy, but not enough to take away the wonderful flavors from the chicken and fettuccine noodles.  I got a glass of the Periano malbec wine to go along with the meal and it went well with the meal.  

One of my guests had to leave to go pick up his daughter, by my other guest - who I've known for years and years - hung out and we caught up on what was going on with each other's lives.  As we continued to sit there, we noticed that there was just one other couple in a booth toward the back of the restaurant.  Suddenly, there was a commotion with a couple staff members at that booth and it appeared the older gentleman was having some sort of a medical issue.  Not long after that, five E.M.T.'s from the Lee's Summit Fire Department came in to check on the man.  A couple of the E.M.T.'s left and came back with a stretcher.  

As they were loading the man onto the stretcher, one of Summit Grill's managers came over to tell us what was going on.  "He just had a medical procedure a couple days ago and he wanted to go out to dinner," the lady manager told us.  "But then he realized that he probably had over-done it a bit and needed assistance.  He should be fine."  We expressed concern and relief for the man's condition.  

After the man was wheeled out with his companion following along, we were suddenly alone in the dining room.  "Well, that's not something you see every day at a restaurant," my guest said with a laugh of relief.  

Summit Grill was one of those "duh!" finds for me.  I can't believe that it took me this long to find out about the place as I thought I knew most of the casual upscale places in the Kansas City area.  But it turned out that I really didn't.  I thought my Cajun chicken fettuccine was excellent and my guests were more than happy with the Black Angus center cut filets they ordered.  The service we had from Peyton that evening was friendly and efficient, and we were even impressed that management came over to explain the medical issue one of the dining room patrons was experiencing.  There's a lot of good steak houses in Kansas City, but I'd recommend Summit Grill if you're looking for steak and other items to choose from.  

BRGR Kitchen + Bar - Kansas City

Down in Kansas City for my last trip of 2019, I got back to the hotel near the Power & Light District after a long day of meetings in and around the city.  I thought about heading back over across the street to the Streetcar Grille & Tavern (click here to see the recent entry on the Streetcar Grille), but I found out that there was a BRGR Kitchen & Bar just a couple blocks from the hotel.  I had eaten at the original BRGR Kitchen + Bar in suburban Prairie Village about 7 years ago.  (Click here to see that entry on Road Tips.)  I remember that the place was nice, they had a good selection of craft beers, and the burger was good, but overcooked to my liking.  I thought I'd give them another try, so I walked up the street to have dinner at the downtown Kansas City location for BRGR Kitchen.  

The original group behind the concept and direction of BRGR was Bread and Butter Concepts, a restaurant holding company run by partners Alan Gaylin and Glynn Roberts along with Roberts' wife, Jean.  Alan Gaylin came from a long lineage of restaurant management, formerly as the Senior Vice-President for Business Development of the group that oversaw Bennigan's and the former Steak and Ale restaurants.  He then moved over to Houlihan's as the operations director before taking the same position at T.G.I. Friday's.  

Glynn Roberts didn't have much of a background, if any, in the restaurant business.  Roberts was the President and co-founder of Northstar Offshore - a Houston-based oil and gas exploration company now part of the Sanare Partners group.  But Gaylin and Roberts were middle school friends from Houston who partnered up to develop restaurant concepts in the greater Kansas City area where Gaylin had taken up residence.  It took them a little over two years from the time they started their Bread and Butter Concepts partnership to open their first restaurant - BRGR Kitchen + Tap - in March of 2010.  A little over a year later, they opened their second restaurant - Urban Table - that offers an eclectic mix of breakfast, lunch and dinner in a neighborhood-style corner cafe/market.  

In November of 2011, Bread and Butter Concepts opened what they called Kansas City's first "gastropub" - Gram and Dun.  The gastropub craze has hit most major markets combining an English-style public house with a restaurant that also focuses on food.  Gram and Dun goes a step further by offering gourmet-style offerings in a fun, casual and relaxing atmosphere.  

By 2012, a number of restaurants that initially opened when the Power & Light District came into being closed due to lack of business and high rents in the district.  One of those was a place called Fran's Diner, a Canadian-based upscale comfort food place that had opened in 2009 as the first American outpost of the restaurant.  Bread and Butter Concepts took over the space and opened their second BRGR location in July of 2013.  Three years later, the third BRGR Kitchen + Bar opened in the former Barley's Brewhaus location in suburban Leawood, KS.  

However, by the end of 2018, high debt forced Bread and Butter Concepts into bankruptcy and they were forced to sell off many of their assets.  The three BRGR Kitchen + Tap locations were bought by Whitney VinZant, the owner of the Kansas City-based Louie's Wine Dive, a rustic-themed wine and liquor bar/restaurant with 7 locations in Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee and Indiana.  One of the reasons why VinZant bought the BRGR locations is because it was one of his family's favorite place to eat.  

The downtown Kansas City BRGR Kitchen + Tap is located at the corner of 14th and Main in the heart of the Power & Light District.  (see map)  It was a brisk walk against the wind up the street to BRGR from my hotel.  And upon heading into BRGR, I found it to be nearly deserted - similar to many other places I've been to in the Power & Light District when there's nothing going on during the week at the nearby Sprint Center or Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.  Wood and brick accents were found throughout the place with subdued overhead lighting giving the place a cozy feeling.  

I ended up taking a seat at the large rectangular bar just inside the front door.  Basketball games were on the flat screen televisions that hung from the ceiling above the bar island.  One of the bartenders on duty that evening came by with a food menu and a beer list.  I remembered from my first visit to BRGR over 7 years ago that in addition to a nice variety of craft beers, they also had some down-home old-fashioned beers such as Pabst Blue Ribbon, Hamm's, and Budweiser available in cans.  They also had cans of the Cigar City Jai Alai IPA that I've grown sort of fond of.  However, the bartender told me that they had their draft beers on special that evening.  I got a pint of the Hardway IPA from the Martin City Brewing Company located on the far south side of Kansas City.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on the Martin City Brewing Company.)  

Of course, burgers are the main attraction at BRGR Kitchen + Tap.  They have a handful of specialty burgers on the menu including the Fast Cow which is a coffee-encrusted burger topped with blue cheese and chopped bacon and served on a muffin; the Road Hoss that is topped with onion rings, cheddar cheese, bacon and a barbecue sauce; the Jalapeño popper burger topped with pickled jalapeños, bacon, jalapeño jam and a combination of boursin and cream cheese; and BRGR's take on the Twin Cities classic "Jucy Lucy" burger stuffed with American cheese.  Beef alternatives for burgers such as ground turkey and a "Beyond Meat" burger are also available.  Grilled chicken sandwiches and a grilled salmon sandwich were also available.  

On this visit, I got something that was new on the menu at BRGR - a portobello mushroom and Swiss cheese burger.  I asked the bartender if the kitchen could put bacon on it, too.  It was a quarter-pound burger patty with marinated portobello mushrooms on top with the cheese.  Bacon was criss-crossed on top of that and the toasted egg bun was brushed with a zesty piquant sauce.  

On my visit to the original BRGR Kitchen + Tap, the burger was pretty good, but it was overcooked to my tastes.  I ordered this one cooked medium and it came out as a perfect medium with a hint of pink in the middle of the patty.  It was oozing with juices with each bite and I had to get more napkins from the bartender.  This burger was much better than the first time I went to BRGR.

Also on my first visit, the person serving me was telling me about their truffle tater tots.  I didn't get them on that visit, but I had to try them this time.  The tots were served in a baking dish and sprinkled with truffle oil and some parmesan cheese.  They were absolutely fabulous.  I asked the bartender if he had any Cholula to put on the tots, but the only hot sauce he had close to that was Tabasco.  I would rather put Cholula on my tots, but the Tabasco worked fine enough.  They were rich tasting and filling - I was only able to eat about half the portion that was served to me.  

It had been sometime since I had been to a BRGR Kitchen + Tap location in Kansas City.  My first visit to one, the burger tasted good, but it was overcooked.  On this visit, however, the portobello mushroom/Swiss Cheese/bacon burger was cooked perfectly to my liking.  And the truffle tots were outstanding in taste.  The BRGR location in downtown Kansas City also had a good selection of craft beers on tap, in bottles and in cans.  It was also a nice spot inside.  It was comfortable for a single diner and the service I received from the bartender was friendly and efficient.  It also helped that there were probably only a dozen people in the place when I was there.  But, still, it was a good meal and visit to BRGR Kitchen + Tap.  

Streetcar Grille & Tavern - Kansas City

I was checking into my hotel near the Power & Light District in downtown Kansas City during my last business trip of the year for 2019 when I happened to look across the street at a place I hadn't noticed before.  I asked the guy at the front desk what was across the street with all the beer signs in the windows.  He said, "Oh, that's the Streetcar Grille."  I told him that I was sort of looking for a place to watch some basketball that night and maybe grab a bite to eat.  "Oh, yes sir," he replied.  "They've got televisions and good food.  The club sandwich is outstanding."  After getting settled in my room, I headed over across the street to the Streetcar Grille & Tavern.  (see map)  

Now, I had stayed at that hotel earlier in the year, but the reason I never noticed the Streetcar Grille before was because I was there in May and it didn't open until July.  And the reason why it's called the Streetcar Grille & Tavern is because the KC Streetcar has traveled a 2 mile-long course up and down Main Street since 2016.  Managing partner Kurt Oliver noticed the growth along Main Street after the streetcar started running and a number of hotels that had started to pop up in the area.  A space opened at the corner of 16th and Main that was the ground floor of a parking garage for a nearby hotel and Oliver and his partner took the spot over.

Oliver wanted to project an old time feeling in the place.  He decorated the space with historical pictures of downtown Kansas City - complete with pictures of old street cars - and was able to procure vintage beer signs from some of the breweries he would serve at the restaurant.  And as a nod to the streetcars that run past his new pub from downtown Kansas City to Union Station, Oliver named his place Streetcar Grille & Tavern.  

It was a cold night, but since it was right across the street from the hotel I didn't even bother to wear my coat.  (see map)  It was a slow night at the restaurant - but when nothing is going on in downtown Kansas City through the week, I've noticed that every place is pretty slow.  The dining room at Streetcar Grille had an eerie glow to it enhanced by the dozens of beer signs and the 18 flatscreen televisions that are hung on the wall throughout the place.  

I ended up taking a seat at the bar and was greeted by a convivial bartender who asked if I wanted a food menu when I sat down.  I asked him if he could get the Iowa basketball game on one of the televisions behind the bar and he said, "Oh!  An Iowa fan!  Are you from Iowa?"  I told him that I was and he said that he was a native of Clear Lake in the far northern reaches of the state.  He told me that he grew up an Iowa fan, but went to Iowa State to study hospitality management.  "One of the bosses here went to Iowa State, too.  I worked with him at a couple other places and when he came here to open this place up, he asked me if I wanted a job."  After all pleasantries were swapped, I ordered up a pint of the Boulevard pale ale which is made just down the way from the Streetcar Grille.  

The menu was decidedly upscale compared to other sports bars I've visited in the past.  The appetizers pretty much proved that with items such as mixed nuts glazed with a spicy agave seasoning, a charcuterie plate, seared ahi tuna lettuce wraps, and tater tots stuffed with smoked gouda and jalapeños served with a bacon aioli.  They had different variations of mac & cheese on the menu, as well entrees such as a salmon filet with a chili-sesame glaze, pan-seared jalapeño-mango chicken breasts, and chicken piccata.  Streetcar Grille & Tavern also had a number of unique burgers and sandwiches on the menu. 

I thought about getting one of the burgers, but I'd had a burger the day before with my wife at lunch.  So, it was down to getting a sandwich that evening.  The Conductors Club Sandwich is the one that the guy at the front desk suggested I get.  It came with smoked turkey, ham and pepper bacon for the meats with the usual lettuce, tomato and mayo, all served on a grilled sour dough bread.  It sounded just all right to me, but a couple other sandwiches were talking more directly to me including the roast beef sandwich with cheddar cheese and a horseradish-chive topping.

But in the long-run, I decided upon the reuben sandwich.  It featured house-made corned beef that was chopped up, topped with pepper jack cheese and a poblano-enhanced sauerkraut.  Of course, Russian dressing finished it off, and it all came on toasted marble rye bread.  A side of fries were served in a metal cup lined with parchment paper.  

The reuben was actually pretty good.  I didn't get much of a spicy taste out of the poblano sauerkraut or the pepper jack cheese.  But there was still a surprising "snap" on the tongue with each bite.  The corned beef was piled high in the sandwich and it was very good and very tender.  It was a messy sandwich with the cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing oozing out with each bite.  But they had a sufficient amount of napkins for me to use to try and keep clean.  

I contemplated going back to the Streetcar Grille the next evening, but I ended up walking up the street to another place just a couple blocks away.  I liked everything about the Streetcar Grille & Tavern - the atmosphere, the service, the large number of televisions, the beer selection and, of course, the very good reuben sandwich.  As business picks up in Kansas City and I stay downtown because it's centrally located for me to get around to my accounts around the city, I have a feeling that I'll be spending a few more nights at the Streetcar Grille.  

 

Stroud's - Kansas City

Sometimes, I start a blog post and I completely get waylaid by other entries that I'd like to do first.  The next thing I know, I completely forget about going back and doing the original post.  That happened in this instance with this entry on Stroud's in Kansas City.  A friend was traveling to KC last fall and I tried to redirect her to my entry on Stroud's on Road Tips.  However, I couldn't find it.  I went back into my lists of posts and found out that not only hadn't I published the post, I hadn't even finished the thing!  So, as they say, better late than never as I now publish my entry on my visit from the spring of 2018 to the venerable Stroud's in Kansas City.  

In 1933, Prohibition ended in December of that year and it also meant the opening of a small barbecue and beer place by Guy and Helen Stroud in what was then a somewhat rural area on the far south side of Kansas City, Missouri.  Helen Stroud was a lawyer by profession, so she really had no training as a cook.  Nor did Guy Stroud.  But they thought a little road side place outside the Kansas City limits that would serve barbecue and beer would be a popular place.  And, as it turned out, it was very popular.  

The Stroud's ran it as a barbecue joint until 1942 when beef and pork were rationed during World War II.  Chickens were plentiful, however, and Helen Stroud started to make pan-fried chicken dinners that she sold for the whopping price of 35 cents each.  The chicken dinners were such a hit that Helen Stroud ended up hiring two ladies from the South who fine-tuned the process of frying chicken at Stroud's.  

In 1977, Stroud's was bought by Jim Hogan and Mike Donegan, two bartenders at Kelly's Westport Inn.  They acquired a couple of cookbooks with handwritten notes from Helen Stroud and they set out to continue the success Stroud's had with their famous pan-fried chicken.  In 1983, the two had an opportunity to buy another restaurant on the north side of Kansas City, Oak Ridge Manor, whose history as an eating/gathering establishment went back over 100 years.  And someone else wanted in on the deal, too.

Mike Donegan's twin brother, Dennis, had been traveling the country as the lead opening manager for Victoria Station restaurants that were popping up all over the country.  Dennis had just finished up opening two Victoria Station restaurants in Honolulu and decided that he was tired of being on the road.  Dennis bought into the operation and the three bought the restaurant and renamed it as Stroud's Oak Ridge Manor.  In 1992, the Donegan's and Hogan franchised a third Stroud's in Wichita.  Local businessmen Bill Shea and brothers Doug and Troy Farha owned the Wichita location.  

Over the years, Stroud's won many local awards for their pan-fried chicken, but in 1998 the restaurant was recognized by the prestigious James Beard Foundation for their inaugural "American Classics" award.  Stroud's award continues to be the only James Beard recognition given to a restaurant in Kansas City.  

In 2000, the Donegan twins bought Jim Hogan out of his shares of Stroud's.  Then a number of changes took place...

Not long after the Donegan's took control of Stroud's, Dennis Donegan was diagnosed with cancer.  He passed away in 2004 after a valiant three-and-a-half-year battle.  Mike Donegan soldiered on with the Stroud's restaurants.

Pictured right - Mike Donegan

In 2006, Donegan closed down the original Stroud's in south Kansas City, and two years later he opened a new location in the Kansas City, KS suburb of Fairway.  In 2013, the local restaurant group KC Hopps (Blue Moose, O'Dowd's, Barley's Kitchen + Tap) bought into the Fairway location.  (Donegan continued to solely own the Stroud's Oak Ridge Manor location.)  In 2014, the Stroud's/KC Hopps group opened a location in Overland Park, KS.  And in 2016, the group opened an Omaha, NE location - the first one outside of Kansas or Missouri.  However, Stroud's pan-fried chicken didn't go over well with Nebraskan's who love their beef and that Stroud's closed in late 2017.  

In October of 2019, the Stroud's/KC Hopps group closed down the Fairway location citing an uneasiness over proposed development in the area and the high cost of renovating the restaurant and property around the building.  And, of course, it was the Fairway location that I went to in the spring of 2018, pulling up to the place just off Shawnee Mission Parkway just after noon.  (see map) 

The interior of the Stroud's in Fairway had sort of a rustic/farmhouse motif.  Checked table cloths covered sturdy wooden tables throughout the restaurant.  Large windows along the south and west side of the building allowed for the natural light to brighten the room.  

There was a nice bar area on the other side of a half-wall that separated it with the dining room.  I momentarily thought about sitting at the bar as there was an afternoon baseball game from St. Louis on the television, but I soon found out that there wasn't a bartender on duty.  

I was seated at a booth along the west side of the dining room.  A nice lady by the name of Olivia came over to drop off a lunch menu for me.  The lunch menu is basically a condensed version of Stroud's dinner menu which is served family-style with a salad or homemade chicken noodle soup, a choice of potato, their green beans with chunks of ham and chopped onions, a chicken gravy and homemade cinnamon rolls.  The lunch menu does feature some of the evening entree items, but they also feature burgers and either grilled or fried chicken sandwiches, a number of spicy hot chicken selections, salads and appetizers.  Stroud's is also somewhat famous for their house-made chicken noodle soup.  

I wanted to try their two-piece lunch special and I asked my server if I could get two legs instead of the standard breast and leg.  She said it was no problem.  (I was at the start of my diet that has, so far, allowed me to lose over 60 pounds.)  I did get a choice of potatoes and I took the mashed potatoes and, somewhat surprisingly, she also brought out a bowl of their green beans with ham and onions mixed in  A small bowl of the chicken gravy and a cinnamon roll - more of a sticky bun - came with the meal.  I also got a Boulevard Pale Ale to go along with the meal.  

Because the chicken is pan-fried at Stroud's, it takes a little longer for meals to show up.  And that was fine with me.  The chicken was piping hot when it came to the table.  It had a great tasting coating to the outer core of the chicken legs, but they were pretty small compared to fried chicken legs that I've had at other places.  Actually, I should have gotten the breast and a leg because there would have been more meat available.   Hodak's in St. Louis continues to be my gold standard for fried chicken (click here to see the Road Tips entry on Hodak's), and while the chicken at Stroud's was very good, it didn't compare to the fried chicken I've had at Hodak's.  I had a little bit of the mashed potatoes with a spot of gravy to give them a try and they were fine.  But the green beans mixed with chunks of cooked ham and onions were yummy.

While this Stroud's location is now closed, you can still go to the Overland Park Stroud's (see map) and the North Kansas City Stroud's Oak Ridge Manor (see map).  I understand that the staff at the Fairway Stroud's were offered positions at the two other locations in the area, so I'm hoping my friendly server was able to stay on board.  The food at Stroud's is good ol' down-home-style cooking and their fried chicken is nationally renown.  For a place that started out as a small barbecue and beer joint over 85 years ago, their fried chicken has been the common thread legacy that has been enjoyed by generations in the greater Kansas City region.  

County Road Ice House - Kansas City

During a stay in the downtown area of Kansas City earlier this summer, I ventured up to the Power & Light District to find a place to eat.  After eating at an Irish pub across from the Sprint Center and walking back to my hotel, I passed a place that had a sign on a pillar out front which said "Award Winning BBQ by Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Cue".   But the sign above the door said "County Road Ice House".  I went in to take a quick look around the place it turns out that it was a beer bar that just happened to have barbecue from Joe's Kansas City in the place.  After a few moments of lingering looking around the place decided that I'd come back the next night for dinner.

Joe's Kansas City Barbecue - which was formerly known as Oklahoma Joe's BBQ - is a Kansas City institution in a city that has a number of world class barbecue joints.  I first went to Oklahoma Joe's in Kansas City, KS over 9 years ago (click here to see that Road Tips entry, as well as this entry for their Olathe, KS location) and at the time I thought it may have been the best barbecue I've ever had.  I don't know if I can call it the best I've had now, but it would definitely make my Top 5 along with Q39 in Kansas City, Central BBQ in Memphis, and Bogart's and Pappy's, both in St. Louis.  The original Oklahoma Joe's was named after the brand of smokers designed and owned by Roger Davidson, a resident of Stillwater, OK.  Davidson was a regular on the barbecue contest circuit along with his brother Joe Don Davidson, and the brothers struck up a friendship with Jeff Stehney whose Slaughterhouse Five competition team won many awards for their smoked meats at contests around the Midwest and beyond.  

Stehney and the Davidson's opened the first Oklahoma Joe's BBQ in Stillwater in January of 1996.  Stehney, who lived in the Kansas City area, wanted to open second location in Kansas City.   Stehney found an old gas station at 47th and Mission on the Kansas side of the state line and converted it into a barbecue joint.  The K.C. location for Oklahoma Joe's opened in August of 1996 with Stehney and his wife, Joy, as managing partners.  

Roger Davidson sold his interest in Oklahoma Joe's smokers the following year and moved to Texas and his brother soon followed.  With no one overseeing the management of the Oklahoma Joe's in Stillwater, it closed up in 1998.  However, the Stehney's forged ahead with their barbecue joint in Kansas City.  They bought out the Davidson's interest in the Kansas City Oklahoma Joe's and it quickly became one of the top places for barbecue in the area. 

The name Oklahoma Joe was confusing to a number of people who would travel to Kansas City to try barbecue.  The Stehney's had been thinking about changing the name for a number of years before slowly incorporating the Joe's Kansas City Barbecue name into the business.  They came out with a barbecue sauce in 2011 replacing Oklahoma Joe's with Joe's Kansas City in the brand name, and the next year they introduced a French fry/fried potato seasoning with the Joe's Kansas City Barbecue name.  In the summer of 2014, the Stehney's officially changed the name to the present day moniker, but most of the locals refer to it as just "Joe's" or "Joe's KC".  

The Power & Light District in downtown Kansas City has had its ups and downs over the years since the initial residential and entertainment concept was hatched just after the turn of the millennium.  After the Sprint Center was opened in 2007, the first restaurants and bars began to open the following year.  But the recession of 2008 slowed the building and development of apartments and condos in the downtown area adjacent to the Power & Light District.  Restaurants and bars came and went, many of them forced into bankruptcy protection due to high rents and spotty business.  Because the housing downtown wasn't coming up as quickly as planned, about the only time most of the bars were doing well was when there was an event at the Sprint Center.  And those events were sometimes few and far between.

One of the national chains that came into the Power & Light District was Gordon Biersch, the California-based brew pub that had over 30 locations in high traffic areas in larger cities around the U.S.   The Gordon Biersch in the Power & Light District was one of the original tenants of the Kansas City Live block area, opening in March of 2008.   But in a cost saving move by their parent company, a number of Gordon Biersch locations started to close in 2017 and continued into early this year.  The Kansas City Gordon Biersch closed in August of 2017.  However, a back-up plan was already in place for a new restaurant to come into the spot they were giving up.

Zach Marten and Bret Springs were friends who were living in Dallas in the late-00's.  They loved to go to a little pizza place called Coal Vines and they both talked about eventually getting back to Kansas City at some point.  Marten grew up near Kansas City and went to school at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, while Springs grew up in the KC suburb of Leawood.  The two became friendly with the owner of Coal Vines and talked him into letting them open a location in the Plaza area of Kansas City.  Marten and Springs moved back to Kansas City in 2009 and opened their version of Coal Vines in 2010.  

From there, the two came up with the Westport Ale House sports bar concept, as well as The Rockhill Grille, an upscale American bistro located on the south end of downtown Kansas City, MO.  The two eventually closed Coal Vines and rebranded the restaurant as Parkway Social Kitchen.  In 2016, Marten and Springs formed Back Napkin Restaurant Group to oversee their growing concept brands.

Stehney, Marten and Springs - along with Stehney's wife and Ryan Barrows, who was Joe's KC Barbecue's director of operations for their three locations - all collaborated in coming up with the concept for the barbecue/beer joint, similar to the old ice houses that were central meeting points for people in Texas long before there was widespread electricity or freezers.  Less than a week after Gordon Biersch closed their doors, the group announced that a place called County Line Ice House would open in its place.  

It took six months of reconstruction - over $1.3 million worth of renovations - before the new concept was ready to go.   Brew tanks were removed and outside patio dining was constructed.  Smokers had to be craned and lowered into the building.  But by the time the place was ready to open in early March of last year, the group had already changed the name to County Road Ice House.   

It was about a five minute walk from my hotel to County Road Ice House at the corner of 14th and Walnut on the southeast side of the Power & Light District.  (see map)  It was around 6 p.m. that evening and the place had a few people inside.  It was a big open space with the bar area in the middle.  A number of flat screen televisions hung around the bar area and along the walls in the dining area.  An open kitchen was located just behind the bar. 

I decided to sit at the bar and I pulled up a chair.  I was greeted by a young lady who was one of the bartenders.  She gave me a food menu and a beer list to look over.   They didn't have a lot of beers to choose from - at least compared to other places in the area - and they were pretty proud of the prices of the beers they had.  Bud Light drafts were $5.00 and Deschute Fresh Squeezed IPA was $6.00.  Also on the menu were cans of Kona Big Wave Golden Ale - but they were $6.00 each, also. I swallowed hard and ordered a can of the Big Wave.  

The food menu at County Road Ice House is similar to what you'll find at a Joe's KC - but, then again, it's not.  While they did have regular Joe's items such as ribs, pulled pork, beef brisket and smoked chicken, they also had appetizers such as smoked chicken wings and smoked brisket nachos.  Burgers were also on the menu along with tacos that featured barbecue pork or beef.  Salads such as a smoked chicken Caesar and a Southwest pork carnitas salad were available, as well.  

Burnt ends are available when they have them and I asked the bartender/server if they had burnt ends that evening.  She said she did, so  I ended up getting the two meat combo of brisket and burnt ends.  Basically the same thing, I know, but I really like the brisket and burnt ends that I've had in my earlier visits to other Joe's locations around Kansas City.  But it is a $2.50 upcharge for the burnt ends in the combo.

And these didn't disappoint, either.  The burnt ends were large chunks of point cut brisket that were tender and delicious.  The slices of flat brisket were equally tender and flavorful.  The brisket and burnt ends were served with toasted bread and they had both Joe's regular sweet sauce and one of my all-time favorite Kansas City area barbecue sauces - Night of the Living Cow, a sweet and spicy sauce that just pops in your mouth.  

Speaking of popping in your mouth, for my side I got the spicy cole slaw.  I took that option over Joe's classic barbecue beans and Joe's spicy mac & cheese - both of which are very good.  I've grown found of Joe's spicy cole slaw over the years and this was as good as what I've had at the other Joe's locations.  

Now, I have to say that the bartender who was waiting on me was completely inattentive nearly the whole time I was there.  It did take awhile for her to acknowledge I was seated at the bar.  And she didn't get the universal cue that when a person seated at the bar needs another beer or drink that they place the empty in the crease closest to the bartender.  I had to literally hail her on three different occasions to either order food or order beer.  It was pretty bad service if you ask me.  

I'm mixed on my visit to County Road Ice House.  It was nice that they had Joe's Kansas City Barbecue available in the place, but their beer selection was pretty slim.  And everything was pretty expensive.  My bill with a nominal tip for the bartender who didn't want to wait on me while I was there came to over $40 bucks.  Three Kona Big Wave Golden Ales at $6 each ended up more than my food tally.  I suppose someone has to pay for the expensive renovation and the high rents found in the Power & Light District.  But I was happy with the brisket and burnt ends that I had and it's tough to beat the spicy cole slaw that Joe's KC has.  My wallet took a beating for what I got at County Road Ice House.  It was a nice place with good food, but be prepared to pay premium prices when you're there.    

The Dubliner - Kansas City

During a trip to Kansas City earlier this year, I ended up staying downtown near the Power & Light District.  I really hadn't spent much - if any - time in the restaurant and entertainment district that opened its first restaurant over a dozen years ago.  One evening, I decided to walk up to the area to check out some restaurants near the Sprint Center.  Just across the street from the large arena was an Irish bar that caught my eye - The Dubliner.  I decided to go in and see what they had to offer for food.  

When The Cordish Companies - a Baltimore-based developer - proposed a mixed-use area in downtown Kansas City, it was met with civic enthusiasm to help revitalize an area that had gone downhill in the years leading up to the turn of the 21st century.  Named after the famed Kansas City Power & Light building that has stood majestically over downtown Kansas City for nearly 90 years, the Power & Light District became a $5 billion dollar project to bring restaurants, entertainment, housing and office space to a nine-square block area.  The Sprint Center opened in October of 2007 and a month later the first restaurant - McFadden's Sports Saloon - opened in the new Power & Light District.  The Power & Light District was soon filled with a number of national chain restaurants and entertainment venues that helped make downtown Kansas City a destination once again.  

One of the first restaurants that was opened in the Power & Light District was an Irish pub that was literally in the shadow of the Sprint Center - Raglan Road.  The 10,000 square foot restaurant featured two bars that were handcrafted from salvaged materials found in bars in Ireland.  The parent company was from Ireland and had a Raglan Road location in Orlando.  The restaurant - which cost a reported $2 million to build out - featured authentic Irish food and live Celtic music.  

After a couple three years, the new-ness of the Power & Light District began to wane - especially when there were no events at the Sprint Center to continue to bring people to downtown Kansas City.  Occupancy rates of condos that had been built for residents weren't as high as projected as the economy was struggling to get back to pre-2008 levels.  People who worked in downtown Kansas City weren't staying downtown after work.  Business fell off for many of the restaurants and venues.  Raglan Road was one who felt the pinch and they tried to mix things up with adding more types of live music other than Irish bands.  But it was evident that things weren't working and they soon got behind in their lease payments to The Cordish Companies.  

But that was happening to a number of other places in the Power & Light District, as well.  A number of restaurants and venues without major corporate financial backing were forced to file bankruptcy and shut down because they couldn't pay rent to the landlord.  Raglan Road's corporate arm was sued for back rent by The Cordish Companies in the summer of 2011.  But the end of August of that year, the corporation overseeing Raglan Road's operations was forced to declare bankruptcy and they closed the doors on August 31.    

Seeing an opportunity, a local investment group that called themselves Downtown Irish Pub took over the space that Raglan Road had left just months before.  The group reached out to KC Hopps, a local restaurant group that oversaw the operations of O'Dowd's - another Kansas City-area Irish pub - and other restaurants such as Barley's Kitchen & Tap, Blue Moose and the venerable Stroud's to help run the new restaurant.  The newly renamed Dubliner opened in time for the Big 12 men's basketball tournament in March of 2012.  

It was a bumpy 18 months for The Dubliner as they tried to find a niche in the market place.  More condos were being built and more people were living downtown, but The Dubliner was on the virtual far-end of the new high-rises being built in downtown Kansas City.  The group ended their relationship with KC Hopps (even though a couple of the investors with The Dubliner's corporate arm were still associated with KC Hopps) and brought in a new general manager to try and fix things.  More Irish foods were added to the menu, the new manager marketed the place as an Irish bar with something for everything, and business began to stabilize.  The Dubliner has held its own in a crowded restaurant and entertainment market in downtown Kansas City.  

I found The Dubliner at the corner of E. 14th St. and Grand Blvd. across the street from the west entrance to the Sprint Center.  (see map)  The modern brick facade on the building gave way to a front bar area with a lot of dark wood accents.  The front bar - which was dubbed the Whiskey Bar as they feature over 40 different types of Scotch and Irish whiskies - was sort of cluttered up with what appeared to be some sort of a remodel situation going on. 

I made my way through the restaurant and found a larger back area that featured a long bar and a two-tiered dining room.  It was a very ornate room that reminded me more of a German restaurant than an Irish one.  But it was certainly the fanciest Irish pub I'd ever been in.  High-top tables were in the main dining area with high-tops with banquette seats along the wall opposite the bar.  

There was an outdoor patio area at The Dubliner that featured a handful of tables.  The patio was next to a large courtyard that is actually known as KC Live!, the Power & Light District's main entertainment venue.  It's the main hub of a number of bars that face the courtyard that hosts live concerts from national touring acts, parties, and corporate events.  

I ended up going back inside and sitting at the bar.  A small crowd of afterwork people had come into the place, but the place was pretty quiet.  The bartender on duty, Elliott, came over to take my drink order and to drop off a food menu.  I got a Harp lager that they had on tap.

Traditional Irish food at The Dubliner included bangers and mash, shepherd's pie, fish and chips, and a Tipperary stew made with lamb and root vegetables simmered in a red wine.  They had a number of sandwiches and burgers on the menu, as well as a number of salad dishes and appetizers such as poutine (not very Irish, but still good) and fried artichoke hearts.  

For some reason, the corned beef and cabbage sounded good to me.  They also had a Guinness-braised brisket on the menu, but I went with the corned beef.  It featured chunks of corned beef brisket along with chunks of cabbage and sliced root vegetables.  They put a mustard sauce on the corned beef that was actually pretty good.

I didn't concentrate too much on the root veggies, but the cabbage was pretty good.  It didn't have a bitter taste like you can get with some cooked cabbage, and it cut pretty easily.  

However, the corned beef was sort of all over the place.  Some of the chunks of meat were tender and easy to cut - others were tough and very hard to chew.  I had to pull a couple pieces out of my mouth because I knew my teeth weren't going to win the fight.  But the pieces that were edible were actually pretty good.  It was just the ones that weren't that put a damper on the meal.  

My initial reaction upon leaving The Dubliner was one of "eh!"  It was all right, not bad, not great.   The corned beef was just all right. Elliott's service was fine.  It was a nice place with nice surroundings and decor, but I didn't get that intimate Irish pub-type vibe to the place.  I sort of wish I would have gotten something other than the corned beef and cabbage - maybe the Guiness-braised beef or the Tipperary Stew.  But I probably wouldn't search out The Dubliner again unless I was in the immediate area at some point and was looking for some Irish food.  

Grünauer - Kansas City

I was staying in downtown Kansas City recently and found out that there was a Jack Stack Barbecue not from from my hotel.  (Click here to see my entry on Jack Stack Barbecue in downtown Kansas City.)  As I was walking to the old Freight House where the restaurant was located, I passed by another restaurant that was right next to Jack Stack - Grünauer.  They had the menu posted outside the building and it appeared to be German cuisine.  I kept that place in the back of my mind the whole next day and after a long day of calling on accounts around Kansas City, I went to Grünauer for dinner that evening.  

Quite actually, Grünauer calls itself an Austrian restaurant with Central European influences.  That's because sibling owners Nicholas and Elisabeth Grünauer are the son and daughter of famed Austrian chef Peter Grünauer.  Grünauer's family ran a number of restaurants in Austria when he was growing up, so he knew his way around a kitchen pretty well.  The most famous of the family's restaurants is Gasthaus Grünauer in the heart of Vienna.  

Peter Grünauer eventually left the family business and ended up working on a cruise ship before he ended up in New York City working as a server in the famous Peter Luger Steakhouse.  Grünauer eventually became a food and beverage manager, most notably at the Waldorf Astoria.  But by the time 1978 came around, he was ready to do his own thing.  One of Grünauer's good friends was Karl Zartler who was also a waiter at Peter Luger's, and the two talked about coming up with a restaurant concept that featured Viennese food in the heart of New York City.  In 1979, Grünauer opened Vienna 79 with Zartler's help.  Within two years, the restaurant became exceptionally popular with people familiar with the food scene in New York City, and in 1981, Vienna 79 got a four-star review by the New York Times.  

Peter Grünauer and Karl Zartler operated Vienna 79 until it was sold in 1989.  Grünauer operated a small chain of low-priced Viennese-style restaurants called Fledermaus.  Grünauer sold Fledermaus in 1996 and went into restaurant consulting.  Grünauer is also a published author with his cookbook "Viennese Cuisine - The New Approach" that he co-wrote with two other Austrian chefs.  

While in New York, Peter Grünauer met a young stewardess by the name of Lynne Bielski from Kansas City.  The two married and they had their two children - Nicholas and Elisabeth.  Peter and Lynne Grunauer eventually divorced and she moved back to Kansas City with their two children.  The children stayed in touch with their father and spent many summers working at the family restaurant in Vienna learning the restaurant trade.  So, it was a natural progression that the two worked with their father in opening Grünauer in 2010 in Kansas City.  

It was a five minute walk from my hotel down to Grünauer at the old Freight House.  (see map)  It was early enough in the evening where I was able to get in pretty easily.  I was shown to a table near the window and given a menu to look over.  

The dining area was a stately room with brick walls and chandeliers hanging from a high ceiling.  The bar area up front where you come into Grünauer - the Wunderbar (get it? Wunderbar? German for "wonderful"?) - was a cozy little area with a long bar and subdued lighting.  I've never been to Germany or Austria, but I can imagine that the decor mirrored many of the finer local cuisine restaurants of those two countries.

My server for the evening was Cayla, a soft-spoken young lady.  I was looking through the wine and beer menu and found a Früh Kolsch out of Cologne, Germany that they had on tap that evening.  Cayla also brought out a basket of assorted fresh breads which included an excellent pumpernickel.  

The dinner menu at Grünauer featured a number of schnitzel dishes, sausage plates, goulash, and a number of classic Austrian dishes including stewed veal in a paprika sauce, a traditional Austrian Farmer's plate consisting of a pork loin, bacon and bratwurst on a bed of sauerkraut, and something called Altwiener Tafelspitz - sliced beef in a consommé broth with vegetables and three sauces served on the side.  

A lot of the menu sounded good and very intriguing, but I ended up going with the Schweinebraten - roasted pork loin and pork shoulder.  It came with a bread dumpling and red cabbage.  I asked Kayla if I could get a side of their house-made sauerkraut and she said that would be no problem.  

The meal was sort of all over the place with me.  The pork loin was outstanding - it was tender and flavorful - but the pork shoulder was pretty tough.  It was more of an end piece and it was dry and not easy to cut or chew.  That was kind of a bummer.  The bread dumpling was pretty blah in taste, but the red cabbage was delicious.  And the $4 upcharge on getting a side of sauerkraut was absolutely worth it.  It had a wonderful flavor that was enhanced with chopped green onions on top.  I like to put a lot of caraway seeds in sauerkraut that I have at home (preferably the Amana sauerkraut), but I'll have to remember to top it off with green onions the next time.  The Früh Kolsch was a wonderful complement to meal.  

As I said, I was sort of up and down with the meal that I had at Grünauer.  The roast pork loin was tender and full of flavor, but the accompanying pork shoulder was tough and somewhat lifeless.  The sauerkraut and red cabbage more than made up for the bland taste of the bread dumpling.  And the fresh-baked bread - especially the pumpernickel - was a nice start to the meal.  The surroundings were comfortable, bordering on old world elegant.  And the service I had that evening was efficient and friendly.   Even though Grünauer is more of an Austrian restaurant, it certainly hit the spot for my ongoing crave for German food that is becoming harder and harder to find in my travels.  

Jack Stack Barbecue - Kansas City

I first started traveling on the road in the mid-80's working for a company out of Kansas City.  Now, I had been to Kansas City many times previously because I had a girlfriend who lived there for a number of years before distance just made it too hard for us to stay together.  But during my trips to see her during our time together, I was too young and culinarily naive to realize that Kansas City had an outstanding barbecue scene.  On my first trip to Kansas City working for my new company in the mid-80's, my boss and his wife treated me to a meal at the Jack Stack Barbecue in Martin City, MO.  It was the first of what would be many meals I've had at the original Jack Stack location.  Over the years, Jack Stack has expanded to five locations around the greater Kansas City area.  Staying in downtown Kansas City for a couple days recently, I found that I was walking distance from my hotel to the Jack Stack location in the old Freight House.  I decided to head over there for dinner on a cool and somewhat rainy evening.  

Years ago before I found a format or a voice for this blog, I had a couple small posts on the Jack Stack location in Martin City, which was actually called the Smoke Stack when I first went there in the mid-80's.  But the constant through the history of the Smoke Stack - and then later on with what became Jack Stack - is the Fiorella family.  

Russ Fiorella was one of 14 children who grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Kansas City.  His parents, Italian immigrants, were originally farmers on the far east side of Kansas City until they were forced to find another line of work when farm prices fell in the 1930's.  Like many of his brothers, Russ ended up running a small neighborhood grocery store and worked as the butcher.  Russ loved to barbecue the meats he cut, and nearly every Sunday you'd find him smoking brisket, ribs, or pork shoulders for the Fiorella family.  

Pictured right - Russ Fiorella standing in front of his neighborhood grocery store/butcher shop.  Photo courtesy Jack Stack Barbecue.  

As larger grocery stores started to take over, Russ knew that his little neighborhood grocery store couldn't survive.  The story goes that Russ took his wife, Flora, to the hospital to give birth to the couples' sixth child.  Instead of hanging around the hospital, Russ went over to a small roadhouse on the south side of Kansas City called The Lucky Inn and bought the place.  The purchase surprised everyone around Russ, including Flora who had no idea he was even thinking about owning his own restaurant.  Russ turned The Lucky Inn from a roadhouse tavern into a barbecue place and named it Smoke Stack BBQ.  

The only hitch was that in order to buy The Lucky Inn, Russ Fiorella had to sell the family's seven bedroom, seven bathroom home and move the family - three boys and three girls - into the small apartment above the restaurant.  But business started going well for the Fiorella's and by the time the seventh child came into the world around 1963, Russ was able to move the family to a larger home.    

A fire destroyed the building in 1966, but the Fiorella's rebuilt and it wasn't long before business started to come back from the devastating fire.  By the early 70's, three of Russ' children opened their own Smoke Stack locations around Kansas City with Russ' help, with oldest son Jack opening his place in Martin City, a small town on the far south side of Kansas City just inside the Missouri state line with Kansas.  

Jack's location was next door to the famous Jess & Jim's Steakhouse - a destination restaurant that has garnered international fame over the years (and, as a personal side note, I think is overrated) - and that certainly didn't hurt his initial presence in the area.  In fact, the location was such a huge success that Jack Fiorella and his wife, Delores, moved to its present day location at 135th and Holmes Road in 1978.

Pictured left - Jack Fiorella.  Photo courtesy the Fiorella family and the Martin City Telegraph.

With business up and going at his barbecue place, Jack Fiorella soon opened a second restaurant in Overland Park, KS called Hatfield and McCoys that offered some of the barbecue items that the Smoke Stack restaurants had along with an expanded menu.  However, tough economic times in the early 80's forced the closure of that restaurant.  In the meantime, Jack had neglected the Martin City barbecue location enough that business was down and they weren't even open for lunch any longer.  Crestfallen by his failure at another restaurant and over a half million dollars in debt, Jack directed all his efforts to his barbecue restaurant in Martin City.  He came back to the restaurant full time with a small sign outside the restaurant that simply said, "Jack's Back!"  People started to come back in droves to his barbecue place and within a couple of years he had paid off his debts from his failed restaurant.  

Delores and Jack had always envisioned a more upscale barbecue restaurant compared to the other sit-down barbecue joints that were all over the Kansas City area.  They had been one of the first barbecue places in the area to smoke meats with hickory wood after they opened in 1974, and Delores brought a woman's touch to the menu adding items such as seafood, chicken, lamb and steaks.  They expanded the Martin City location putting in two additional dining rooms and it became just as popular of a destination restaurant as Jess & Jim's just down the road.  

(Russ Fiorella passed away in 1986 and two of his daughters continued to run the original Smoke Stack location until 1999 when they closed the restaurant and the building was torn down soon thereafter.  Flora Fiorella was still involved with the business up to the time that it closed and she passed away in 2008.)  

By the mid-90's with an eye upon expansion, Jack and Delores had officially changed the name of their business to Fiorella's Jack Stack and opened a second Jack Stack restaurant in Overland Park in 1997.  In 2000, a third Jack Stack opened in the renovated Freight House in Kansas City, and a fourth location opened in the Country Club Plaza area of Kansas City in 2006.  In 2016, a fifth location in Lee's Summit, MO was opened.  After eating at the one in the Freight House, I have now eaten at all five locations in the greater Kansas City area.   

Jack and Delores Fiorella's son and daughter, Kevin and Jennifer, also helped in the business as it grew.  Catering and private dining were introduced in the early 90's at a facility just down the street from the Martin City Jack Stack, and by 2000 the company had started a mail order business to ship ribs, burnt ends and other barbecued meats around the United States.  In 2009, Jack and Delores retired selling the company to their daughter Jennifer and her husband Case Dorman who is the CEO of the Jack Stack empire today.  A fourth generation Fiorella family member, Case and Jennifer's son Keaton, works in the catering department for Jack Stack.  

The Freight House in Kansas City is located in the Crossroads Art District, a collection of unique boutiques, restaurants, studios and art galleries on the south end of Kansas City's downtown area.  Originally built in the late 1880's, it was used for storage of freight and dry goods that came in on dozens of trains that stopped in Kansas City each day.  As the advent of truck freight and outlying warehouses came into being in the 1950's, the Freight House began to see a significant drop in usage.  By the 1980's, it was all but closed down and fell into disrepair.  

In 1995, a group of investors bought the dilapidated property and began a three year process of repurposing the building into usable space.  The owners envisioned three restaurants in the space.  Celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich opened the first restaurant, the eponymously named Lidia's, in 1998.  The Fiorella family opened Jack Stack in 2000, and a restaurant by the name of City Market opened in 2003.  City Market closed in 2010 and was replaced soon thereafter by Grunauer, an Austrian/German restaurant owned by famed chef Peter Grunauer.  (Look for an upcoming post on Grunauer at some point in the near future.)  

As I said, it was a very short walk - less than five minutes - from my hotel to the Jack Stack BBQ location in the Freight House.  (see map).  I had never been to that location and as I walked through a vehicle entry way between Lidia's and Grunauer, I walked into a large parking lot that faced Union Station just across the multitude of tracks between that and the Freight House.  It was sort of surprising to me that I had never been to this place in all the years I've been coming to Kansas City.  

Since I was a single diner, I tried to get a seat in the bar area.  But the bar was packed including the sit down areas.  I went to the hostess stand to see if I could get a seat in the dining area.  She sort of hesitated and said, "Well, we really don't have a booth at this time."  I didn't think I heard her correctly and I looked out at the dining area and saw a sea of tables in the center of the room.  I said, "I don't really need a booth."  She looked at a four-seater table in the center of the room that was empty and asked if I could have that.  She escorted me right there and dropped off a menu for me to look over.

The main dining room at the Freight House Jack Stack BBQ is pretty impressive.  It's a long and narrow space with a vaulted ceiling with wood truss supports.  From the supports were faux candle lighting hanging down above the middle of the dining area.  The brick walls had pictures of trains that used to stop at the Freight House and Union Station.  There was a large room toward the back of the dining area that could be used for private dining or large groups of up to about 20 people.  A statue of the bull depicted in the Jack Stack logo was the centerpiece on the large table.  

My server for the evening was a young lady by the name of Tara.  She asked me what I would like to drink and I ordered up a Boulevard Pale Ale which is made less than a mile away from the Jack Stack at the Freight House.  Then I settled in to take a look at the menu.

Actually, I've eaten at Jack Stack locations so much over the years that I really don't need a menu.  The primary barbecue offerings haven't changed much over the years - pork ribs, lamb ribs, beef ribs, pulled pork, smoked chicken, burnt ends, brisket, as well as smoked ham, turkey and sausage are the barbecue staples of the place.  They have a number of sandwiches to choose from with all their smoked meat offerings, as well as a grilled French dip sandwich made with sliced prime rib beef, and a chicken chipotle club sandwich.  And, of course, since it is Kansas City, Jack Stack also offers hickory-grilled steaks, pork chops, and seafood entrees.  One thing that I've been very tempted to try at some point is their hickory smoked prime rib.  I'm guessing that just has to be outstanding.  

But like always, I went with the combo barbecue platter.  I got the three meat combo with sliced brisket, burnt ends, and pulled pork.  Fries come with the meal, but you also get a choice of two sides.  The hickory pit beans are always a must, and I really like their cole slaw at Jack Stack.  The cole slaw is creamy with a somewhat sweet and somewhat spicy taste with a dash of paprika added.  

They have two different types of sauces at Jack Stack, both are served warm.  One is a conventional Kansas City sweet and smoky sauce, the other is a hotter sauce that has more of a peppery taste.  They don't really emphasize the sauces at Jack Stack and that's OK because the meats are usually very good.

And on this visit, it was not exception to the rule.  The pulled pork literally melted in my mouth with each bite.  The brisket was tender, lean and full of a great smoky beef flavor.  And the burnt ends were done to perfection - large, chunky and tender.  I've had some pretty suspect burnt ends around Kansas City over the years, but the ones at Jack Stack have consistently been very good over the years.   

The visit to the Freight House Jack Stack BBQ completed my scorecard of eating at all five locations in the Kansas City area.  A lot of barbecue places have popped up in the Kansas City area over past twenty years that have tried to emulate the Fiorella family's success in the quality of their meats, the foods other than barbecue that they offer, and the more upscale dining settings that have long defined what Jack Stack is all about.  I know there's a lot of choices for barbecue in Kansas City - and I will say that there are a couple three that I may like better than Jack Stack.  But if you're going to Kansas City and looking for a starting point where to try barbecue for the first time, I would say start at Jack Stack BBQ and go from there.  The consistent quality of the barbecue is one of the reasons why I keep going back time and time again.  

V's Italiano Ristorante - Independence, MO

I've been spending some time in Kansas City this summer thanks to some renewed interest from a couple accounts regarding some of our products and I had an early morning meeting with a dealer on the east side of Kansas City that I came into town a day early for.  I was looking for something along the lines of Italian food that evening and I found a place that has been around for well over 50 years that I decided to try.  Here's what I experienced at V's Italiano Ristorante in Independence, MO.

The "V" behind V's Italiano Ristorante is the former Vita Barber, also known as "Mama V" to many family members and patrons.  Vita Barber grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Kansas City near a young boy by the name of Jay Totta.  Vita and Jay knew each other nearly all their lives and eventually got married.  

Jay became an architect and Vita stayed at home to raise their four children.  However, a trip to California in the early 60's changed the Totta's life.  They visited Jay's cousin who was running a pizza restaurant.  Seeing the patrons eating the Italian specialty gave Vita an idea.  She wanted to open her own pizza restaurant back home in Kansas City.

With all four of their children now in school, Vita thought that she had better learn how to run a restaurant before she jumped in without any experience.  She found a part-time waitressing job from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through the week to learn the ins-and-outs of the restaurant business.  

The next thing she had to do after she had some experience was to find a place for her restaurant.  It turned out there was a small cafe not far from Interstate 70 on the east side of Kansas City where the owner was getting ready to sell the place for $3000.  Jay and Vita had $2000 of their own money, so they went to the bank to borrow the other $1000.  They explained to the banker their business plan of opening a pizza restaurant, but the banker didn't know what pizza was.  Nonetheless, he loaned the Totta's the money for them to buy the cafe.  They opened V's Cafe in October of 1963.  

Pictured right - Vita "Mama V" Totta.  Photo courtesy of the Jackson County Examiner.  

At first, not many people around Kansas City knew what to think of Mama V's pizza.  But things started to pick up - especially after Jay and Vita discovered that pizza tastes pretty darned good with beer - and it wasn't long before the little 35 seat cafe was filled on most nights. 

V's Cafe outgrew it's original location in less than three years and they moved to a new location in 1966.  It wasn't much larger than the small cafe, and Vita expanded the menu with Italian specialties made from recipes from her mother, Carrie Barber.  Success continued and within five years the Totta's knew they had to move to a larger location.  

They found a lot along U.S. Highway 40 in Independence and bought the property in 1971.  Jay designed the new restaurant with a large dining area, a lounge, and three banquet rooms that sat another 135 people.  Vita's father Tony Barber planted grape vines on a wood arbor in front of the new restaurant.   When everything was complete, V's Italiano Ristorante opened their doors in 1972.  

Jay and Vita's children all worked in their restaurants at one point in time or longer.  But it was when a young boy by the name of Greg Hunsaker came into the brand new V's in April of 1972 to ask for a job, little did anyone know that he would eventually become a part of the Totta family.  Greg Hunsaker's older brother worked in the restaurant, but the Totta's thought that Greg was too young to work in the place.  Perseverance paid off for Greg who was eventually hired in December of 1972 after a busboy didn't come in to work one evening.  

He bussed table for the next seven months, but one evening he was chewed out by a lady and he thought about quitting and going back to mowing lawns.  But Vita Totta saw something in the young Greg Hunsaker and she reassigned him to work in the kitchen.  

After working in V's Italiano kitchen for a year, Greg Hunsaker - now at the ripe age of 16 - knew that he wanted to continue to work at the restaurant.  Over the next few years, Hunsaker did a little bit of everything - server, kitchen manager, and finally becoming general manager by the age of 24.   Jay and Vita's daughter, Mary, was the bar manager at V's Italiano and she and Greg worked together in management.  But things changed from a working relationship into a matrimonial situation as Greg and Mary were married in 1983.  

A number of years later, Vita offered Greg Husaker, Sr. a chance to become part owner of the restaurant and he jumped in with both feet.  When Vita eventually retired from the day-to-day operations a few years back, Greg and Mary took over the restaurant full time.  Their son, Greg, Jr., started working in the restaurant when he was 10 as a busboy before he started to work in the kitchen.  The younger Hunsaker eventually went to college and studied hospitality management before coming back to work at the Totta/Hunsaker family restaurant.  Today, Greg Hunsaker, Jr. is the manager of V's Italiano Ristorante.  Jay Totta passed away in 2007 and now in her mid-80's Mama V continues to check in on the restaurant nearly every day.  

After pulling into the parking lot at 10819 E. U.S. Highway 40, I made my way into the restaurant where I was met by Greg Hunsaker, Jr., himself.  (see map)  He took me to a booth in what appeared to be a main dining room in the place.  

There were a couple of other segments to the dining room.  There was a small room off to the side just as you come into the dining area that could possibly be used as a small reception or private dining area.  There was also another area that looked like it could have been used for brunch or a lunch buffet.  The lounge was off to the side when you come into the place.  There was kind of a rustic Tuscan feel to the interior of V's Italiano.  Classic Italian crooners such as Dean Martin, Tony Bennett and Perry Como were playing in the background.

I was greeted by Susan, a nice middle-aged lady who was friendly and sassy.  I started out with ordering a Boulevard Pale Ale as I looked through the menu to see what they had to offer.  

The menu featured a number of classic Italian favorites - osso bucco, chicken parmigiana, and cioppino.  Pasta dishes included fettuccine alfredo (they had a seafood option that added lobster meat and shrimp), spicy linguine in a white cream sauce, spaghetti in a meat sauce, and Mama V's lasagna that she has served at the restaurant for over 50 years.  (When it was first introduced at V's Cafe in the 60's, patrons had trouble with the pronunciation calling it "la-zag-na".)  And being in Kansas City, V's Italiano has a number of steaks on the menu, as well as prime rib and seafood.  But, of course, V's Italiano Ristorante features Mama V's original pizza which started the whole thing back in 1963.  

After ordering up my meal, I was brought out a house salad with a sweet Italian dressing.  The salad consisted of fresh iceberg and romaine lettuce topped with shredded mozzarella, red onion rings, and cherry tomatoes.  Along with the salad came a basket of pumpernickel and Italian bread.  The bread was delicious, as was the salad.

For dinner that evening, I went with the penne pasta in the bolognese sauce with sautéed mushrooms added in.  For good measure, I got a couple of meat balls to go along with the pasta.  Susan talked me into a half-order of V's garlic cheese bread.  I'd already had too much of the excellent Italian and pumpernickel bread, but she made it sound like the garlic bread was to die for.  (Here's a tip - it was just all right.)

The meat sauce was sweet, but it was very good.  The meat balls were also very good as they held together very well.  The pasta dish went very well with a glass of Josh Cellars cabernet that I had ordered up before the meal came out.  It was a great - and filling - classic Italian meal.  

At the end of the meal, Susan told me that I also got a piece of Mama V's Italian rum cake.  I was so full that there was no way that I could eat it.  She said, "I'll get you a piece to go."  I told her that I was staying in a hotel and she said, "No worries.  I'll give you a fork to use."  She gave it to me in a small bag and I took it with me.  I put it in the refrigerator at the hotel - and promptly forgot about it.  I didn't take it with me when I left the next day.  But that was fine - I had more than enough to eat that night.  

V's Italiano Ristorante is one of those places that are like you're going to your Italian grandmas for dinner.   The food was old school Italian - and there was a lot of it.  I was happy with everything that I had at V's.  It's not a fancy place, but it's comfortable and unpretentious.  There are a handful of good Italian restaurants I've eaten at in Kansas City over the years and V's Italiano may be the oldest of the ones that are still around.  I thought the food, service and atmosphere were well above average, and I wouldn't hesitate to head back to V's Italiano Ristorante for a good Italian meal if I'm up for one when I'm in Kansas City.  

Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen - Kansas City

I had a morning meeting at an account out on the far west side of Kansas City, so I got a hotel room in the Village West complex of retail, entertainment and sports.  The Kansas Speedway and Children's Mercy Park stadium which is home to the Sporting Kansas City soccer club are part of the Village West district.  There's also a number of restaurants in the immediate area although many of them are national chains that I try to stay away from.  However, there was one place that I recognized - Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen - a place that I first ate at in the Westport area of Kansas City nearly 20 years ago.  It was a cool and rainy evening and I needed some spicy food to warm me up.  It was a very short trip between my hotel and this location of Jazz which was part of the Legends Outlets shopping complex.  (see map)  

Years ago when I was working for a Kansas City area company, my boss liked to take us to a Cajun restaurant in Kansas City's Westport neighborhood.  (Of course, the name of the place completely escapes me.)  It was really the first time I was exposed to Cajun food and I immediately liked it.  He and his wife had traveled to New Orleans a handful of times and he declared the food at this restaurant was as almost good as what they'd had in authentic Cajun/Creole restaurants in Louisiana.  

Along about the same time that I started with the company in Kansas City, Vic Allred was living in Lubbock, TX going to school at Texas Tech.  Allred had been working in restaurants since he was 14 years old starting out as a dishwasher in the upscale New Orleans House restaurants before moving to Texas to go to college.   Allred worked in restaurants in Lubbock to earn some money while he was in school.  In Lubbock, there was a higher-end Cajun restaurant by the name of Oscar's that reminded him of some of the top restaurants in New Orleans.  While the food was good and it was authentic Louisiana cuisine, it was an expensive meal.  Especially for a college student.   

Allred knew people who were in the restaurant business in Lubbock.  The group got together and came up with a concept for a Cajun/Creole restaurant that was much more casual and less expensive to eat in.  They found a spot near the campus of Texas Tech and they opened Jazz in 1986.  In order to attract more students, they kept their prices low and offered live music starting at midnight some nights.  Allred was the first kitchen manager of the Jazz location in Lubbock and two years later, they opened a second Jazz in Austin, TX near the University of Texas campus.  Allred was named the General Manager of the Jazz location in Lubbock soon after that.  

Pictured right - Vic Allred.  Photo courtesy the Missouri Times.

A young lady from Kansas City stole Allred's heart and he ended up marrying her in 1991.  In 1993, he was approached by a landlord in the Westport area of Kansas City to become a consultant on the revitalization of what was a popular bar dating back to Prohibition.  While Allred declined the offer, he got to looking into the history of the building.  The building that housed the tavern at the corner of 39th and Stateline near the present day University of Kansas Medical Center started out as a livery stable.  It became a speakeasy during Prohibition, then was rebranded as The Bigger Jigger.  

The Westport Bigger Jigger eventually became Jimmy's Jigger, a popular joint with many people still talk fondly about today.  After the owner, Jimmy Bowers, sold his interest to another party, it wasn't the same place without him in there holding court.  Subsequent proprietors of the place couldn't make a go of the bar and it closed for good in the mid-90's.  When Allred was approached a second time by the landlord of the building, this time he didn't hesitate in moving his family to Kansas City to open a Jazz location in the spot of Jimmy's Jiggers old space.  

When the Legends Outlets complex opened in Village West in 2006, Allred saw to it that a Jazz location went in there.  Since then, he's put in Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen locations in Omaha, NE, Independence, MO, and in Columbia, MO.  The original Jazz is still in business in Lubbock, TX.  In addition to serving on various boards of national, regional and local restaurant associations, Allred is also now a candidate for the Missouri House of Representatives in the state's 13th District.    

The Jazz location at Village West is in the southwest part of the Legends Outlets complex.  I was able to park a short distance from the west door of the place.  Stepping inside, I found a space that was sort of industrial in its decor with colorful lighting casting a glowing hue around the dining area.  There were step-up dining areas in the dining room with low wrought iron fencing.  

On the walls throughout the restaurant were a number of posters, beer signs and New Orleans memorabilia.  On the second floor overlooking the bar area was a gentleman playing an electric guitar and singing.  It was actually kind of loud in there for just a one man band.  

I ended up taking a seat at the bar.  There was just one other person sitting down at the other end of the bar and hockey game was playing on the flat screen television in front of me.  I was greeted by the bartender, a young lady by the name of Stephanie who had to yell to me over the music that was being played just above us.  She offered me a menu and asked what I'd like to drink.  They had a number of Kansas City area beers on tap, but I ended up getting the Big Easy IPA from the Abita brewery in Louisiana.  

Looking through the menu, I found a number of authentic Cajun and Creole dishes including blackened seafood and chicken, shrimp or crawfish étouffée, Po' Boy sandwiches, pasta dishes, and Jazz specialty items such as a Cajun stir-fry, a seafood-stuffed catfish, and the Chicken a La Mer which features a grilled chicken breast topped with shrimp and crab meat and finished with a Parmesan cream sauce.  The menu said it was their most popular dish at Jazz.

I was feeling a little out of sorts and I thought I needed something to warm me up.  I decided to start out with a cup of the gumbo.  And it was served to me in a coffee cup.  The gumbo featured big chunks of shrimp, catfish filet, and andouille sausage.  It was spicy, but I wanted to spice it up a little bit more.  I asked Stephanie if she had any Tabasco and she came back with a bottle of Jazz's own "Voodoo" sauce.  It was similar to any type of vinegar-based Louisiana hot sauces on the market and helped kick the spiciness of the gumbo up just a bit.  

For dinner that evening, I thought about getting a couple of things.  The blackened tilapia topped with garlic butter-sautéed shrimp, crab meat and scallops sounded really good.  The seafood fettuccine with shrimp, crab and scallops also sounded good.  But I was wanting something more on the spicy side to help warm me up.  

I ended up getting the shrimp étouffée with a side of jambalaya.  Before she brought the meal out, Stephanie offered me some bread to go along with it.  I declined the offer at first, then saw that I should have ordered the bread to dip into the rich roux the shrimp and rice were swimming in.  The sautéed shrimp were plump, the rice was fluffy, and the roux had a bit of a spicy kick that I kicked up a bit with some of Jazz's Voodoo sauce.  Dipping the fresh baked bread into the roux was really the highlight of the meal.  It was a very tasty meal, to say the least.   

The jambalaya had chunks of cured tasso ham and andouille sausage, along with ground beef with rice.  It, too was a little spicy from the Piquant sauce they used and it was very good.  I could have gotten a big plate of the jambalaya with a side of the shrimp étouffée and been happy.

I'm always up for good Cajun/Creole food and the food I had at Jazz was very good.  I've only been to Louisiana once and that was about 20 years ago, but I've been eating in good Cajun restaurants in the Midwest for years.  I imagine that the food at Jazz would rival what I think would be good food in Louisiana.  The shrimp étouffée was delicious, even more so with the fresh baked bread dipped into the roux.  The gumbo and the jambalaya that I also had were also very good - I could have easily picked any one of the three items I had for my main entree and I would have been happy.  Although it was a little loud in there from the live one-man-band music, it was still a pleasant enough experience.  

Barley's Kitchen + Tap - Overland Park, KS

Staying in the southwest suburbs of Kansas City on a recent trip getting ready to meet with a new account the next day, I was sort of hungry, but I wasn't.  Ever get that feeling?  I knew I needed something or I would be waking up in the middle of the night with my stomach growling, but I didn't want a big heavy meal - like barbecue - that would also keep me awake from eating too much.  Down the road aways from the hotel was a place that I'd read about on previous visits to the area - Barley's Kitchen + Tap.  I decided to head down 119th Street in Overland Park to go have dinner there that evening.  

Barley's Kitchen + Tap is under the umbrella of the KC Hopps restaurant group run by Chris Sutton.  Sutton is a native of Chicago and had a keen interest in food while growing up in a family who exposed him to various cuisines.  Sutton considers himself a "foodie" and many of his vacations have been food-emphasis taking him all over the U.S. and Europe to try different restaurants.  

Sutton started his first restaurant - 75th Street Brewery - in 1993.  It was the first brewpub in Kansas City and was open for 23 years before closing for the expansion of a restaurant next door.  Over the years, Sutton's KC Hopps company opened and ran a number of places such as O'Dowd's Little Dublin in the Country Club Plaza area of Kansas City, 3 locations of the now closed 810 Zone sports bar, and the Blue Moose Bar and Grill with 3 locations in the greater Kansas City area and 3 more in the Kansas cities of Topeka, Lawrence and Manhattan.  In 2013, KC Hopps bought a minority stake in the venerable home-style Kansas City restaurant Stroud's - a place that I've wanted to go to, but just haven't made it to yet - with the plan to expand the Stroud's name beyond Kansas City.  In addition to running restaurants, Sutton has also been a consultant to beer-centric restaurants around the Midwest and Southeast.  

Sutton opened a beer-centric restaurant - Barley's Brewhaus - in Overland Park in 1995.  It featured a large number of beers and an upscale casual menu for food.  Barley's Brewhaus expanded to locations in the Kansas City suburbs of Leawood, KS and Shawnee, KS.  They closed the Leawood location in the spring of 2016 and later in the year KC Hopps rebranded the restaurant as Barley's Kitchen + Tap with an updated and more eclectic menu that better reflected the quality brands of beer they offered at the restaurant.  

The Overland Park Barley's Kitchen + Tap is located near the corner of 119th Street and Quivera Rd. in Overland Park.  (see map)  It was just after 8 p.m. on a Monday evening when I walked into the restaurant.  There weren't a lot of people in there - Monday nights are usually the slowest for most restaurants.  (One of the reasons that A) my wife and I like to have our date nights on Monday night; and B) many restaurants are closed on Monday nights, much to the chagrin of my wife and me.)  

The space was large and open with community tables near the bar and some booths in the back area.  There was a small alcove behind the bar area that featured some tables with a number of contemporary and vintage beer signs.  The hostess who greeted me said that I could pretty much have a seat anywhere in the place.  

I ended up seated at the bar, which was the most popular place to sit that evening.  A group of six people were huddled around the corner of the bar to my right toasting a colleague whose funeral they had attended earlier in the day.  Two more couples were seated down the bar to my right.   I was greeted by Scott, a friendly guy who was bartending that evening.  He gave me a food menu and I took a look at the vast amount of beers they had on tap to choose from.  I got a Free State Yakimaniac IPA from the Free State Brewery in nearby Lawrence, KS which was the very first brew pub that I went to back in the late 1980's.  The Free State IPA had a bit of a hoppy taste, but I felt it was very smooth and very good.  

On the menu at Barley's Kitchen + Tap is a wide choice of food items.  The menu features a number of appetizers and sharable plates, soups and salads, a health conscious part of the menu features meals that are 600 calories or less, and they have a number of sandwiches, flat breads, and entrees to choose from.  They even have a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza on the menu as a nod to the owner's Windy City roots. 

I had been traveling a lot up to this visit to Barley's Kitchen + Tap and I was falling into a serious food funk.  I was hungry, but I wasn't.  I really didn't know what I wanted, but I knew I didn't want a burger.  They had a seafood pasta entree that was intriguing, but I felt it would probably be too rich.  There were a lot of interesting items to choose from, but nothing was really tripping my trigger.

At that time, I had been on somewhat of a chicken wings in Buffalo sauce-kick.  I saw that they had a Buffalo chicken wrap - breaded chicken strips that were deep fried and tossed in a spicy Buffalo sauce and wrapped in a chipotle flour tortilla shell with chopped bacon, lettuce, tomato, and onions along with both mozzarella and provolone cheese.  Blue cheese dressing came on the side.  I told Scott that was exactly what I was looking for.  

After having a house salad with a wonderful chipotle ranch dressing (I had promised my wife that I'd eat more salads on the road), Scott brought out my Buffalo chicken wrap.  And it was pretty big - a lot larger than I thought it would be.  It was cut in half and filled with large chunks of fried chicken tenders covered in a spicy sauce.  A side of fries came with the wrap.  The only problem is that I was given a side of roasted garlic buttermilk dressing and not the blue cheese dressing.  Scott saw to it that I immediately got a side of the blue cheese dressing, even though the roasted garlic dressing was pretty good.  

The wrap had a number of good flavors going on.  The chicken was crispy, yet tender and had ample amounts of the Buffalo sauce all over it giving it a nice spicy kick.  Along with the crisp lettuce and onions, it all mixed with with the combination of the mozzarella and provolone cheese.  I was able to eat one half of the wrap, but then opened the second part and picked the chicken out to dip in the blue cheese dressing.  It turned out to be a nice, light and flavorful meal.

The fries that came with it, well, I wasn't too interested in them at first.  However, I tried a couple and found them to be delicious - a nice crispy outside, not too oily or greasy, with a nice flaky potato presence inside.  I actually ate more of the fries than I thought I would as they were very good.  

Barley's Kitchen + Tap was impressive with the number of beers they had to offer, as well as the somewhat upscale and diverse menu that they present.   I went on what was a very slow night, so the service I received sitting at the bar was prompt and friendly.  My Buffalo chicken wrap was very good and I enjoyed my dinner salad that was served with a delicious chipotle ranch dressing that had a nice little kick to the taste.  While I wasn't all that hungry and in a bit of a food funk when I went into Barley's Kitchen + Tap, I have to say that I was more than happy with what I got to eat there that evening.  

Tequila Harry's - Overland Park, KS

I started to travel for my work back in the mid-80's.  I first worked for a company located in Olathe, KS and I made many trips to the main office there for meetings during the years I worked for them.  I'll have to say that my boss there was the man who taught me a lot about culinary excellence and helped broaden my horizons in food choices, types of wine, and the way to savor alcoholic beverages rather than slammin' them back to get hammered.  (Which is still fun to do from time to time.)  One place that he and his wife liked to go to to have chips and salsa with margaritas every once in a while was a Mexican restaurant by the name of Tequila Harry's in Overland Park.  They took me there a couple three times over the years and I happened to remember the place awhile back. One night after a day of meetings in the area, I ended up going to Tequila Harry's for a nostalgic revisit to a place I probably hadn't been in for over 25 years.  

The Kanatzar family started Tequila Harry's in January of 1987 and one of the son's, Danny, continues to run the restaurant today.  It's still located right where they started it over 31 years ago in a strip mall just south of College Blvd. on Quivera Ave.  (see map)  

It was around 7:30 when I walked into Tequila Harry's.  I remembered that they always had a lively bar at Tequila Harry's from years ago, and it was no exception this evening.  I was hoping to be able to sit at the bar, but all the seats were full.  It appeared there were a number of regulars at the bar, as well.  The booths that are off to the side of the bar were also full.  So, I went into the dining room to take a seat at a table.

Well, I didn't know the drill - there wasn't a hostess stand that I could find at Tequila Harry's.  Or if there was one up front, there wasn't anyone there working at it.  It was a couple minutes before a server came over to greet me.  She dropped off a menu for me to look over and then disappeared.  It was a good five minutes before another server finally stopped back.  His name was Aaron and he was apologizing profusely to me when he stopped at my table.  "Oh, man!  I am so sorry.  Let me get you some chips and salsa."  

He came back a moment later with a basket of fresh and crisp chips, and a bowl of their salsa.  The salsa was thick, sweet and peppery in taste.  It actually brought back some memories of the good salsa we used to pig out on during visits to Tequila Harry's years before.   I also ordered a premium margarita with Herradura silver tequila. 

The food served at Tequila Harry's is your typical Mexican fare - fajitas, burritos, enchiladas, tacos, etc.  It's not as extensive of a menu like you may find at other Mexican restaurants, but there was a little bit of everything for most everybody.  I ended up getting the chimichanga - seasoned ground beef in a flour tortilla, deep fried and then topped with a chili con queso sauce.  It came with a side of Mexican rice and refried beans with cheese on top.  Guacamole, pico de gallo and sour cream came with the meal.

The chimichanga was, well, it was all right.  It wasn't all that big and there seemed to be too much of the fried tortilla shell as it was double wrapped underneath.  The queso sauce didn't do much to enhance the taste of the chimichanga.  I did load it up with the guacamole and the salsa from the chips, and that helped a bit.  But it was pretty bland compared to other Mexican restaurants I've been to.

I would have to say the Mexican food at Tequila Harry's is more Americanized than authentic Mexican.  While I've grown up and past this style of food a number of years ago, I'm sure there are people who like Tequila Harry's food or they wouldn't be in business for over 30 years.  Once they found me at my table, the service I received was good.  It was a nice, clean place, and it brought back some good memories of going there back in the late 80's.  It was a nostalgic visit for me, for sure.  But I'm more used to more authentic Mexican food and I don't think that's what you'll find at Tequila Harry's.    

Martin City Brewing Company - Martin City, MO

In Kansas City for visit, I was in the far southern suburb of Martin City doing some beer hunting at a shop there.  Now, Martin City isn't really a city - it was annexed by Kansas City, MO in 1963 - it's more of a neighborhood.  And I use that term loosely.  Martin City has been sort of well-known around Kansas City as being a destination for restaurants  including Fiorella's Jack Stack (click here to see the Road Tips entry on the Jack Stack), and various other restaurants that have come and gone over the years.  Driving from a Lukas Liquore Superstore just inside the Missouri state line, I found a place that looked sort of interesting - the Martin City Brewing Company.  

It turns out that one of the founders of the Martin City Brewing Company got his start in the restaurant business in Martin City as a teenager.  Matt Moore's uncle Mike Van Noy ran the legendary (but, in my opinion, overrated) Jess and Jim's Steakhouse, while his uncle David ran R.C.'s, a restaurant/bar specializing in fried chicken.  The young Matt Moore worked at both of his uncle's restaurants learning the restaurant trade. 

Moore and his buddy, Chance Adams, were sailing pals who had a passion for artisan craft beer.  The two started to home-brew their own beers and dreamed of possibly running a brew pub at some point.  When a commercial building in between Jess and Jim's and RC's became available about seven years ago, Moore went to Adams and said, "We should do a microbrewery in the place."  Adams immediately agreed to the venture and the two bought the building at the corner of Locust and E. 135th St.  (see map)  

Their friend Matt Murdick became part of the partnership through sweat equity as he helped with the plumbing, kitchen design and general construction of the new microbrewery.  They brought in Nick Vaughan to be their brewmaster and they hired former EBT (a now-closed, but long-time upscale restaurant in Kansas City) sous chef Andrew Parker to head up their kitchen  Parker was only 24 years old, but he had been a veteran of many upscale Kansas City restaurants since he was a teen.

The Martin City Brewing Company opened in early June of 2011 and Moore and Adams soon found that the small building wasn't big enough to house both an 80-seat restaurant and a microbrewery.  A building directly across Locust to the west was vacant and the partners worked on financing to buy the building and put in a state-of-the-art brewing facility.  They were able to purchase the building in late 2012, but it took well over a year to get the operation up and running.  The Martin City Brewing Company Pizza and Taproom (pictured right) opened in early 2014 and they began to brew their beers to full capacity.  By November of 2014, the Martin City Brewing Company was distributing kegs of their various beers to other restaurants and bars around the greater Kansas City area.    

Being a popular place, it was difficult to find a parking spot around the Martin City Brewing Company.  I went around the block and came back just as a car was leaving the parking lot behind the building.  Going into the pub, I found a small bar area with a few tables.  Off to the side of the building is a patio for outdoor dining during the warmer months.

There was an upper area behind the bar for additional seating.  The pub was cozy and well-lit with a lot of brick and dark wood in the place.  A tin roof ceiling gave the place an antique feeling.  

I took a seat at the short bar on the lower level.  I was given a menu by the young lady working behind the bar that evening and I took a look through their beer list.  They had a number of beers other than their own brews on tap includand they also had a nice list of canned and bottled beers to choose from.  I got a Martin City Hardway IPA.  It was a nice smooth India Pale Ale with a nice balance of hops and malt.  

It's not a big menu at the Martin City Brewing Company's pub.  There's the prerequisite appetizers such as wings, loaded French fries and nachos.  But they also had ceviche, tempura-battered pork tenderloin sliders, and shrimp scampi baked in a combination of bread crumbs, olive oil, garlic, butter and lemon.  They also had a handful of salads on the menu including a steak and blue cheese spinach salad that I considered getting.

They had some interesting sandwiches on the menu including a bacon, egg, lettuce and tomato with garlic aioli served on toasted sourdough bread; a seared tuna sandwich with an Asian slaw and a wasabi aioli and served on ciabatta bread; and a beer-braised corned beef reuben topped with sauerkraut, Thousand Island dressing, and Swiss cheese and served on toasted rye bread.  They also had some tacos - a shrimp taco and a pulled pork street-style taco; a couple of wraps - one with spicy chicken and one with ceviche; and a breakfast burrito that had egg, ham, bacon, red onion, garlic, and cheese topped with a cilantro cream sauce, avocado slice, and pico de gallo.

And, of course, they had some burgers on the menu.  They had six signature burgers as well as a portobello mushroom burger for the vegans in the crowd.  And you could order your own toppings for a "make-your-own" burger.  The Cowboy burger on the menu was interesting as it was topped with provolone cheese, pulled pork, grilled onions, bacon and topped with a barbecue sauce.  

Two things jumped out at me on the menu - the steak and blue sandwich that featured slices of seared steak that was topped with blue cheese crumbles, red peppers, red onions and spinach and topped with a horseradish-cream sauce.  The other thing was the Black & Blue Mac n' Cheese - Martin City Brewing Company's four-cheese mac and cheese topped with blackened steak and blue cheese crumbles, along with chopped bacon bits and roasted red peppers.  

When the bartender came over to take my order, she told me of the special that evening - it was a beef stroganoff that featured slow-roasted beer-braised beef in a heavy cream sauce with pasta noodles.  She said it was the chef's signature dish and he doesn't make it all that often.  "I had some earlier," she said. "It's my most favorite thing that he makes."  I decided to go on her recommendation and took a right turn from the Black & Blue Mac n' Cheese that I was just about ready to order.  

I wish I had stayed with my earlier decision.   She completely oversold the beer braised-beef stroganoff special that evening.  It was nothing more than elbow macaroni in a sticky and somewhat tasteless cream sauce with chunks of beef.   The beef didn't have a lot of flavor to it, as well.  I guess I was expecting so much more from her description of the dish, but it was a complete let down in taste.  I ate a good portion of the beer braised-beef stroganoff, but I was kicking myself with nearly each bite realizing that I missed a chance to have what sounded like a very good meal with the Black & Blue Mac n' Cheese.  

When she asked me how I liked the beef stroganoff, I said, "I should have gotten the Black & Blue Mac n' Cheese."  

She was incredulous.  "Really?  You don't like the beef stroganoff?"

It wasn't that I didn't like it - it was all right.  But she definitely oversold how good it was.  I was expecting the beef stroganoff to knock my socks off.  Even if I went in with less anticipation, I still would have been underwhelmed.  

The bland beef stroganoff put a damper on what was a good overall experience at the Martin City Brewing Company that evening.  While I did like the Hardway IPA, and the service was acceptable, I really wish I would have gone with the Black & Blue Mac n' Cheese dish.  The bartender was so insistent on how well the stroganoff entree tasted that I had to order it.  Too bad it didn't live up to its billing.  But that gives me enough incentive to come back to the pub at the Martin City Brewing Company and give the Black & Blue Mac n' Cheese a try.    

Jon Russell's BBQ - Overland Park, KS

On my (seemingly) never-ending quest to try all the barbecue places in Kansas City, I had been reading about a place in Overland Park that has been open for over 4 years that was supposed to have top quality barbecue.  Jon Russell's BBQ is the culminating effort of two high school friends who started on the barbecue competition circuit over 25 years ago.  

Jon Russell's is named after the two owners - Jon Niederbremer and Russell Muehlberger - who started out in 1990 as a competitive barbecue team.  In just their second year of competition, Niederbremer and Muehlberger were named Grand Reserve Champions at the prestigious American Royal barbecue competition held annually in Kansas City.  The following year in 1992, the pair won the coveted Grand Champion award at the competition.  Over the years, the two have won numerous local and regional barbecue competitions and continue to compete when they can today.  

It turns out that Muehlberger is the one with a culinary background working for years as a chef in upscale restaurants and as a consultant for other restaurants.  Niederbremer was in the building trade before they opened Jon Russell's BBQ in the summer of 2012 in a former Quizno's location in the Prairie Center office, retail and restaurant complex at the corner of Quivira Road and W. 135th in Overland Park (see map).  Jon Russell's is part of the 39BevCo group that also includes the Club 1000 event and reception center in downtown Kansas City, MO; and two upscale convenience stores - the Prairie Market in Lenexa, KS (which also features Jon Russell's barbecued meats to go) and the 39th Street Market located in World of Spirits near the Westport neighborhood in Kansas City, MO.

It was just before noon on a sunny weekday when I pulled into the parking lot in front of Jon Russell's BBQ.  It was a little confusing getting into the parking lot at Jon Russell's from Quivira, but I was able to find it with a few twists and turns in the Prairie Center complex.  

Walking into the place, you'll find a large chalkboard behind the front counter with the menu on it.  It's your typical Kansas City barbecue fare such as ribs, burnt ends, brisket, pulled pork, chicken, sausage, ham, and turkey.  They have platters available as well as barbecued meat sandwiches and salads on the menu.  Sides include baked beans, mac and cheese, cole slaw (when available), house-fried potato chips, onion rings and fries.  

After I ordered at the counter, I found a seat in one of the booths along the wall.  The dining area wasn't anything fancy, but it was comfortable enough.  There was a pop dispenser, utensil station (plastic utensils, at that), and a barbecue sauce counter along the opposite wall from the booths.  

One of the workers in the kitchen brought my lunch out to me.  I had ordered the Blue Ribbon Combo Platter - brisket, burnt ends and ribs.  For sides, I got the baked beans and an order of fries.  I got a Boulevard Pale Ale to go along with my meal.   

The ribs at Jon Russell's BBQ are their signature item and I have to say they were very good.  They were meaty with a hint of a smoky taste and they were very tender.  Not "fall-off-the-bone" tender, but tender enough where they easily pulled away from the bone with each bite.  The outer bark on the ribs was crispy, but not burnt.  

The burnt ends were equally as tasty.  The thick chunks of brisket ends were moist and tender.  They were very good.  And the brisket slice that I got was thick and juicy, and it easily cut with the plastic fork they provide at Jon Russell's BBQ.  

For the sides, the French fries were seasoned and pretty good.  I used the to dip into the different barbecue sauces they had to offer at Jon Russell's BBQ.  (More on the sauces in a bit.)  And the baked beans were thick and sweet with a spicy bite on the back end.  They also had chunks of meat in the baked beans.  Normally, I like to zip up the taste of baked beans with a spicy barbecue sauce, but these were fine as they were served.  

Being a sauce guy, Jon Russell's had a number of different sauces to choose from.  However, many of the sauces were fruit-based - a nod to Russell Muehlberger's barbecue mentor - the late Karen Putnam - who was a charter member of the Kansas City Barbecue Society and a competitive barbecue chef on her own.  I'm usually not big on fruity barbecue sauces, but I have to say the spicy blueberry sauce was very good.  It had the sweet and tart blueberry taste with a spicy zing on the back end.  The combination of the blueberry and the spicy hot pepper taste were a great combination.  

They also had a cherry chipotle sauce that had that great smoky chipotle taste that was cut with the sweet and tart cherry flavor.  There was a honey and spice sauce that I thought was pretty good.  The pineapple poblano sauce was an interesting combination, but I was too chicken to try the Smokin' Ghost sauce - a sweet sauce mixed with ghost peppers.  Out of the sauces, I liked the spicy blueberry and the cherry chipotle the best.  But I would have also liked to have had a good ol' sweet and smoky Kansas City-style sauce, as well.  

Trophies and awards line the walls at Jon Russell's BBQ and it's no wonder why they have won so many barbecue competitions over the past 25 plus years. I thought the ribs were some of the best I've ever had in the Kansas City area, the burnt ends were also top-notch, and the brisket was moist, tender and flavorful.  The sauces - especially the spicy blueberry and the chipotle cherry - were also very good.  Jon Russell's BBQ can easily go up against the more famous and established barbecue places in Kansas City, possibly very well surpassing some of those in the quality of their barbecue.  Jon Russell's BBQ is one of the better barbecue places I've found in Kansas City.

Johnny Ray's Drive In - Lee's Summit, MO

A couple three years ago, one of my dealers was telling me  about a Kansas City area drive in that he has gone to since he was a little boy.  "Johnny Ray's still has the best burgers in Kansas City," he told me with a certain conviction in his voice.  "I get a hankering for a Johnny Ray's burger and I have to drive over to Lee's Summit every once in a while to satisfy my jones."  On a trip to Kansas City and after seeing one of my dealers in the Lee's Summit area, I stopped in for an early lunch at Johnny Ray's.  

Johnny Ray's has a link to Winstead's burger places, the local favorite burger chain in the Kansas City area.  (Click here to see Road Tips' entry on Winstead's.)  The first Winstead's opened on the Country Club Plaza in 1940 with a young Bill Winstead on the grill and his new wife Marietta serving the burgers that Bill cooked.  In 1951, the Winstead family opened a second Winstead's in Lee's Summit with Bill and Marietta running that place.  

Bill and Marietta went on to open two more Winstead's around the Kansas City area before they retired to the Ozarks in the 1960's.  In 1956, they opened a new location in Raytown, not far from Lee's Summit and they decided to sell the Lee's Summit location.  Johnny and Martha Ray took over ownership of the restaurant 60 years ago and the Ray family continues to run the place today.  Johnny Ray passed away a number of years ago, but Martha still owns the business and makes it in from time to time to check on things.  Her son Bob Ray runs the day-to-day operations of Johnny Ray's with Bob's son Sterling helping out in the summertime when he's home from college.  

Johnny Ray's is located along a frontage road that runs parallel to U.S. Highway 50 in Lee's Summit.  (see map)  It was just after 11 a.m. when I pulled into the parking lot and went inside.  It looks like not much has changed with the place that was first built in the early 50's with a tight U-shaped counter with a well worn top and a handful of booths along the walls.  The kitchen was visible through the serving window behind the counter.  

The menu for Johnny Ray's was on a 60's-style Coca-Cola wall board where the letters and numbers are interchangeable.  In addition to their burgers, Johnny Ray's also featured a pork tenderloin sandwich, a chicken sandwich, a fried fish sandwich and an Italian steak sandwich.  Sides were your typical Midwestern deep-fried foods - fries, tater tots, mozzarella cheese sticks, chicken strips and mushrooms.  They also have cheddar cheese balls, onion rings and curly fries that they call "Suzy Q's".  

I took a seat at the counter and ordered up a burger.  Actually, they are called steak burgers at Johnny Ray's as they grind their own sirloin beef on a daily basis, just has they have since they bought the property from Winstead's in 1956.  I ordered a double steak burger as I figured the patties weren't very thick as they were listed on the menu as 1/4 pound patties.

And it turned out that I was right.  The beef patties were thin having been smashed on a flat-grill and squashed out to have the burger cook in it's own juices.  The burger patties were crispy on the edges - I'm still not certain I like flat-grilled burgers like that - and it was piled high with chopped lettuce, onion slices, a tomato slice and dill pickles.  I had them put some American cheese on the burger, as well.  The bun was your basic burger bun and was slightly toasted.

The taste was, well, interesting.  The charred outer shell of the misshapen burger patty gave it sort of a crunchy and burned taste and it seemed to be overcooked.  The bun held together very well with all that was on the burger and while I'll have to say the burger was interesting, I just didn't know if I liked it all that much.  

The steak burger at Johnny Ray's I deemed as being just all right.  While I can see where generations of people on the southeast side of Kansas City can have a hankering for flat-grilled charred outer shell of the burger patty, I thought it was a tad overcooked with a pronounced crunchiness to the outside of the patties.  Now, don't get me wrong - I thought the burger was good - but I think it is an acquired taste for those who didn't grow up with Johnny Ray's. But for those who have an life-long affinity for the little 50's-style burger joint that has been around for over 60 years, Johnny Ray's is the best burger in the world.  

Burnt End BBQ - Overland Park, KS

I came across a barbecue place that has been open for awhile in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Burnt End BBQ.  I was sort of surprised that I hadn't been there before, but I just happened to look over to my left as I was sitting at a traffic light and saw the sign.  When I went in to try the place, I asked one of the workers how long they'd been open.  "Oh, I don't know.  Four years, at least," is what he told me.  So, here is the story of my visit to try the barbecue at Burnt End BBQ.

Burnt End BBQ is one of a handful of restaurants under the PB&J Restaurants banner that includes YaYa's European Bistro with locations in Kansas City, St. Louis, Denver and Little Rock, the Newport Grill with locations in Kansas City and Wichita, and the Paradise Diner in Kansas City.  The head of PB&J Restaurants Paul Khoury also has a hand in Red Robin and Twin Peaks franchises around the Kansas City area.  

Khoury has had a long career in the restaurant business starting in the mid-70's with the Gilbert/Robinson corporation that oversaw Houlihan's and the Bristol Seafood Restaurants.  In 1978, he got into the management-trainee program with Gilbert/Robinson and met another management trainee by the name of  Bill Crooks.   For the next nine years, Khoury and Crooks managed restaurants for Gilbert/Robinson, but they eventually decided to do something for themselves.  In 1987, they opened their first restaurant - the Paradise Grill - in the Oak Park Shopping Mall in Olathe.  

Kansas Citians didn't take to Paradise Grill right away as it was more of an upscale diner featuring a fusion menu of Southwestern and American fare.  But as more of the population got used to the out-of-the-box thinking that Khoury and Crooks were conjuring up in the kitchen, Paradise Grill became a popular destination.

From there, the duo were contacted by a local developer who was building an upscale shopping complex in suburban Mission.  It was there that they opened the Coyote Grill in 1989.  Two years later the same developer had built the Town Pavillion in downtown Kansas City and Khoury and Crooks opened their City Scene restaurant there.  The same year, another developer worked with them to open the first Grand Street Cafe location in Kansas City.  They also had a Southwestern restaurant called Paulo & Bill in the Kansas City area, and they opened two restaurants in St. Louis - Cafe Eau (now known as the Chase Club located in the luxurious Chase Park Plaza) and Eau Bistro.  From there, they opened the first YaYa's Mediterranean Bistros in Memphis and Denver.  (The original name of Ya'sYa's was Yia's Yia's.  They transitioned over to the Ya Ya's moniker with openings in St. Louis and Little Rock a few years later.)  

9/11 hit the restaurant business hard in 2002 and Khoury and Crooks started to look at restaurant opportunities where the check amounts would be much smaller than the $25 to $35 per person meals they had been working with at their restaurants.  That's when the partners became Red Robin franchisees.  They sold Paulo & Bill and the two St. Louis restaurants in 2002, then sold the Grand Street Cafe in 2003 and opened the first Red Robin restaurants in the Kansas City area.  

Crooks, growing weary of the restaurant business, sold his shares in PB&J to Khoury in 2006.  (Today, Crooks heads Good Food Good Future, a consulting firm for start up restaurants in the Kansas City area.)   Khoury continued on with the restaurants, soldiering on through the recession of 2008 and in 2009 opening a YaYa's in St. Louis and in Little Rock.  Some of the PB&J restaurants closed during that period, but by 2010 Khoury was ready to start a new upscale restaurant venture opening the first Newport Grill in Wichita.  When the Prairefire shopping and entertainment district opened in 2014, PB&J put in two restaurants in the complex - a new Paradise Grill concept that focuses on seafood, and a Newport Grill.  

Pictured right - Paul Khoury.  Photo courtesy Kansas City Business Journal

PB&J has also garnered a reputation in the Kansas City area for giving long-time employees Harley-Davidson motorcycles as an appreciation gift.  Once an employee hits 15 years of working for one of the PB&J restaurants, they receive a free motorcycle.  This started when one of the chefs at one of his restaurants asked Khoury if there was any bonus for 1 year of employment, 5 years of employment and 10 years of employment.  Khoury said, "I suppose one extra week of vacation."  When the chef asked Khoury what he would get at 15 years, he said, "Well, what would you want?"

The chef told him that he wanted a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.  Khoury got to thinking that keeping employees in an industry where turnover happens at a furious place, maybe something like a Harley-Davidson would be an incentive to those who would stick with him.  Even though the chef who put the idea in Khoury's head didn't make it to the 15 year mark, Khoury has now given away well over 40 Harley-Davidson motorcycles to employees who have stuck around for at least 15 years.  

Steven "Smokey" Schwartz got his start in the barbecue business as a co-owner of Joe's Barn Barbecue in suburban Olathe in the early 80's.  After Joe's Barn closed, he went over to the famed Fiorella's Jack Stack in Martin City working his way up to executive chef and pit master.  (Click here to read Road Tips' entry about Fiorella's Jack Stack.  This was from 10 years ago and, admittedly, it was not that good of an entry.  The place deserves a better write-up with pictures.)  After 10 years at Jack Stack, Schwartz went to PB&J Restaurants in 2005 to work on barbecue concepts for their restaurants.  Schwartz helped open Burnt End BBQ in 2011 at the corner of W. 135th and Nieman Road in Overland Park.  Their catering business was a hit, but the walk-in traffic they experienced was not up to par.  They moved to a much higher profile location at the corner of Metcalf and W. 119th St. in Overland Park in February of 2014.  (see map)  Earlier this year, PB&J opened a second Burnt End BBQ location in Denver's Tech Center area.  

I got into Burnt End BBQ around 8 p.m. on a warm evening in Kansas City.  It's counter service to order your meal and there was no line in front of me when I got in there. The dining room was contemporary, well-lit and comfortable enough.

The menu is printed on back-lit boards as you walk into the restaurant.  They have all the typical Kansas City-style smoked meats available at Burnt End BBQ - brisket, pulled pork, ham, spare ribs, turkey, chicken, sausage, and, of course, burnt ends.  Most of the meats are available either on their own or in sandwiches.  They also have steak burgers on the menu, as well as specialty sandwiches such as The Chop - a blend of brisket, burnt ends, pulled pork in Burnt End's traditional Kansas City-style barbecue sauce and topped with onion straws, or The Stack - brisket, ham and turkey topped with smoked bacon slices and a pepper jack cheese sauce.  

I like to try a little bit of everything when I go to a barbecue joint for the first time and they had a two meat platter with a choice of two sides on the menu.  However, one of the meats I wanted to try - the brisket - I was informed that they were out of that night.  "Just ran out about 15 minutes ago," the guy behind the counter told me.  Somewhat crestfallen, I ended up getting the burnt ends and pulled pork.  For my sides, I got baked beans and I couldn't decide what else to get.  They had items such as both a classic-style potato salad and a baked potato salad, mac & cheese, white cheddar grits, and a cucumber-tomato salad.  Fries, potato wedges and onion straws were also available, but they weren't part of the "sides" package with the platter.  I ended up getting the baked beans and the sweet and spicy cole slaw on the recommendation of the guy who took my order.   The meats were served on a slice of Texas toast and dill pickle slices also came with the platter.  I got a Boulevard Frequent Flier Session IPA to go along with my meal that evening.  

When I first started to go to Kansas City a number of years ago - over 35 years ago now - I didn't care much for burnt ends cut from brisket.  The first ones that I tried were so dried out and tasteless that I was sort of turned off to burnt ends after that.  I started to work for a company in Kansas City in the mid-80's and my boss used to take us to Fiorella's Jack Stack in Martin City for barbecue and he always ordered the burnt ends.  I was more of a brisket, rib or pulled pork kind of guy and never really got into burnt ends.  But I'm starting to come around to burnt ends after having some at other Kansas City and St. Louis area barbecue joints over the past few years.  The namesake burnt ends at Burnt End BBQ were thick and meaty, tender and smoky with a nice bark on the outer shell.  These were some of the better burnt ends I'd ever had.  

The pulled pork was equally as good - moist, flavorful and a slight smoky flavor.  This was shaping up to be one of the better barbecue meals I've had during my visits to Kansas City area barbecue joints.  

If you're a regular reader to Road Tips, you know that I'm a sauce man.  Many barbecue chefs say that you generally don't need barbecue sauce on the meat if it's flavorful enough.  And I agree with that.  I generally start out eating the meats without any sauce to experience the overall taste.  But if they have some interesting barbecue sauces, I'll give them a try.  (Many times I like to dip fries into the sauces and try them that way.  But I didn't get fries this time.)  They had three different sauces at Burnt End BBQ developed by pit master Steven "Smokey" Schwartz - a traditional Kansas City sweet and smoky sauce, a sweet honey glaze sauce, and a spicy Southwest style sauce that had a bit of a sweetness to the front end of the taste with a somewhat spicy and peppery bite on the backside.  I liked the southwest spicy sauce the best with the traditional K.C.-style sauce right behind it.  While the honey glaze sauce was good, I didn't think it was as good as the others. 

I usually like to add some barbecue sauce to the baked beans at most barbecue places to give them a little sweet and spicy zip to the taste, but the beans they had at Burnt End BBQ didn't need any help.  They were already sweet and a little spicy with a hint of hickory smoke.  The consistency of the baked beans were thick helped by the sauces and the chunks of brisket and pork mixed in with the beans.  

But I have to saw that the sweet and spicy cole slaw even topped the good taste of the baked beans.  The sweet/sour/spicy combination that was going on with the cole slaw was an outstanding taste sensation.  Overall, this was a very good to outstanding barbecue meal.  

You can't think of Kansas City with out thinking of barbecue.  And because there are so many good barbecue places in the city, it would be very tough to go wrong with wherever you go.  But some stand out more than others and I have to say that I would very much recommend Burnt End BBQ if you go on a barbecue quest in the greater Kansas City area.  Although I was disappointed they didn't have brisket that evening, the namesake burnt ends were a wonderful substitute.  The pulled pork was some of the best I'd had in Kansas City, and the sides - superb baked beans and an excellent sweet and spicy cole slaw - were a great compliment to the meal.  Burnt End BBQ more than holds its own against some of the more famous and established barbecue joints in Kansas City.  

Brobeck's BBQ - Overland Park, KS

When you talk barbecue, you have to talk about all the great places that are in and around the Kansas City area.  There are so many excellent places to choose from, if a barbecue place falters even a tiny bit, they're usually out of business sooner than later.  One place that has been around for nine years in Overland Park is Brobeck's BBQ, but they have a number of years prior experience on the barbecue contest and catering circuit before they opened their restaurant.  

Doug Brobeck grew up in eastern Tennessee and understood the importance of good pork barbecue in the culture of the Appalachian Mountains.  He perfected his technique of pork barbecue as a young man and eventually ended up in the Kansas City area.  Brobeck entered a handful of barbecue contests and won many awards in the early 1990's.  Buoyed by the accolades he received from the barbecue competitions, Brobeck opened Stilwell Smokehouse on the far south side of Kansas City in 1994.  Soon, Stilwell Smokehouse was known as one of the top places in the Kansas City area to get pork barbecue.  

But they did more than pork at Stilwell Smokehouse - they were also famous for their smoked sausage, chicken and they held their own in the barbecued beef category versus some of the more prominent barbecue places in the Kansas City area.  But by 2004, Doug Brobeck decided that he'd had enough and sold the restaurant to two young men.  Unfortunately, the two guys had different ideas as to do barbecue and it didn't jive with the loyal customer base that Doug Brobeck built up over a 10-year-period.  The Stilwell Smokehouse closed not long after Doug Brobeck sold the restaurant.

But with barbecue in his blood, Doug Brobeck knew that he had to have another barbecue place.  In 2007, Brobeck - along with his sons Dave and Dean - opened Brobeck's BBQ in a small strip mall just east of Roe Ave. on Indian Creek Parkway in Overland Park.  (see map)  

I got into Brobeck's BBQ around 7:30 one evening when I was in Kansas City.  I was staying less than five minutes away from Brobeck's and I was able to find parking in front of the restaurant.  The interior of the L-shaped restaurant features a bar area with a number of tables, as well as a long narrow space toward the front of the restaurant that featured a number of booths.  

I was seated in one of those booths by the young hostess who dropped off a menu for me.  I ordered a Boulevard Single Wide IPA, but was then told by my server that they were out of the IPA, but they had the Boulevard Frequent Flier Session IPA.  I do like the Single Wide IPA, but the Frequent Flier was fine enough.  

One of the signature appetizers at Brobeck's BBQ is their house-made ham salad dip.  My server brought out a small sample of the ham salad after she asked me if I had ever been to Brobeck's before.  She said that they sold over 200 pounds of the ham salad dip weekly.  She said, "It's our most popular appetizer and people buy it by the pound to take home."  A guy and his wife seated near me ordered a pound container of the ham salad to take home with them after they finished their dinner.  The ham salad was tasty, it had a sweet taste to it and it would have been a good opener for any meal.  

They also had the ham salad available as a meat choice for sandwiches and platters as well.  Their most famous sandwich is the pulled pork "Tennessee Porker" sandwich served on a large hoagie bun.  But I just wanted to get some barbecue and I went with the sampler platter with smoked sausage, three pork ribs and sliced beef brisket.  I got a side of their baked beans and some steak fries as my sides.

Brobeck's has a proprietorial spice rub that they use on their meats.  They are served dry with a choice of either their sweet molasses barbecue sauce or a mustard-based sauce.  Brobeck's also has a barbecue sauce bar featuring a number of locally based barbecue sauces such as KC Masterpiece, Gates BBQ, Arthur Bryant's and some other places.  I stuck with the Brobeck's sweet KC-style sauce.  

I normally don't get smoked sausage, but I had some outrageously great smoked sausage in Chicago the week before I was in Kansas City.  When I found out that the barbecue sample platter came with sausage, I thought that would be fine.  And it was.  The sausage at Brobeck's had a great smokey and spicy taste.  I liked the sausage tremendously. 

The ribs were also fine - the rub on the outer bark of the ribs had a slightly spicy and peppery taste.  The meat pulled away from the bone rather easily and it was tender and flavorful.  The ribs were above average in my book.  

The brisket, however, left a lot to be desired.  The beef was thinly cut, but it was dry and tasted like buffet-style roast beef.  A lot of sauce was needed to help get the brisket down.  As good as the sausage was, the brisket was very disappointing.  

Maybe they need to concentrate on just pork products at Brobeck's BBQ.  The sausage - I thought - was excellent and the pork ribs were very good, as well.  The brisket, aaaah, not so good.  It was the only disappointing aspect about Brobeck's BBQ during my visit there.  The service was adequate and the ham salad sample was a nice touch.  And it was also very tasty and it's easy to see why they go through so much of it during the course of a week.  I think I'd recommend just sticking with the pork barbecue on visits to Brobeck's BBQ.  That seems to be in their wheelhouse - more so than the beef brisket.  

Q39 BBQ - Kansas City

Kansas City is the capital of barbecue - plain and simple.  If you asked someone from Kansas City to name the five best barbecue places in the city, they'd come up with seven.  One would think that a place could become saturated with barbecue joints, but that's not the case in K.C.  New ones seem to pop up on the landscape every year and one that opened a couple years that has been generating a lot of buzz in the barbecue community in Kansas City is Q39.  

Rob Magee grew up in New Jersey and at a very young age he figured out that he wanted to be a chef, mainly because chefs can go wherever they want to and the young Magee always thought he'd end up in Hawaii.  He took courses at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY and after he graduated 30 years ago he took a job in Dallas.  It wasn't quite Hawaii, but Rob stayed in Dallas for seven years before moving on to become an executive chef and a food and beverage director for hotels in Houston, Charlotte, Denver and Nashville.  In 2000, he ended up getting hired on as the food and beverage director at the Westin Crown Center in Kansas City.  A year later, he ended up as the executive chef at the Kansas City Airport Hilton hotel and it was there where he caught the Kansas City barbecue bug.  

Pictured right - Kelly and Rob Magee.  (Picture courtesy Kansas City Business News.)

In 2002, Magee formed Munchin' Hogs, a competitive barbecue team that ended up competing in up to 40 different barbecue competitions annually.  Twice Munchin' Hogs was named as the top team in the nation and they were consistently in the Kansas City Barbecue Society's Top Ten on an annual basis.  

Magee continued to run the restaurant at the Kansas City Airport Hilton - Cafe Weatherby - but he had many of his Munchin' Hogs favorites on the menu alone with other American dishes.  Of course, like many other rib joints that I've eaten at over the years, people told Magee that he needed to open his own place and focus just on barbecue.   In April of 2014, Magee - with his wife, Kelly - opened Q39 in the old Oriental Feast restaurant on W. 39th Street in the Midtown/Westport neighborhood of Kansas City.  (see map)  About two months ago, Magee announced they would be opening a second Q39 location in Overland Park, KS in the former 

It was just before noon when I made it into the parking lot for Q39 and it was already packed.  I found a space behind the building situated in a small strip mall area along W. 39th St. and went in.  The interior of Q39 was completely gutted by the Magee's and with the help from REALM Architecture + Design based out of Phoenix (they were the ones who also did the internal work on the BRGR Kitchen + Bar restaurant that I visited here) they transformed the space into what it is today - an open dining room with sort of a rustic/contemporary industrial look with an open kitchen area in the back.  Communal tables were set up in the middle of the dining area with a bar area up toward the front.

Along a back wall of the dining room, Magee has many of the trophies he garnered in his years of competitive barbecue competitions on display.  From 2006 to 2012, Munchin' Hogs won over 50 Grand Champion trophies and countless Reserve Champion trophies at competitions around the U.S.  

I ended up seated at the bar for this visit to Q39 as many of the table were filled in the dining area.  I squeezed in between a couple guys finishing up their early lunches and I have to say the barbecue on their plates looked scrumptious.  The bartender/server - Ryan - gave me a menu and asked what I wanted to have to drink.  I gave a quick glance to the beers they had on tap and immediately ordered up a Boulevard Pale Ale.  

They do barbecue a little differently at Q39.  For the lunch crowd, they smoke their meats over night to assure the barbecue is fresh and flavorful for the noontime crowds.  For the dinner crowds, they begin smoking their meats in the morning to make sure that they'll be serving fresh barbecue that evening.  They never smoke their meats and hold them to warm up later at Q39.  Everything served at Q39 - from their bacon (which is brined for 3 days and then smoked), their sausage (it took Magee four months to learn how to make sausage), their burger meat (it's ground in-house with a mixture of Black Angus certified brisket and chuck), and even their sides including a potato salad made with tarragon and a spicy pickle slaw with jalapeños that they put on top of their burgers.  They also make their own smoked chipotle ketchup in house at Q39.   

If you read Road Tips regularly, you know that I like to try a little bit of everything when I try out a new barbecue place in my travels.  Q39 has a sampler plate on their menu that allowed me to pick three meats for my lunch.  I picked brisket, pulled pork and a small rack of ribs.  For my side, I got baked beans.  A small square of corn bread came with the meal - I don't care much for corn bread at all.  (How's that for a guy who grew up in Iowa?)

The brisket and the pulled pork was moist, tender and flavorful.  They were both served with a bit of a very good house-made Kansas City-style sweet and smoky sauce with a small container of sauce on the side.  The portions were generous - the brisket slices were thick and about 8 to 10 inches in length.  The ribs were meaty with a smoky flavor and easily pulled from the bone.  This was top-notch barbecue in my book.

The highlight - for me - were the baked beans that Q39 makes in-house.  The baked beans featured pinto beans, burnt beef ends and a nice sauce that I didn't have to doctor up with barbecue sauce.  I loved the baked beans at Q39, they were some of the best I've ever had at a barbecue restaurant.  

It was a lot of food for lunch - I don't think I had dinner that evening when I got up to Omaha later in the day.  I was still stuffed from lunch.  But it was all good at Q39.  The brisket, the pulled pork, the rack of pork ribs - all were excellent in flavor and texture.   Ask me what my favorite rib joints are in Kansas City and Q39 has now joined the mix of the ones that I really like that I can recite off the top of my head.  There are some world-class barbecue places in Kansas City and Q39 is easily part of that top echelon of rib joints.  Rob Magee never did end up working at a restaurant in Hawaii and it's a good thing for those in Kansas City that he didn't.   

Dietrich's Modern German Cuisine and Biergarten - Lee's Summit, MO

While in Kansas City earlier this spring, I was looking for something that was more of a "stick-to-your-ribs" type of meal.  I was staying out in Lee's Summit on the far southeast side of the city and it turned out that there was a German restaurant not far from my hotel.  I decided to head over to Dietrich's Modern German Cuisine and Biergarten for dinner that evening.  (The name of the restaurant is quit a mouthful, so I'm just going to shorten it to Dietrich's for this post.)  

Randy Schulenberg was an Internet Technology Engineer in the Kansas City area with a son - Craig - who was working as a sous chef in an area restaurant.  Randy Schulenberg's grandfather - Dietrich Schulenberg - had emigrated to the U.S. in 1874 and the family had a number of old world German recipes that had been passed down through generations.  Randy Schulenberg took a look around Kansas City and saw that there were a half-dozen German restaurants in the area, but none were near Lee's Summit.  Along with his wife Becky, who was an accountant, the Schulenberg's decided to make a mid-life switch and get into the restaurant business.  Their son was brought into the plan to have him run the kitchen using modern and traditional German recipes.  

After finding a spot in Lee's Summit in what was the former Monetti's Italian restaurant, the Dietrich's set out to turn the space into what they called sort of a distressed old-world castle motif.  They installed stone hearths and walls, and put in an indoor-outdoor biergarten with seating out in front of the place inside a tall wrought iron fence.  The Schulenberg's opened Dietrich's in August of 2014.  

The indoor bar area features a small stage for live music, primarily during the weekends and festival times.  Beers on tap include many different varieties from the KC Bier Company, a small German-style brewery that has been in business for a little over two years.  

Helping get things in order for the Schulenberg's menu was Martin Heuser, the owner/chef for Affäre, an upscale modern German cuisine restaurant in Kansas City.  Heuser mentored Craig Schulenberg in the ways of modern German cooking while helping fine tune some of the recipes the Schulenberg's were going to use in their restaurant.  The connection between the Schulenberg's and Heuser continues today as the family buys their bratwurst from Affäre, basically because Craig Schulenberg feels that Heuser's house-made bratwurst are the best he's ever tasted.  

It was just after 7 p.m. when I pulled up in front of Dietrich's located in a strip center of three or four restaurants along N.E. Douglas in Lee's Summit.  (see map)  I was met by a young guy by the name of Kurt who may have been the front of house manager.   He showed me to a booth in the main dining room and gave me a menu.  He told me that my waitress for the evening - and I didn't get her name - was brand new and it was her first day on the job, so he would be helping her out.  I took a look at the beer list and ordered up a beer that it turned out they were out of.  Kurt suggested a German helles (a light pilsner) from the Kansas City Bier Co.  

The menu isn't all that extensive at Dietrich's - they featured such German favorites as schnitzel, sauerbraten short ribs, beef rouladen, and hendl - a slow-roasted chicken seasoned with spices.  The main entrees also included an oven-roasted trout and a beer-battered tilapia.   Sides include spaetzle, German potato salad, mixed vegetables, and kartoffel - mashed potatoes with cabbage.

While I was looking through the menu, my waitress brought out a small loaf of house-baked bread.  It was cut into slices and served with some butter.  The bread was fabulous - warm, spongy and tasty.  I was worried about eating too much of it so it would spoil my appetite.  

Because the menu was so short, I pretty much knew I was going to get either the veal schnitzel or the sauerbraten.  It was a mental coin flip in my head when it came time to order and I got the sauerbraten.  It was marinated in a ginger and juniper for over 24 hours, then slow roasted and pulled from the bone.  The sauerbraten was served with a side of kroppkakor - dumplings stuffed with bacon.  And I got a choice of one side, so I went with the red cabbage.  

The sauerbraten was fine, not the best I've had, but it was good for what it was.  It seemed to be a little underwhelming in taste, but I was still happy I got it.  The kroppkakor dumpling was very good, as was the the red cabbage.  Thankfully, I had some bread left over to sop up some of the sauce that came with the sauerbraten.  There was a lot of food on the plate, much more than I could finish on this visit.  

For being new on the job, my waitress did a fine job.  I would describe her as a middle-aged woman who probably had extensive experience as a waitress prior to her first day at Dietrich's.  She did a fine job of checking up with me and taking care of me that evening.  

My meal at Dietrich's was fine.  It wasn't the best German food I've ever had, but it was still fine for what it was.  The sauerbraten was just all right, but the bacon-filled dumplings were very good, as was the red cabbage.  But the highlight was the great house-made bread they served before the meal.  My server - for being new on the job - did a good job as I'm guessing she had restaurant experience prior to her coming to Dietrich's.  My overall experience at Dietrich's was pleasant and I was happy I gave the place a try.  

Rock and Run - Liberty, MO

On a recent trip to Kansas City, I decided to stay out on the far northeast side of town in Liberty.  I wanted to get a quick start of the city the next day to get back home and I knew that I could knock off 45 minutes of my drive time if I stayed in Liberty rather than on the far south side where I normally like to stay.  I took a look at what was available for restaurants in the area and I came across a brew pub that had been opened for a little over two years in downtown Liberty by the name of Rock and Run.  I went there for dinner that evening. 

Like a lot of microbreweries, Rock and Run got its start with a couple of friends who had a passion for craft brews.  Gene DeClue is somewhat famous around the Kansas City area as a member of the local rock group Cherry Bomb.  They've played around the area for nearly 14 years with DeClue on the bass guitar. 

DeClue started to brew his own beer at home a few years ago and met up with a guy with similar interests in home brewing.  Dan Hatcher was in the construction business and oversaw a number of construction-related businesses over a 25 year period.  In addition to loving craft brews, Hatcher was also an avid participant of trail and ultra-marathon races held around the country.  It was during many of his travels to compete that he found many great craft brews. 

Hoping to turn a hobby into a full time venture, DeClue and Hatcher got together and found a couple of old buildings just off the main square in Liberty.  One side of the building was once a garage, while the other one was formerly a bar.  They knocked out a wall between the two and renovated the two spaces into one brew pub.  They gave their place the name Rock and Run - "Rock" for DeClue's rock and roll career, and the "Run" for Hatcher's interest in extreme running. 

I drove to historic downtown Liberty and found a parking spot on the street just a block east of Rock and Run Brew Pub.  (see map)  Entering the brew pub, I found a nice bar with a couple of dining rooms in front of and behind the bar.  Large brewing kettles were in a room off the bar area.  The building still had the old time feeling with brick walls and corrugated tin accents. 

I ended up sitting at the bar and got a menu from one of the bartenders.  I took a quick look at the beers that Gene DeClue brewed up at Rock and Run and I got the 5K India Pale Ale.  In addition to their own beers, the brew pub also features a number of beers from craft and micro-breweries that DeClue changes on a regular basis to allow patrons to try different beers from around the country.

The bar, itself, was sort of interesting.  It looked like it was made out of a floor - and it was.  It turned out that they salvaged old lanes from a bowling alley in Harrisonville, MO and made the bar top and many of the table tops out of the lanes.  The tops were heavy and solid. 

I really didn't know what to get for dinner that evening.  They had a number of sandwiches on the menu, as well as pasta dishes and even pizza.  A couple seated at the bar down from me got the pizza and it looked pretty good.  But I wasn't that hungry this particular evening and I thought about doing something light that evening.

A salad didn't sound appealing, so I ended up getting the reuben - a traditional corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing on dark rye sandwich.  A side of hand-cut garlic parmesan fries came with the sandwich.  The sandwich was good - the corned beef was tender and full of flavor.  The dark rye bread was also tasty and held together very well.  And the garlic parmesan fries were also very good - and very rich.  

The 5K IPA - well...  I had a problem with the beer.  First of all, it had sort of a fruity taste to it and I don't like any type of fruit beers.  And the back end of it had sort of a soapy taste to it - like they had forgotten to rinse out the glass after they had washed it in soapy water.  I know, it's crazy, but that's sort of what it tasted like.  I wanted to try another beer and the El Dorado Gold - an American-style pale ale that was very smooth.  I liked the El Dorado Gold much better than the 5K IPA.  It was very smooth and refreshing.  I liked it so much that I ended up that I got a second one after I finished my meal. 

My reuben sandwich at Rock and Run Brew Pub was fine - I probably would have rather liked the pizza better, but I was happy enough with the sandwich.  While I didn't care for the 5K IPA beer, the El Dorado Gold was a solid choice.  I can't complain about the service and the decor and atmosphere of the brew pub was quaint, tasteful and comfortable.  Rock and Run is a fine little brew pub and one that should be checked out if your in the far northern reaches of Kansas City. 

rye - Leawood, KS

Staying out in Overland Park, KS on a recent trip to Kansas City, I was in the mood to discover a restaurant that I hadn't been to before.  I did some quick searches for what may be in the area that I haven't visited in the past.  I found a place that sounded sort of interesting, a farm-to-fork restaurant with the simple name of rye.  It was about a five minute drive from my hotel and I took off to find the place that evening.

Colby Garrets is a native of Kansas City who, after graduating from a local culinary school, took off for the big city of Chicago and an eventual position as senior sous chef at the highly acclaimed Tru restaurant.  During his time at Tru he met Megan Schultz who had recently graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY.  Megan's specialty was pastries and she had gotten the bug while working in a number of restaurants while growing up in the Chicago suburb of Naperville.  Fulfilling her degree at the C.I.A., she interned under James Beard Foundation award winning pastry chef Richard Leach at the former Park Avenue Cafe, a seasonally-themed restaurant in New York City.  

After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Megan Schultz moved back to Chicago and was promptly hired by Tru as one of their pastry chefs.  At Tru, the pastry chefs are given the freedom to develop their own tasty treats and Megan was able to spread her pastry wings, so to speak, coming up with her own style of desserts. 

Megan and Colby became an item and she was hired as a pastry chef at Charlie Palmer's Aureole restaurant in the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.  Garrelts followed his girlfriend to Las Vegas getting a job as the assistant to Chef Jean Joho at his Eiffel Tower restaurant in the Paris hotel/casino.  Colby Garrelts eventually joined his girlfriend at Aureole after a short stint at the Eiffel Tower. 

Looking for even greener pastures of culinary experiences, Garrelts and Schultz ended up moving to Los Angeles where he became the chef de cuisine at the former Röckenwagner Cafe in Santa Monica.  While they were in L.A., Garrelts and Schultz got married and started to make plans of opening their own restaurant.  They eventually moved to Colby Garrelts' hometown of Kansas City in 2003 to fulfill their dream.

Pictured right - Megan and Colby Garrelts.

The Garrelts opened Bluestem in the Westport neighborhood in 2004.  From the start, the restaurant was a hit with Colby's progressive American menu and Megan's take on traditional American desserts.  They expanded their restaurant in 2006 taking over a space next door to them for a lounge for Bluestem. 

Megan Garrelts has been named a semi-finalist for best pastry chef by the James Beard Foundation, and has had her recipes published in national publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, and Saveur.  Colby Garrelts was named in 2005 as one of the Top 10 Best New Chefs by Food & Wine, and has also been featured in the Wall Street Journal and Saveur.  In 2013, Colby Garrelts was named the James Beard Foundation Best Chef: Midwest award winner, and last year Bluestem was named a semi-finalist for Outstanding Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation.  The Garrelts have also co-written two cookbooks - bluestem: the cookbook which was published in 2011, and Made in America that came out last year.    

In 2012, the Garrelts came up with a new concept restaurant - rye - that featured their ideas of upscale downhome American cuisine.  They wanted to showcase the foods they were brought up on while growing up in the Midwest with a focus on organic and farm-to-table offerings.  The Garrelts opened rye in December of that year in the Mission Farms shopping and restaurant complex in Leawood, KS (see map).

Josh Brogan is the executive chef at rye and has a long history in the restaurant resumé.  He got his start at a seafood shop in the Chicago suburbs when he was in his mid-teens and learned how to butcher fish and seafood.  He decided to take the culinary school route and he ended up at the prestigious Johnson and Wales school in Charleston, SC.  After graduating from there, he worked around the Charleston area, most notably for James Beard Foundation award winning chef Robert Stehling at the acclaimed Hominy Grill.

Pictured left - Josh Brogan

Brogan moved back to Chicago working for a few places in that city before a weekend trip to visit a friend in Kansas City left him intrigued about the work possibilities in the area.  He moved to Kansas City and found work right away.  He eventually latched on at 40 Sardines, owned by James Beard Foundation award winning chef Debbie Gold.  After 40 Sardines closed in 2008, Brogan then went to work for Colby and Megan Garrelts at Bluestem - Colby Garrelts being the third James Beard Award winning chef that Brogan has now worked for. 

When the Garrelts opened rye in December of 2012, Brogan moved over from Bluestem to head the kitchen at rye.  Growing up in the Midwest like Colby and Megan Garrelts, Brogan is focusing on his interpretation of foods that he grew up with, as well. 

It's sort of tough to find rye in the Mission Farms complex.  It's tucked back into a corner in the far back part of the upscale mall.  Walking into the place, I found a very tasteful and sort of rustic atmosphere to the place.  Copper light fixture with Edison light bulbs hung from the ceiling.  There was a large open space that looked into the kitchen in the back of the restaurant with the bar area up front.  

I ended up seated at the bar and was greeted by a bartender who introduced himself as Fernando.  He was the main guy I talked with at the bar, but the other two guys behind the bar were just as prompt with taking my orders or bringing the food to me.  Fernando gave me a dinner menu and asked what I'd like to drink.  I noticed that they had the Stormchaser IPA on tap from the Free State Brewing Company.  Free State is located over in Lawrence, KS and was the very first brew pub I had ever visited back in the late 80's. 

The menu is full of what I would call upscale down-home Midwestern favorites, even down to the appetizer plates.  You could get such diverse starters as Brussels sprouts and smoked ham, brisket burnt ends served with sour dough bread, crispy fried Amish hen livers and gizzards, and braised pork belly croquettes. 

rye also features a handful of soups and salads to begin a meal.  The brisket chili sounded interesting, but I got an iceberg wedge salad topped with Maytag blue cheese with buttermilk dressing, along with real bacon bits, a chopped hard-boiled egg, and sliced cherry tomatoes.  The salad leaves were cool and crisp, and the buttermilk dressing with the Maytag blue cheese crumbles were a  tasty combination.  The blue cheese tasted like it had just come out of the aging room outside of Newton, IA.  The wedge wasn't all that big, which was fine with me.  Sometimes a wedge salad can almost be a whole meal in itself.  

The main part of the menu is a combination of Midwestern and Southern far including smoked spare ribs, shrimp and grits, grilled pork chops, and chicken and dumplings.  But the thing that they seem to be famous for at rye is their fried chicken.  The chickens they prepare at rye are free range, never frozen, and are antibiotic and hormone free.

And that's exactly what I got.  I usually don't get fried chicken when I'm out on the road, but something sort of struck me that evening when I was reading about it on the menu.  And I'm glad I did.  I got the three piece chicken platter - breast, thigh and leg - and it came with a side of some delicious homemade pickles and ham gravy.  The chicken had a great tasting batter on the outside and the chicken meat, itself, was tender, moist and very flavorful.  It wasn't quite as good as my late-Uncle Jack's chicken - that's my gold standard - but it was very, very good. 

But the highlight, to me, was the ham gravy that came on the side with the chicken.  This was a light and creamy gravy with chunks of ham that was just out-of-this-world delicious.  I took chunks of the chicken and dipped it in the ham gravy.  If I would have been by myself, I would have drank the gravy out of the bowl - it was that good. 

rye was a great find during this visit to Kansas City.  The food was very good and the service I had from the three guys behind the bar was exemplary.  The atmosphere at rye was laid back and low key.   With some great chefs behind the restaurant, it's no wonder rye is one of the more popular farm-to-fork restaurants in Kansas City.  I think it's one of the best farm-to-fork restaurants I've found in the Midwest.  

The Rheinland Restaurant - Independence, MO

It was my last trip of 2015 and I found myself in the Kansas City area looking for a place for lunch.  It was sort of a cold day and I thought some "stick-to-my-bones" food would be good that particular day.  I did a quick search for German restaurants and to my surprise I found one in Independence, MO on the east side of Kansas City.  I had an appointment in Independence later in the afternoon, so I decided to go to the Rheinland Restaurant beforehand. 

I love good German restaurants, but for whatever reason they're slowly fading away from the Midwestern restaurant landscape.  The Rheinland Restaurant was the only German restaurant in the greater Kansas City area for a handful of years after the Berliner Bear in the Waldo neighborhood closed nearly 10 years ago.  A couple others have opened since, but the Rheinland has one thing going for it - their owners are actual German immigrants.  

Heinz and Rosie Heinzelmann (pictured right) left their hometown of Ruedesheim, Germany to immigrate to the United States in the early 80's.  They ended up in the Kansas City area and settled in Independence in 1986.  The Heinzelmann's became friends with Nina Anders who ran a Scandinavian furniture store in the historic Independence Square area of downtown Independence.  Independence Square had suffered since a large mall had opened on the far east side of Independence and there were a number of store fronts and restaurants that had closed down.  However, Anders was able to convince the Heinzelmann's to open a German restaurant in a building across the street from her store. 

The Heinzelmann's opened the Rheinland Restaurant - named after the Rhein (Rhine) River that flowed past their hometown in Germany - in 1991.  They cooked everything from scratch using recipes that had been handed down in Rosie's family to her mother and eventually to her.  The Rheinland became an instant hit with people from all over the Kansas City area coming to Independence to have authentic German food.  This year, they're celebrating their 25th year in business. 

The Rheinland Restaurant is located on N. Main Street in downtown Independence just south of Truman Road.  (see map)  I was able to find a parking spot on the street just down the way from the restaurant.  I went in and was greeted by a hostess who sat me at a small table along the wall in the main dining room.  Since it was the Christmas, the dining room was decorated for the season.  Tiffany-style lampshade fixtures hung from the ceiling. 

They also have a second dining area with a small bar window along the wall.  The dining rooms featured tin ceilings and more antique-style light fixtures.  The overall decor could be described as quaint. 

My server for the day - she had the unique name of Candrea - came over with a lunch menu for me to look through.  I ordered up a Warsteiner beer to get me started as I pored over the menu. 

Sandwiches such as reubens, boiled ham rolls, bratwurst, and knackwurst were available during the lunch time, but not on the dinner menu.   Main entrees such as jaegerschnitzel, wiener schnitzel, and kassler rippchen are available during the lunch time and in the evening. 

Everything sounded good to me, but then Candrea came back with my beer and told of the lunch special - roasted pork loin topped with gravy.  I signed up for that along with a side of the red cabbage.  Fried potato pancakes came with the meal along with a small bowl of applesauce came with the meal - I wasn't interested in the applesauce - and a couple of hard rolls were also included in the meal.

The pork loin was tender and easy to cut with the fork.  Along with the gravy topping, the taste of the pork loin was superb.  This was exactly what I was looking for on this particular day - a good hearty comfort food meal, but having it in a German restaurant was a plus. 

As good as the pork loin with the brown gravy was, I have to say the sweet and sour red cabbage was even better.  The flavor of the red cabbage was just outstanding.  But even BETTER than the red cabbage were the potato pancakes.  Now, I can usually take or leave potato pancakes, and had they not come with the meal I wouldn't have been unhappy.  Well, that was until I HAD the potato pancakes at the Rheinland Restaurant.  The taste was just out of this world.  I don't know how they prepare them or what makes them taste so good, but the potato pancakes - alone - were worth the price of admission.

For my first - and definitely not my last - visit to the Rheinland Restaurant, I was very happy with what I had.  The roasted pork loin with the gravy on top was very good, but the red cabbage and the potato pancakes were just outstanding.  The Rheinland is a nice place, nothing big, but cozy and comfortable.  The service I experienced was good and my server was on top of things the whole time I was there.  This was a very good little German restaurant and one of the very few that are left in many parts of the Midwest.  Here's hoping the Rheinland Restaurant sticks around for another 25 years and beyond. 

Unk's Burgers - Lee's Summit, MO

I had a meeting with a prospective dealer in the Kansas City, MO suburb of Lee's Summit recently.  (I won't be putting this guy on for one of our lines anytime in the next 100 years, I'll tell you that.)  But I had a chance to try a place that I've been wanting to go to for quite sometime - Unk's Burgers.  

The "Unk" behind Unk's Burgers is Jesse Mack - an uncle to a number of nephews and nieces and known as "Unk" to a number of other kids that aren't related to him.  Jesse Mack was in the computer technology field, but found it to be somewhat unfulfilling.  Along with his wife Faye they found out that the people who owned the Holy Smoke Barbecue restaurant in the Summit Shopping Center on Lee's Summit's west side (see map) were thinking about selling their place.  Jesse and Faye walked in to the place and Faye rather boldly said, "We hear you want to sell this place.  We don't want to do barbecue, but we want your equipment and space."  Details were worked out and the Mack's - helped by family members - opened Unk's burgers in November of 2011.  

Mack came up with a special way to make his burgers adding onions and secret spice to the meat before he cooks up the 6 ounce beef patties on a flat grill.  It give the burgers a unique taste - one that keeps people coming back to Unk's on a regular basis.  (If you don't like onions, they can make a regular burger without onions for you.)

It was just before noon when I got into Unk's Burgers.  The front of the mall in front of their space was undergoing a renovation, so it was some zig-zagging around workers to make it into the restaurant.  I was greeted by Jackie, an outgoing woman who introduced herself to me and asked me my name.  And she did that with other customers that came in, as well.   

Unk's isn't a big place and it has kind of an ice cream parlor feel to the place.  There were dozens of handwritten notes and pictures from customers and little kids plastered to the wall.  The one good thing about Unk's is that they sold beer and I ordered up a bottle of beer from Jackie.  She brought the bottle out to me along with a small side of their ground turkey baked beans to try.  It was more like a turkey chili with a barbecue bean taste to it.  It was good enough that I decided to get a side of it with whatever burger I decided upon.  

And that was the problem at Unk's Burgers - they've got a lot of burgers to choose from.  They have hot burgers with habanero and ghost peppers.  They have a Basement Boy burger for growing young boys - two beef patties with pepper jack cheese.  The Unkasummum burger features three burger patties and a ground chicken patty.  I wasn't looking for anything that extreme.

I settled on the Sweet Auntie burger that came with bread and butter pickles.  I also got pepper jack cheese and red onion slices on the burger.  I asked Jackie if a double would be too big and she said that their burgers are 6 ounces.  But she completely undersold the fact that they smash the burgers on the flat grill and they come out thin with most of the fat cooked out.  I should have gotten the double.  Next time.  

The burger was simply fabulous.  It was slathered in the pepper jack cheese, but you still got that great burger taste through the cheese, red onions and the wonderful bun.  The bread and butter pickles were a nice tasteful touch, as well.  Along with the turkey baked beans, this was a great lunch.  The only problem - I was burping up the turkey baked beans a good portion of the afternoon on my way up to Des Moines.  Oh well, they still tasted very good.

When I went up to the counter pay for my meal, Jesse "Unk" Mack was back in the kitchen and shouted out to me, "How was it, big guy?!"  

"Killer," I replied enthusiastically.  And it was.  He told me to tell my friends.  I told him that I'd do better than that.  And I just did.    

I love places like Unk's Burgers.  This is a family-owned restaurant doing things their own way, treating their customers like life-long friends, and serving up some great burgers with some interesting choices.  It's sort of out of the way in the greater Kansas City area, but if you're on the south side of K.C. and have a hankering for a good burger, don't hesitate to go to Unk's.  

Waldo Pizza - Lee's Summit, MO

Since I started to go to Kansas City years ago, I've never really felt that there was any pizza joint that truly knocked my socks off in terms of having really good pizza.  I was telling one of my Kansas City area dealers that one time and he said that I really needed to try a pizza at Waldo Pizza sometime.  On a recent trip to Kansas City, I stayed out in Lee's Summit on the southeast side and there happened to be a Waldo Pizza that was walking distance from my hotel.    

I'd actually tried to get into the original Waldo Pizza off of Wornall at 75th St. in the Waldo neighborhood in south Kansas City on one previous occasion, but the place was packed and there would have been a 45 minute wait for a place to sit.  This location has been open since the mid-80's and definitely flew under my radar in regards to pizza places in Kansas City.  Phil Bourne - the owner of Waldo Pizza since 1993 - started out at the original location in 1991 as a dishwasher, working his way up to being a delivery man, then getting to wait tables.  When the original owners had enough of running the place, Phil gave them an offer to buy Waldo Pizza.  They accepted and Phil's been running the place for 22 years.  

Susan Sims and Donna Vaughan were fans of the original Waldo Pizza and felt that the Lee's Summit area needed a good St. Louis-style (thin crust) pizza place.  They bought an already successful pizza establishment and turned it into a Waldo Pizza franchise.  They opened the Lee's Summit location in 2004.  

The Lee's Summit location is in a strip mall back from N.E. Douglas, a main street in that K.C. suburb.  (see map)  It was later in the evening - around 8:30 - when I went inside and there was a sparse crowd in the place at that time.  There was a small bar toward the back of the dining room, a game room off to the side and a handful of booths along the wall.  I was greeted by a young man by the name of Drake who was sporting a T-shirt that said, "Corporate Pizza Sucks".  I immediately liked the place.

I took a seat at a booth on the side of the dining room.  On the walls were a number of pieces of artwork including this portrait of Kansas City-based blues guitarist/singer Samantha Fish.  I've seen her play a couple of times - she's very good - the first time when she was still a teenager and beginning to make a name for herself.  

The hallway going toward the restrooms was filled with 70's and 80's era album covers that were pretty interesting to see.  In the men's room, a number of jigsaw puzzles that had been put together were on the wall.  It was kind of funny to see jigsaw puzzles in the men's room. 

As I said, the pizza at Waldo Pizza is primarily of the thin-crust variety, but they also feature a hand-tossed and a honey-wheat crusted pizza.  Waldo Pizza also features gluten free and vegetarian options with their pizzas.  They feature 15 different types of cheese to put on their pizzas, over two dozen meat or seafood toppings (including crab meat, smoked turkey, lamb sausage and Spam), and over 30 different types of veggies to put on a pizza (including roasted corn, zucchini, egg plant, as well as almonds and pine nuts).  The Waldo pizza usually comes with a tangy tomato sauce, but you can also get an alfredo sauce, a taco sauce, blended pesto, or a buffalo chicken sauce.

Their St. Louis-style pizzas come with a four cheese blend - mozzarella, provolone, provel, and cheddar.  The thin-crust is glazed with garlic butter and topped with the house tomato sauce.  I asked Drake if I could just get mozzarella on my pizza.  "Uhhh...  I'll have to check," he said in a monotonic voice before he walked away.  I was kind of dumbfounded because it said that you COULD get mozzarella - and only mozzarella - on the pizza if you liked.  He came back moments later and said, "Yeah, we can do that."  I figured he must have been new.  

I ordered up a small (10") thin-crust Italian sausage sourced from Scimeca's Sausage Company, a family-owned grocery store/Italian food purveyor that has been in the Kansas City area for over 75 years.  I also got some mushrooms and pepperoni on the pizza.  It had a crispy crust that was cracker thin (some people don't like that thin of a crust but I do - I'd rather taste the toppings than the dough), large slices of pepperoni were on top of the fresh mozzarella cheese, and the sliced fresh mushrooms and chunks of Italian sausage littered the pizza.  This was a very good pizza - one that easily passed the "Does it Taste Good with Beer?" test.  It went very well with the Boulevard Double Wide IPA that I was enjoying that evening.  

The very thin crust pizza is not everyone's favorite, but I thought the one I had at Waldo Pizza in Lee's Summit was outstanding.  The fresh ingredients and toppings were a definitely plus with the taste of the pizza.  Drake's service was a little confusing and he was very neutral in his demeanor, but that didn't take anything away from the spot-hitting pizza.  After years of searching for a good pizza in Kansas City, Waldo Pizza has become my favorite pizza in the area.  

Dixon's Famous Chili - Independence, MO

I had an appointment to call on a dealer in Independence, MO earlier this summer and I got into town a little early to try a place that I'd wanted to go to for a long time - Dixon's Famous Chili.  Always up for a good chili dog, I went there for lunch before heading to my appointment.  

For a place that has been open for 96 years, Dixon's definitely has a lot of history behind it.  It all started when Vergne Dixon set up a cart in downtown Kansas City in the early 1910's vending chili to workers during the day.  In 1919, Dixon started his first Dixon's Chili Parlor in downtown Kansas City.  It was a small place with only six stools.  Most of his employees were down-on-their-luck men who Vergne Dixon gave a chance to better themselves.  Dixon's Chili Parlor was known for their fast service and good food, but Vergne Dixon also had some other rules - no ketchup was allowed in the chili parlor (some customers would sneak bottles of ketchup into the place), no newspapers were allowed (he wanted customers to get in, eat, and get out making room for other customers), and no telephone was on the premises.  

One of Vergne's best customers was a young budding politician by the name of Harry Truman.  Truman would frequent Dixon's Chili Parlor when he was a county judge in the 20's, and after he became a U.S. Senator in the early 30's he'd still come back for chili at Dixon's.  When Truman was President of the United States, he once visited Dixon's with a throng of Secret Service agents following him.  Dixon's enjoyed some national press with the visit and soon thereafter Vergne Dixon changed the name of his chili parlor to Dixon's Famous Chili.  

With advancing age and failing health, Vergne Dixon turned his chili joint over to his nephew, Leonard Totta.  Totta expanded Dixon's Famous Chili through franchises over the next few years.  The original location in downtown Kansas City closed in 1969, and by the mid-70's there were 16 different Dixon's Famous Chili locations in Missouri, Kansas and even up in Minnesota. 

Interestingly, after he took over Leonard Totta rescinded the "no ketchup" policy at Dixon's Famous Chili as the menu expanded.  However there was a 10 cent "fine" for people wanting to use ketchup on their chili at Dixon's.  I've never really heard of ketchup on chili, but evidently it must have been a requested condiment on chili in Kansas City.  

In 1985, Leonard Totta's daughter, Terri Smith, took over the ownership of Dixon's Famous Chili and today she is helped in the business by her son, Stephen.  There is now only one Dixon's Famous Chili location in Kansas City - the one on East U.S. Highway 40 just east of the corner of Blue Ridge Blvd. in Independence.  (see map)

The inside of Dixon's Famous Chili looks like it hasn't changed much since it first opened in the mid-60's.  A white and red parquet floor has yellowed over the years, the tables and chairs are comfy and functional, and there's a number of pictures on the wall showing Dixon's over the years including a large portrait of Harry Truman looking down on the patrons.  

There's a lunch counter with the grill area just behind it.  Stephen Smith was back there running the kitchen area and prepping orders.  I took a seat at a table near the counter and was greeted by a lady who dropped off a glass of water.  The menu was on the table and it featured - of course - chili.  You can order chili three ways - Juicy (with natural meat juices), Soupy (with chili bean broth) or Dry (which is just plain chili).  From there, you order toppings such as onions, ketchup (it's 15 cents if you want ketchup on your chili), sour cream, cheese, pickles or a jalapeño relish - all with an upcharge above the price of the chili.  

Dixon's also features "Chili Plates" where you can have your chili on top of tamales or spaghetti, or where you can get your chili with beans or with just meat.  Dixon's Famous Chili also features burgers, tacos, burritos and the main reason I was there - chili dogs.  

They have a regular size chili dog and a foot long version which is what I got.  The foot long hot dog is skinny, sliced in half long-ways, and grilled.  I had them put cheese and onions on top for an extra charge.

First of all, they have a lot of beans in their chili on their chili dogs.  I took one look at this hodge-podge of chili, hot dog, beans, cheese and onions and thought there would be no way I'd be able to finish this.  One the table was some yellow mustard, but it was some sort of a homemade concoction.  It was sort of a cross between a spicy mustard and regular yellow mustard.  I determined that I liked the taste of the mustard on the chili dog.  

But it was a gut-bomb, but in a very good way.  I liked the taste of the chili, although there were a lot of beans in it.  For a big-assed messy chili dog it was good and fun to eat.  No, I couldn't finish the whole thing, but I made a serious dent in it.  Having been in business for nearly 100 years is a testament to the quality of the Dixon's chili and the generations of Kansas Citians who have grown up with it.    

A Little BBQ Joint - Independence, MO

I was traveling with a colleague in the Kansas City area recently and he wanted to try some good authentic KC-style barbecue.  We were on the east side of the metro area in Independence and a place that I'd heard about wasn't far from where we were.  We drove to a place called A Little BBQ Joint along U.S. Highway 24 in the heart of Independence, not far from the Harry S. Truman Library.  (see map)

Like many barbecue places, A Little BBQ Joint got its start in the backyard.  Don Bauer and his son Fabian are the owners of Glory Days Custom Shop, a company that restores classic cars.  In their spare time, the Bauers would do some barbecue in their backyard for family and friends.  Fabian was the main guy with the smoker, mentored by Ed "Fast Eddy" Maurin, a long-time championship pit master in the Kansas City area.  Fabian impressed enough people who eventually talked him into opening his own barbecue place in Independence.  

The Bauers opened A Little BBQ Joint in April of 2013.  Fabian Bauer installed a pellet smoker, one that was designed by "Fast Eddy" Maurin and marketed by Cookshack. On their first day they sold out of everything.  It got to a point that they were selling up to 500 pounds of brisket, 300 pounds of pork and 14 cases of ribs each week.  To help out in the restaurant, Fabian's sister Amy joined the family business, and he hired Nick Alonge as a pit master for the restaurant. 

The building that A Little BBQ Joint is housed in looks like it could have been an old repair shop at one point in time.  A large garage door faces the east side of the building.  The Bauers used their expertise in metal fabrication of classic cars to outfit the restaurant.  Car seats from classic cars are used in the booths, one of the bench seats up front for people waiting for tables to open or for "to-go" is from a 1967 Cadillac.  Forged into the bar is the front end of a 1965 Chevrolet Impala.  

The decor is fantastically creative.  The Bauers fabricated everything in the restaurant from the bar to the tables to much of the automotive-inspired decor.  Everything from old car doors to shop tools to the top of an old school bus are used inside and out of the building for functional, yet whimsical decorations.  Even if you weren't hungry, a stop for a beer and a look around at the decor would be worth it.  And I would be remiss in telling you that the men's restroom is one of the nicest - and most interesting - that I've encountered in a barbecue joint.  

We were seated at a table in the center of the restaurant during the noon lunch rush.  A lot of people were getting barbecue to go, but the restaurant was over half full on what was a beautiful Spring day in Kansas City.  Our server, Margo, came over with a couple menus.  She asked if we wanted anything to drink and my colleague spied that they had Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap.  How appropriate for a barbecue joint with a decided blue collar feel!  We both got a PBR while we looked through the menu.  

While the food offerings aren't overly extensive at A Little BBQ Joint, but there's enough of the staples of barbecue to appease most customers.  Ribs, pulled pork, brisket, burnt ends and chicken are the main attractions.  A number of sandwiches are available as well as a handful of appetizers such as onion rings, chicken tenders and chili cheese fries.  

It was Wednesday and the special that day was the bacon-wrapped smoked meatloaf for $8.99.  That's what my colleague ordered that came with two sides.  He got fries and potato salad for his sides.  And it was a thick slab of meat loaf, at that.  They definitely didn't skimp on the size of the meat loaf served at A Little BBQ Joint.  

I went with a two meat sampler plate with brisket and pulled pork.  I knew I wanted baked beans as my side, but I wasn't certain what I wanted for my second side.  The spicy cole slaw caught my eye and I asked Margo how it was.  "Oh, my gosh," she gushed.  "It's my favorite!"  I took her word for it and got the spicy cole slaw.

All the meats at A Little BBQ Joint are smoked without sauce.  But they provide three different sauces on the tables.  The Sweet Sister had a nice Kansas City-style thick and sweet taste to it.  The Mad Housewife sauce had a bit of a zippy taste with what seemed like the Sweet Sister base.  But the Mad Mother-in-Law was definitely an attention getter.  It snuck up on the back end with a definite spicy taste.  I mixed some of the combinations to test with the brisket and pulled pork.

I'm big on barbecue sauces, but if you aren't then you'll still like the brisket and the pulled pork at A Little BBQ Joint.  The brisket was thick sliced with a nice little smoked taste to the beef.  It was tender and cut easily with a fork.  It was excellent brisket.  The pulled pork was on par with the brisket.  Moist and flavorful, the pulled pork also had a distinct smoky flavor that was pleasant but not overpowering.  

The two sides didn't disappoint either.  The spicy slaw was, well, spicy!  I mean REALLY spicy, but in a very good way.   The sweetness of the slaw helped balance the overall spicy taste.  It was simply outstanding.  But I can't even begin to tell you about how much I liked the baked beans.  Normally, I have to add some sweet and spicy barbecue sauces to most baked beans that I get at other barbecue places.  But the baked beans they have at A Little BBQ Joint were an exception.  They had a sweet, somewhat spicy and nice smoky taste to them.  I did add a bit of the Mad Housewife sauce to the beans, but they didn't need the boost in taste or texture.  They were very, very good on their own.  

My colleague was more than happy with his smoked meat loaf.  He remarked that he was going to get some ribs, but he couldn't pass up the temptation of the smoked meat loaf.  And he was glad he went in that direction.  It did look good and I may have to go back there on a Wednesday at some point to give it a try.    

A Little BBQ Joint is certainly getting a following for diners on the east side of the Kansas City metro.  I've eaten at a number of outstanding barbecue places in the greater Kansas City area over the years and I'd have to put A Little BBQ Joint up there with some of the best.  The barbecue was outstanding and I can't say enough about the taste sensations of the spicy cole slaw and the baked beans.  The sauces they have were also very good.  Margo's friendly and efficient service just heightened the experience we had at A Little BBQ Joint.  Go for the food, linger for the decor and enjoy your visit to A Little BBQ Joint. 

Papa Bob's Bar-B-Que - Bonner Springs, KS

Kansas City has long been my favorite place for barbecue.  The last couple of visits to the city, I've gone in different culinary directions searching out burgers, Mexican food and Indian cuisine.  On my last visit to the area, I made it a point to search out a barbecue joint that has been on my radar for quite sometime, a place on the far west side of Kansas City, KS called Papa Bob's Bar-B-Que.  

Bob Caviar is the man behind Papa Bob's, a nickname bestowed on him by his seven grandchildren.  A big guy with grey hair and a pony tail, Bob Caviar fell in love with barbecuing and smoking meats when he was in his mid-teens.  He opened up his barbecue joint along a stretch of Kansas state highway 32 near Bonner Springs (see map) and not far from the Cricket Wireless Amphitheater (a.k.a. Sandstone Amphitheater) where Papa Bob's maintains a concession booth to sell their barbecue during concerts.   

To help call attention to his little barbecue place, Bob Caviar came up with a sandwich called the Ultimate Destroyer.  It is over five pounds of a combination of pulled and sliced pork, smoked turkey, three smoked burgers, smoked brisket, smoked sausage, a bunch of bread and barbecue sauce, and topped with Papa Bob's homemade horseradish dill pickles.  Oh, and for good measure they throw in a pound and a half of fries on the side.  Dozens of people have failed to finish the behemoth sandwich in the allotted 45 minute time period including Adam Richman from the Travel Channel's Man vs. Food program. (Pictured right)  Only five people have been able to finish the Ultimate Destroyer including Omaha's Molly Schuyler who is one of the best competitive eaters in America.  

Finding Papa Bob's - which is just about two miles west of the Kansas 32 exit along Interstate 435 - I pulled into the parking lot only to find the lot was full of cars.  This was  good thing, I thought initially.  However, I couldn't find a parking spot and ended up heading in toward Bonner Springs to get some gas.  By the time I made it back out to Papa Bob's about 15 minutes later, a car was pulling out of a space near the front door.  I took that spot, parked the car and went inside.

As I walked in the front door, I figured out why the parking lot was full.  I was met by a large crowd of men who were standing in line to pay their food checks.  They had just finished a dinner meeting for some club they were involved in.  I took a seat in a booth in the back corner of the front dining room (there was a back dining room that the men had just come from) and waited patiently for the young lady - who was both cashier and waitress - to finish up to come over.

The main dining room at Papa Bob's kind of has a 60's-diner motif to the place.  Brightly lit with a series of vinyl-topped booths and tables, it also had an old style counter that looked like it was more home to a malt shoppe than a barbecue joint.  On the wall near the door that went into the side dining room were dozens of pictures of the people who tried - and failed - to eat the Ultimate Destroyer, as well as pictures of the five who were able to eat everything in under 45 minutes.

While the girl was still cashing the rest of the men's dinner checks, a worker from the back came over with a menu and asked me if I wanted anything to drink.  I ordered up a draft beer and figured that I had a lot of time to take a good look at the menu.

The menu at Papa Bob's Bar-B-Que is rather extensive.  First of all, the featured nine or ten appetizers including fried okra, sweet potato fries, chicken fingers and mini corn dogs.  For barbecued and smoked meats, they featured brisket, ham, turkey, sausage, pork, pulled pork and, of course, ribs including baby back ribs.  And they also serve a Kansas City barbecue staple - burnt ends.  I've never been a big fan of burnt ends, but there are tons of people who love 'em.  

Papa Bob's also features a number of sandwiches including a grilled chicken sandwich, a breaded pork tenderloin, and hickory-smoked corned beef or pastrami served on rye bread.  They also have smoked burgers on the menu, as well as a long list of sides that include tater tots, creamy or sweet and sour cole slaw, pesto pasta salad, onion rings, and potato salad.  

When the young lady finally finished up at the cash register, she made it over to the table to greet me.  She apologized for the wait and I told her it was no problem.  I asked what the large group was all about and she said that she got a call around 5:30 to see if they could accommodate 16 people at 6 p.m.  She said that it wasn't any problem until she found out that it was more like 28 people instead of 16.  "We've been running around here like we've had our heads cut off for the last hour and a half," she told me.  

I was ready to order my dinner and I went with the deluxe meat platter - your choice of two types of smoked meats and with it you get two ribs and two sides.  I picked pulled pork and brisket for my meats and I ordered fries and something they called "Brooke's Bad Ass Beans" - slow simmered baked beans that were full of chunks of pork and beef.  I also had to get a side of the horseradish dill pickles.  The young girl asked me, "Do you like horseradish?"  I said that I did.  "And you like dill pickles?"  Again, I said that I did.  She said, "OK, well, some people order them up and say they don't like them."  She said the description is pretty self-explanatory - horseradish dill pickles - but people are still somewhat surprised by the taste.  I told her that I would give them a shot.

About 10 minutes after I ordered, Papa Bob, himself, brought my platter of food out to my table.   As you can see by the picture, it was a ton of food.  The ribs were big and meaty, there was easily a 1/3 pound of both the pulled pork and the sliced brisket.  A large plate of fries accompanied the smoked meats along with a cup of the baked beans.  The horseradish dill pickles were in a small dish - about nine or ten chips in total.  

There were two different bottles of barbecue sauce on the table so I asked Bob Caviar what the story was on the sauce.  He said one of the two bottles was their sweet barbecue sauce, the other was sort of a sweet and spicy sauce.  "And..." he said as he hesitated for a moment looking back behind him, "...she's bringing out some of the Bob-anero sauce for you."  Some what?  "Bob-anero sauce.  It's a special concoction I came up with that's sort of sweet with a spicy bite from chopped habanero peppers."  I told him that I'd like to give that a try.

"We've got others that are hotter," Bob volunteered.  He named a couple - H2 OMG sauce, Crazy Dog chipotle sauce.  "We got this stuff called Blazin' Butt sauce, too.  I can bring some samples of that our for ya."  I declined his offer.  I was fine with the three sauces that were on the table.  

The first thing I ripped into were the ribs.  The ribs were huge with a lot of tender meat that pulled easily away from the bone.  The meat had a slightly smoky taste and I enjoyed them with the little bit of the regular sauce that was on them.  

The next thing I tried was the brisket.  Thinly sliced, the brisket had a slight smoke ring along the outside rim and the taste was very good.  I like a good brisket and Papa Bob's had some very good brisket.

The pulled pork was slightly dry and copious amounts of the barbecue sauce helped make it a bit more moist.  Of the three items on the plate I'd put the pulled pork at the bottom.  It was still good, but the ribs were outstanding and the brisket was very good.  

I'm a sauce guy when it comes to barbecue and the sauces at Papa Bob's were all very good.  The regular sauce was a thick sweet and smoky Kansas City-style that hung onto the meat very well.  The "hot" sauce at Papa Bob's had sort of a black pepper aftertaste to it and had a nice lingering spicy bite.  Surprisingly, the Bob-anero sauce had a lot of things going on.  It had a sweet front end that slowly turned into a spicy back side.  There seemed to be a lot flavors going on between the initial sweetness to the lingering spicy taste on the Bob-anero.  Quite actually, I thought the "hot" sauce was more spicy than the Bob-anero sauce.  

The fries were crisp and I ate just a handful of them, primarily using them to test the sauces.  I probably should have gotten the sweet and sour cole slaw instead of the fries, but the fries served their purpose in allowing me to try the different sauces with a more neutral taste.  

The baked beans - served in a common coffee cup, an interesting twist - were thick and had a lot of chunks of pork and beef mixed in.  On their own, the beans were very good.  As I'm wont to do with baked beans, I added some of the hot barbecue sauce to them to zip them up.  The beans were outstanding.

But the winner of the evening at Papa Bob's were the horseradish dill pickle chips.  They had a slight - but not overpowering - taste of fresh ground horseradish.  Mixed with the vinegar dill flavor, the overall taste of the pickles was immensely heightened.  Looking back, I should have just bought a quart jar of the horseradish dill pickles to take back home with me.  But I still had three more days on the road and I was worried that they wouldn't last the week.  

The barbecue at Papa Bob's, well, I'd put it up against many other places I've tried in the Kansas City area.  I don't know if I can call it the best I've had - the pulled pork was really the only thing that I can say held it back from being a truly memorable meal.  But the ribs and brisket were very good, as were the baked beans and the sauces provided.  And the horseradish dill pickles?  They were to die for.  I'm going to make it back to Papa Bob's to try more barbecue at some point, as well as picking up a quart jar of the horseradish dill pickles.  I'll have to hide them in trunk of the car, though - out of sight, out of mind.  That way I wouldn't be tempted to eat them as I'm driving down the road.    

Korma Sutra - Overland Park, KS

Indian food is fast becoming my go-to for comfort food while I'm on the road.  There's something about a good curry sauce that opens up my tastebuds, especially if I've gotten into a food funk when I'm on the road.  It was a cold, rainy night in Kansas City and I was staying at the Hilton Garden Inn in Overland Park.  (Click here to see Road Tips entry on the Overland Park Hilton Garden Inn.)  I contemplated staying in, but then I did a quick search on the Internet and found an interesting sounding Indian restaurant less than five minutes from the hotel - Korma Sutra.

Korma Sutra is a play of words on the Kama Sutra, the ancient Hindu guide to a guide to "a virtuous and gracious living that discusses the nature of love, family life and other aspects pertaining to pleasure oriented faculties of human life."  Oh, and it's a sex manual, too.  Baljit Singh is the owner of Korma Sutra (Korma is an Indian dish consisting of braised meats in spiced yogurt/cream sauce) which hails the "sensuous cuisine of India" served at the restaurant.  Chef's Inderjit Singh and Makhan Singh run the kitchens at Korma Sutra.  In addition to the Overland Park location, there is also a Korma Sutra in the Westport area of Kansas City, and a new Korma Sutra opened in late November of last year in the north Kansas City suburb of Liberty, MO.  

The Overland Park Korma Sutra, which has been open since 2004, is located in a small strip mall on the northwest corner of Metcalf and College Avenues just south of I-435.  (see map)  The restaurant is actually hidden from both streets.  It took me awhile to find the place tucked into a corner on the back side of the mall.   

As I went in, I was greeted by Baljit Singh, a gregarious host who is also somewhat of a comedian.  When I told him that it was just myself that evening, he asked, "Whatzza matter?  You have no friends?  Here, I'll put you at the 'no friends' table.  You can make friends with these people."  The tables were rather close to one another and there was a threesome of younger people eating at the table next to me.  Neither of us had any intention of starting up a conversation with one another.  

The dining room is a lively combination of colors, wall decorations and light ornaments.  Linen table cloths are under glass table top.  The place was over half full when I was there that evening.  

There is a buffet that is very popular during the lunchtime hours at Korma Sutra.  They also seemed to be popular with "to-go" orders as a number of people stopped in to pick up food while I was there.  

As I was looking through the menu, one of the servers came over with some papadum bread and an interesting sauce to go along with it.  I'm not quite certain what was in the sauce, but I could taste some sweet plums as well as something spicy.  The papadum was crisp and tasty.  The sauce was very good with it.  

The menu at Korma Sutra was very extensive with a number of lamb, chicken, seafood and vegetarian entrees to choose from.  It was what I like to call a "true Indian restaurant" because they also had tandoori items, biryani dishes and entrees made with goat.  My colleague, Todd, likes goat meat in Indian food.  I still haven't been able to cross that line. 

For someone who doesn't care for lamb all that much, however, I've grown an affinity for Indian lamb dishes.  They had five different lamb entrees at Korma Sutra and after almost jumping on the lamb vindaloo, I ended up with the lamb curry with some garlic naan.  They also have wine and Indian beers available at Korma Sutra.  I got a Kingfisher beer to go along with my meal.  

The lamb curry featured tasty chunks of lamb meat in a garlic, ginger and curry sauce that was somewhat spicy, but not the type that will burn your face off.  Mixed with the basmati rice, it was a great tasting meal for a cool and rainy late fall night.  The naan was mixed full of garlic and fresh cilantro.  I couldn't get enough of the curry sauce using the leavened bread as a sponge to sop up any that was left over in the dish and on my plate.  

It was also a lot of food.  I was getting pretty full when a lady brought over what amounted to a sweet Indian dessert for me to try.  It was all I could do to take a couple bites of that before I threw in the towel.  This was a very good Indian meal.  

I waited for my check to show up and I sat there for a long time before I decided to just go up to the register and get my check from Baljit Singh.  When I went up to the counter, he came over and started to protest.  "No, you musn't go," he pleaded.  "We have more food for you!  Lime juice and towel!"  (I guess their closing act is providing the customers with a warm moist towel and lime juice to squeeze onto the fingers to get rid of the smell of the spices.)  But I declined - I'd had enough.  Baljit Singh feigned hurt feelings.  "Next time, you stay the whole time," he said as I waved goodbye.

And there will probably be a next time.  I like to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn in Overland Park when I'm in Kansas City and since Korma Sutra is close by, I'm sure that I'll be swinging back at some point.  The lamb curry was very good, the service was impeccable and efficient, and the floor show with Baljit Singh's interaction with his customers was rather entertaining.  Korma Sutra is somewhat tough to find, but it's worth it once you get there.    

Konrad's Kitchen and Tap House - Lee's Summit, MO

On a recent trip to Kansas City, I went over to Lee's Summit on the southeast side of the great K.C. metro area to see one of my dealers around the middle of the day.  They asked if I was hungry and I said that, sure, I could eat something.  So we walked down a ways to a place they like to go to from time to time for lunch by the name of Konrad's Kitchen and Tap House.  

Joe and Julie Kemna are the owners of Konrad's Kitchen which opened in May of 2013.  The train illustration in the logo signifies that the restaurant is located near the train station and next to the railroad tracks in downtown Lee's Summit.  (see map)  

The interior of Konrad's Kitchen features a pretty good sized space with wooden floors and exposed rafters in the ceiling.  The bar area isn't all that large, but they do feature a nice selection of beers as well as a number of signature drinks.  Out a door off the bar area is an outdoor patio.  

There's a stage area along a brick wall in the main dining area where bands and musicians play three nights a week, Thursday thru Saturday.  The music goes until 10 p.m. on Thursdays, 12:30 a.m. on Fridays and 1:00 a.m. on Saturdays.  

It was toward the end of the noon hour when we made it into Konrad's Kitchen.  The menu appears to be typical of what you'd find at a typical tavern/saloon - burgers, sandwiches, appetizers and such.  But they also featured a K.C. strip steak entree as well as grilled fish tacos.  When I was going through the menu, I thought about getting the fish tacos.  

But my dealer took me there for what they called one of the best bargains for lunch in the area.  They have pizza at Konrad's Kitchen and they feature a $7.99 all-you-can-eat lunch special Monday thru Friday from 11:30 to 1:15.  My dealer told me, "We've come here at 1:10 and they only had a couple pieces of pizza on the buffet.  They'll ask us what we want and they'll make it up for us.  And it's only $7.99!"  

We had taken a table near the stage and our server, Jamie, came over to greet us.  My dealer said that we'd be going through the pizza buffet.  She said, "I figured that's what you were going to say."  

He turned to me when we were walking up to the buffet and said, "As you can tell, we come here quite a bit."  

They had a number of pizzas still on the buffet when we got there including one of their signature pizzas, the Train Wreck.  It was topped with just about everything - pepperoni, Italian sausage, pork sausage, beef, ham, green pepper, black olives, mushrooms - it looked overloaded with all the toppings.  

I ended up starting out with a couple pieces of the pepperoni pizza.  There was a thick crust on the outer edge with a thin - but not cracker thin - crust on the bottom.  The cheese was delightfully caramelized and was topped with large slices of salty pepperoni.  Although I would have liked to have had more pepperoni on the pizza, it was enough for what it was.  The pizza was pretty darned good.

I went back and grabbed a couple pieces of the Italian sausage pizza when they brought it out.  It was piping hot and had a good amount of chunky sausage on it.  Together, the Italian sausage and Italian sausage would have made for a fine pizza.

The pizza buffet and drinks for three guys came to under $30 bucks before a tip for Jamie.  She was attentive and even asked if there was any pizza they could make for us before they shut down the buffet.  We were happy with what they had.

I wouldn't mind heading back to Konrad's Kitchen at some point to try some of their fish tacos or one of their burgers at some point.  I liked the atmosphere of the place, Jamie's service was very good - even though we did the buffet - and I did like their pizza.  It was one of the better ones that I've had in the greater Kansas City area over the years. Konrad's Kitchen and Tap House is a good place to try if you're in the Lee's Summit area of Kansas City.  

Beer Kitchen No. 1 - Kansas City

On a recent trip to Kansas City, I was looking for a new place to try - some place unique and interesting.  I found myself falling into a rut of burgers, barbecue, or Indian food and wanted to find something else.  Doing a couple searches a month or two before I was in K.C., I found a unique sounding place that I had to try - Beer Kitchen No. 1 in the Westport area of Kansas City.

Mark Kelpe started out working as a chef in Cape Girardeau, MO.  He ended up becoming the head chef at the former Benjamin's Restaurant in the Benjamin Godfrey Mansion in Godfrey, IL.  From there, Kelpe moved to the Kansas City area to be a corporate chef in the mid-90's.  

It was during his time in Kansas City that Kelpe met up with James Westphal.  Westphal had a background in the food industry working as a field consultant for Subway restaurants before becoming the manager of Tucci Milan, a former restaurant in the Lettuce Entertain You universe of restaurants in Chicago.  Getting back to Kansas City, Westphal met up with Kelpe and the two started K.C. Hopps, Ltd., a corporation that started the original McCoy's Public House in 1997.  Four years later, the two dissolved K.C. Hopps, Ltd. and formed Westphal-Kelpe Consulting which oversaw the McCoy's Public House locations in Kansas City and Minneapolis, as well as The Foundry in Kansas City and the sleek and sophisticated One80 in Westport.  

Westphal and Kelpe decided to turn One80 into a boutique beer and burger joint, taking a big risk in a market that already had a number of similar restaurants.  Doing a literal 180 degree turn, Westphal and Kelpe made Beer Kitchen No. 1 more of a laid-back, urban hip and somewhat kitschy spot.  Beer Kitchen No. 1 opened in the fall of 2010 at the corner of Pennsylvania and Westport Road, across from the famous Kelly's Westport Inn. (see map)  (Click here to see my entry on Kelly's Westport Inn.) 

I was able to find parking on Pennsylvania down the street from Beer Kitchen.  It was around 1:30 when I got into the place.  I was seated at a large communal table in the center of the restaurant and a menu was dropped off for me.  The beer list was on the wall on a chalk board.  A number of beer spigots hung from the ceiling.  

 

The bar wasn't all that big and a reason why I didn't really want to sit there.  It kind of had a cross tropical/rustic look to the bar area.  It was sort of interesting to figure out what kind of theme they were trying to go with for the bar. 

My server, Rachel, came over to greet me.  Outgoing and effervescent, she asked me if I'd like anything to drink.  Looking through the beer menu on the table, I picked out a Free State Copperhead pale ale.  Free State Brewing Company over in nearby Lawrence, KS is one of the very first brewpubs that I went to starting in the late 80's.  It was also the first time I realized that I didn't care for wheat beers.  

Even though I was sort of burnt out on burgers, I was drawn to the description of the burgers at Beer Kitchen.  They use a combination of ground brisket, short rib and chuck tenderloin from the famous McGonigle's Market, a Kansas City institution from 1951.  (I STILL need to get to McGonigle's at some point!)  They had 4 different types of burgers on the menu - including an American Kobe beef burger-  but no "build-your-own" option.  

They also had three "Breakfast Anytime" meals on the menu.  They had a corn-flaked crusted oven-fried chicken breast that came with a cheddar-bacon-chive waffle for their take on the down-home "chicken and waffles".  They also had an 8-hour Corned Beef Hash featured slow-braised corned beef with a root vegetable hash topped with two fried eggs.  I contemplated getting that for a moment.  

They also had a number of salads, flatbreads, an assortment of sandwiches, and a number of interesting entrees including an organic short rib dish, build-your-own mac and cheese with a long list of items to mix in, and a lobster risotto served with poached lobster and Spanish chorizo.  The menu was very interesting, to say the least.

But the burger kept calling me.  When Rachel came back, I ordered the Brickhouse burger - applewood-smoked bacon with Tillamook aged cheddar cheese.  It was also topped with a smoked bacon aioli, red onion jam, a roma tomato slice and something called "stacked chips".  I wanted to try some of their Belgian fries and I wanted to order a small plate of them.  Rachel told me that a small order was pretty large, but she could get me a "mini" size of them for $2.50.  That sounded great to me.  

My burger came out and it was stacked high underneath the brioche bun crown.  A small cup of the Belgian fries came on the side wrapped in paper.  A couple slices of a tangy homemade dill pickles came on the side. 

 

The stacked chips were a handful of homemade potato chips placed on top of the burger.  I didn't like the prospect of potato chips on my burger, so I just picked them off and set them on the side.  I'm glad I did - the potato chips were crisp and flavorful on their own.  

The first bite of the burger yielded a wonderful taste sensation.  The combination of the ground brisket, chuck and short rib was moist, juicy and very delicious.  It was one of those burgers where I went, "Mmmmm...." during the first bite.  

On the table, they had three different types of housemade ketchup - an "Old School" variety, a Whiskey Barbecue style, and a smoked chipotle ketchup.  I put the "Old School" on the burger, but poured some of the whiskey BBQ and smoked chipotle on the side.   Dipping some of the Belgian fries into the ketchups, the whiskey BBQ ketchup was just basically a Kansas City-style barbecue sauce, but the smoked chipotle had a nice smoky flavor and a subtle kick in the aftertaste.  Of the three, I liked the smoked chipotle the best.

The burger was very good.  And that's what I told Beer Kitchen general manager Erika Wilson when she stopped by to see how everything was.  She said, "Great.  That's what we like to hear."  

I'm glad I didn't pass up getting a burger at Beer Kitchen.  Even a good burger can bring me out of a burger funk.  And the one at Beer Kitchen is pretty damned good.  The atmosphere - while a little kitschy - was fun, Rachel's service was very good and attentive, and the overall experience was great.  I don't know if there will be a Beer Kitchen No. 2 or even a No. 3, but Beer Kitchen No. 1 was a top notch visit.

Frida's - Overland Park, KS

Always on the lookout for new places to try while I'm on the road, I ran across a contemporary Mexican food place in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park during a recent visit - Frida's.  It wasn't far from my hotel and it seemed to get glowing reviews on both Urbanspoon and Yelp.  I took off to go find Friday's one windy and cool fall evening.  

In many cases, Tex-Mex food is starting to become boring.  Ivan Marquez believed that to be true and he wanted to have his own restaurant where the Mexican food had a more contemporary twist complete with using the freshest ingredients and a combination of different foods for a more modern flare.  Marquez, his wife, Mary, along with an investment from Victor Esquada, the like-minded owner of Ixtapa in far northern Kansas City and Guadalajara Cafe in Lee's Summit, opened Frida's - named after the famous 20th century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo - in a small strip mall near 148th and Metcalf on the far south side of Overland Park in January of 2010.

Business was immediately off the charts.  Marquez knew that he would have to relocate his business eventually and when El Espolon went out of business in 2012, Marquez quickly moved into that location.   It featured more than double the space of the original Frida's, a larger bar area, an outdoor patio seating area, and it was closer to the center of the Kansas City metro area.  The new and improved Frida's opened in June of 2012.  

Since opening the new location for Frida's, Marquez opened Frida's Taqueria on 119th Street in The Fountains shopping and entertainment complex just east of Metcalf in nearby Leawood.  It featured a stripped down menu and more of a casual fast food atmosphere than the more sleek and contemporary Frida's.  And in the summer of 2013, Marquez teamed with with his General Manager at Frida's, Marco Diaz, to open Diego's Bar and Grill in the north Kansas City, MO suburb of Gladstone.  Diego's is named after Frida Kahlo's artist husband, Diego Rivera, and features a more American menu with a few Mexican items tossed in.

It was around 7:30 when I found Frida's in a shopping complex just south of 119th on Metcalf.  (see map)  It's located on the corner of the complex and there was sufficient parking in front of the place.  I went in and was greeted by a hostess who asked me if I wanted to sit in the dining room to the left, or in the bar area to the right.  I went with the bar area and she led me to a booth along the wall.  She dropped off a menu and it wasn't long when my server for the evening, Rob - a fast talking waiter - came over to ask me what I wanted to drink.  I was going to just get one of Frida's house margaritas to start off with, but he immediately talked me into getting one of their signature jalapeno/cilantro infused margaritas.  Sure, why not?

Frida's menu is a tantilizing mix of modern and authentic Mexican food with entrees featuring skirt steak, seafood, pork and chicken.  While the menu isn't long, it's certainly interesting and diverse.  If you're looking for ground beef tacos, combination plates and fajitas, Frida's ain't the place you're looking for.  Frida's features a half dozen appetizers that are big enough to share including tamales that are stuffed with your choice of either Poblano pepper strips and topped with a chipotle sauce, or stuffed with pork and topped with a chile verde sauce.  That, on its own, sounded great.  

Rob came back with the jalapeno/cilantro margarita and while I did get a hint of jalapeno taste in the mix, I couldn't really taste much - if any - of the cilantro.  It wasn't spicy, but had a nice little aftertaste that was pleasing.  It was worth the try, and, quite actually, it was pretty good.  But one was enough for me.  

He also brought a small basket of fresh chips and salsa.  The salsa was a dark red color and had a strong hint of chili powder and one other spice that I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.  But it was a very pleasing taste sensation.    

I was looking at a number of things on the menu.  The Puerco Oaxaca featured a grilled pork loin that was topped with Oaxaca cheese and a spicy tomatillo sauce with sauteed onions and garlic.  They had fish tacos, too, but they were "Baja style" - battered and deep fried.  However, I noticed that they did have grilled fish entrees on the menu and I'm sure that chef Deigo Rios (who has worked with celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey) could have made grilled fish tacos for me if I asked.   But I decided upon the "Chile Relleno de Callo al Cilantro" - a roasted Poblano pepper stuffed with lime and cilantro sauce-sauteed scallops and topped with a tomatillo sauce.  I was finished with the margarita and I ordered up a Dos Equis Amber to take me through the rest of the meal.    

 

Rob brought out the chile relleno with scallops and the picture above left is how the meal was presented to me.  It featured two large Poblano peppers flanking a bed of green rice.  A light and spicy tomatillo sauce was ladled on top of the peppers.  The picture above right is what the scallop stuffing looked like.  Chunks of tomato were part of the stuffing.  The scallops weren't big, but they were meaty enough for the stuffed pepper.

The taste was magnificent.  The Poblano's had a smoky flavor to them, the scallops were tender, and the tomatillo sauce had just a hint of a spiciness - not enough to take away from the overall taste of everything that was involved in the stuffed pepper.  The combinations of tastes that went into the dish were unlike anything I've come across with Mexican food.  It was truly a unique culinary experience.

Frida's is the ultimate change-up when it comes to Mexican food.  And because of that, some people who are used to American-ized Mexican food with cheese melted on top of a combination plate of a burrito, enchilada and cheese stuffed pepper may not care for the food at Frida's.  But if you have an adventurous spirit and go into the place knowing that the food at Frida's is truly different, I'm guessing you'll enjoy the experience like I did.  (Photo courtesy Pitch.com)

The Peanut - Kansas City

Sometimes when I travel, I try to find a place that is a local landmark that isn't pretentious or overly high brow.  A good dive bar, if you will.  Every city seems to have one, sometimes more than one.  But for the years that I've been traveling to Kansas City, one bar kept coming up in conversations with the locals as to what would be the quintessential dive bar in the area.  And the consensus has been the original Peanut at 50th and Main. (see map)  It had been years since I'd been in the Peanut and I wanted to stop in and get a burger on a recent trip to Kansas City.  

The Peanut started out in the early 30's as a speakeasy that transformed into a legitimate bar after Prohibition ended garnering one of the cities first (and currently oldest) liquor licenses.  It was called the Peanut for not only its small size, but because of the two story apartment building directly behind the place that was known as "The Peanuts", a take-off on the stately "Walnuts" apartment building three blocks west.  In the 40's and 50's, it was a barbecue joint, but began to get run down in the 60's into the 70's.  The owners quit serving food in the late 70's and it became just another run down gin joint.  

Enter Rich Kenny.  Kenny and a fellow Omaha native, Gregg Johnson, founded the Minsky's Pizza chain in 1974 not far from the original Peanut.  By 1980, they had six locations and it was at that point that Rich Kenny wanted to get out of the Minsky's deal because he thought they were growing too quickly.  Plus, he had just gotten married to his wife, Melinda, and they were looking to start a family.

Pictured right - Rich Kenny.  Photo courtesy Business Journals.com 

Rich Kenny had taken a job as an industrial waste equipment salesman, but had his eye on purchasing The Peanut to fulfill his dream of running his own bar.  In 1981 - with a $20,000 investment - he took over the failing Peanut's assets and lease.  One of the first things he wanted to do was to start serving food and it didn't hurt that Melinda was a caterer.  

The couple struggled at first, Rich held onto his sales job while Melinda ran the kitchen.  But her food started to garner a following and Rich was able to eventually quit his sales job and run the Peanut full time.  

In 1987, Melinda asked Rich, "Do you want to be a bartender when you're 50 years old?"  His answer was a resounding, "Of course I do!"  With that they set their sights on expanding the Peanut empire.  In 1990, the Kenny's found another bar in downtown Kansas City that had fallen on hard times, the Quality Hill Bar and Grill.  He put an offer in on the place, but found out that someone else had beaten him to the punch.  When the other party's financing fell through, Rich Kenny was able to swoop in and pick up the property for a mere $23,000.   The second Peanut location opened soon after that.  

In 1997, a developer of a new strip mall in Overland Park, KS came to Kenny and asked him if he'd like to put a Peanut location in his new building at 127th and Metcalf.  Kenny immediately said, "No," but the developer came back with an offer he couldn't refuse.  The third Peanut location opened later that year.  (A fourth location opened in north suburban Gladstone in 2003, but that has since closed up.)

In 1998, Rich and Melinda Kenny began to license out the Peanut name.  Two additional locations - one in Lee's Summit, MO and another in Olathe, KS Overland Park (thanx, Renee M.!) became licensed Peanut locations.  

In 2005, Rich Kenny and two partners - one the developer who owned the building in which the Overland Park location was housed - opened an upscale "Peanut" venue called "The Cashew" in Kansas City's Crossroads Arts and Entertainment District.  The menu featured appetizers, wraps, panini sandwiches and, interestingly, pizza, harkening back to Kenny's days with Minsky's.  

Sadly, Rich Kenny passed away in 2007 from pancreatic cancer.  Melinda continues to run the Peanut empire today.  However, she sold the Overland Park location to three partners a couple years after Rich passed away. The local licensees pay Melinda Kenny a percentage of their monthly revenue for the use of the Peanut name and concept.  

But everyone tells me that the original Peanut is the best, both in food and atmosphere.  Actually, I tried to get lunch at the Peanut earlier in the summer of 2013, but there was a lot of construction going on in the immediate area and parking along Main and the side streets was at a premium.  On a late fall trip to K.C., I decided to give the Peanut another shot after having a meeting with one of my dealers who is located about three minutes away by car.  Heavy construction behind the Peanut was still going on, but I was able to find a parking spot on a side street a block to the west of Main. 

It had been - shwooo, I don't know - maybe 8 or 9 years since my dear and now deceased friend Jim Mitchell had driven me to the Peanut for a beer one night when I was in Kansas City for business.  I immediately liked the kitschy nature of the place with the mismatched bar stools, the old pictures and beer signs on the wall, and the cozy nature of the bar, itself.  Plus, the fact that I was sitting in the oldest bar in Kansas City.    

Since it was part of the lunch rush and many of the tables were filled with diners, I ended up sitting at the bar, possibly in the same place that I sat my previous visit with Jimmy.  The bartender asked me if I would like to have a menu and something to drink.  I ordered up a Boulevard Pale Ale in tribute to my late pal Jimi.  

Jimi had told me that the Peanut had pretty good burgers on my initial visit and I always sort of kept that in the back of my mind.  The menu at the Peanut was not extensive - at least at the Main and 50th location.  They had the one burger on the menu, a pork tenderloin sandwich, a tuna melt, and their famous reuben sandwich - something that helped put the place on the map when the Kenny's took over in the early 80's.  Interestingly, they also had BLT's on the menu - bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches topped with cheddar cheese, black pepper, red onions and mayo, served on toasted whole wheat bread.  For an extra cost, you could get extra bacon, or a fried egg on top.  Or, you could go for the TRIPLE BLT - same thing as the single (there's no double) - only much bigger.  Quite honestly, I stopped and thought about getting the BLT with extra bacon and an egg.  But I had it in my mind that I was going to get a burger on this trip.

And that's exactly what I ordered.  I ordered it with pepper jack cheese and bacon - medium.  It was a good thing I wasn't in a big hurry because it was over 20 minutes - and ordering a second Boulevard Pale Ale - before my burger was brought out to me.  But good things do take time and the burger from the Peanut looked good upon presentation.  And it was good at the first bite.  

The burger wasn't overly big, but they still stuck a knife in the center of the burger should you want to cut it in half for easier handling.  I got some sliced onions on the burger, as well, and dill pickle slices came on the plate along with some crinkle cut fries.  The burger was juicy and tender - the taste of it showed that it was cooked on a flat grill, my choice of the best way to cook a burger.  The crispy bacon was a nice compliment to the burger and the pepper jack gave it a nice little after buzz in spiciness.  Even the bun was good - it wasn't large and chewy, but it held together well with everything that was going on with the burger.  

While it probably wasn't the best burger I've had in Kansas City, the one I had at the Peanut was still very good.  The burger wasn't cheap - with all the fixings I got on it, it was about $10 bucks in cost with the fries.  But, honestly, I thought it was worth it.  Actually, just having the chance to be in the oldest bar in Kansas City is worth a couple extra bucks in my mind.  I haven't been to the other Peanut locations, but I can't imagine that any of them have the character - and the history - of the original at 50th and Main.  And I am going back for one of their BLT's at some point. 

Smoke Box BBQ Cafe - Kansas City, MO

Years ago while working for a previous company, we had a series of trainings over a period of time at a hotel near the Kansas City International Airport.  For a lunch break during the trainings, my old boss and a couple three colleagues would venture over to a barbecue restaurant that wasn't far away - Smoke Box BBQ Cafe.  I remembered the food to be pretty good.  On a trip down Interstate 29 from Omaha to Kansas City last year, I happened to glance over to my left just past the airport and saw the sign for Smoke Box BBQ on the side of a building in a strip mall.  I made a mental note to make some time to stop in for lunch when I had a chance.  Well, that chance just came available recently when I stopped in for a quick lunch.  

Frank Occhipinto opened the doors to the Smoke Box back in 1994.  He had a second location over in north suburban Liberty, MO for a number of years, but they closed it down a number of years ago.  The original Smoke Box, located in the Executive Hills North office complex in suburban Tiffany Springs, is still going strong.  

Taking the Tiffany Springs Road exit off of I-29, going under the Interstate and then taking a left on Ambassador Dr. then another left into the parking lot of the strip mall, I found myself in front of Smoke Box BBQ once more. (see map)  It was a beautiful day in Kansas City with clear skies and temperatures in the upper 60's.  A number of motorcyclists were out and a handful of them had stopped in for lunch at Smoke Box.  The door to the restaurant was open, allowing for the fresh spring air to come inside.

I have to admit, I don't remember much about the Smoke Box since it had been, quite possibly, 12 years since I'd been into the place.  But the place was still in nice shape for being open about 19 years.  The front counter is where you order your food, then they give you a number and you take a seat in the dining room.  There are a number of tables and booths to choose from in the dining area that seats around 50.   

 
Taking a look at the menu, Smoke Box BBQ has just about every kind of barbecued meat covered.  In additions to ribs, they have smoked brisket, pulled pork, chicken, turkey, sausage, and burnt ends - a Kansas City delicacy that I have yet to warm up to.  Interestingly, Smoke Box also has some Italian entrees including fettuccine alfredo and chicken parmesan, as well as a meatball sandwich and an Italian steak sandwich topped with a homemade marinara sauce and provolone cheese.  I suppose with the name Occhipinto, they probably do some pretty good Italian at Smoke Box.  

As always, I was looking for a sampler to try two or three meats.  The guy behind the counter pointed out their lunch special - your choice of two meats with a couple sides for $7.25.  Ribs were not one of the meats and before I could figure out that I could have ordered a dinner platter for $13.99 that came with ribs and a choice of meat, I found myself order up the lunch special with pulled pork and brisket.  For my two sides, I had a choice between baked beans, cole slaw, cheesy corn, potato salad or French fries.  About the only thing that sounded appealing to me were the baked beans.  I got a double order of those.  I also got a beer and sat myself down at one of the booths along the wall.

Being back in the Smoke Box, it reminded me of a funny story during my last visit to the place.  We were having lunch and one of my colleagues at the time, a bright young guy by the name of Andy, was hitting on the rather cute waitress who was taking care of us that day.  Andy was putting the hammer down trying to impress the girl with his charm.  When she walked back into the kitchen, Andy made some sexist remark of what he'd like to do with the girl if he got his chance.  An older guy seated at the table next to us turned around and said, "Uh, son.  You may want to watch what you wish for.  I'm her daddy."

Sure enough, the parents of the girl Andy was putting the make on were seated next to us.  We all got a big laugh out of it - including her parents.  Andy was pretty contrite after that.  "I apologize, sir," he meekly said.  Then he said, "Sir, I hope you don't have a shot gun out in your car.  And if you do, I sincerely apologize for my behavior."  Maybe you had to be there, but it was a pretty hilarious situation where even the parents took it in stride.  They'd probably heard it before because their daughter was pretty damn good lookin'.  

Not long after I sat down, my barbecue was brought out to me.  The presentation wasn't fancy in the least - the brisket and pulled pork were sort of put together on a banquet-style paper plate with two pockets of baked beans on the side.  Traditional white bread and pickles came with the meal.  It wasn't a lot of meat for $7.25, I thought.  But that was fine - I was going to take a dealer out for dinner that evening and I didn't need a lot of food at lunch.

The pulled pork was fine - it featured thin strings of tender pork that had a nice smoky flavor to the meat.  The brisket was also fine - thin slices of smoked beef that was topped with some of Smoke Box's Kansas City-style barbecue sauce.  

The beans were, well... I don't know.  There was something sort of weird about the beans.  They had somewhat of a petroleum taste to them, at least that's what my taster was telling me.  I didn't know if I cared much for the beans.  Even when I hit them up with some of Smoke Box's barbecue sauce that they had on the table, I couldn't get that lingering taste out of my mouth or my mind.  

Baked beans aside, the barbecue at Smoke Box BBQ Cafe was fine.  Since my last visit to Smoke Box, the Zona Rosa shopping and entertainment district has opened nearby and it features a number of restaurants - including the Smokehouse BBQ - to choose from.  (Click here to see my entry on Smokehouse BBQ.)  The barbecue at Smoke Box has to be good enough to keep them in business all these years, especially with growing competition in the area.  I thought my barbecue was good, not my favorite in Kansas City, but not bad, either.  Smoke Box is one of those small family operations that I like to find and patronize from time to time.  I suspect they'll be able to hold their own against the competition.   

BRGR - Prairie Village, KS

The Pitch is a local weekly newspaper in the Kansas City area that focuses on local entertainment, restaurants and other goings-on.  Whenever I'm in Kansas City, I always try to pick up a Pitch to see if there's anything that I'm missing in terms of new or interesting restaurants.  A couple years ago, I had picked up a Pitch and it was the "Best of" issue that named both readers and the editorial staff's top restaurants in the greater Kansas City area.  One place that caught my eye was a "modern burger joint" by the name of BRGR that was given the title of Best Burger in Kansas City in 2010.  It immediately went on my "restaurants to visit" list.  However, it took me a little while to finally get to BRGR.  On a trip late this last year to Kansas City, I stopped at BRGR before I left town.

The group behind the concept and direction of BRGR is Bread and Butter Concepts, a restaurant holding company run by partners Alan Gaylin and Glynn Roberts along with Roberts' wife, Jean.  Gaylin (pictured at right - photo courtesy Prairie Village Post) comes from a long lineage of restaurant management, formerly as the Senior Vice-President for Business Development of the group that oversaw Bennigan's and the former Steak and Ale restaurants.  He then moved over to Houlihan's as the operations director before taking the same position at T.G.I. Friday's.  Roberts doesn't have much of a background in the restaurant business - he is the President and co-founder of Northstar Offshore - a Houston-based oil and gas exploration company.  

Gaylin and Roberts were middle school friends from Houston who decided about six years ago to partner up to develop restaurant concepts in the greater Kansas City area where Gaylin had taken up residence.  It took them a little over two years from the time they started their Bread and Butter Concepts partnership to open their first restaurant - BRGR - in March of 2010.  A little over a year later, they opened their second restaurant - Urban Table - that offers an eclectic mix of breakfast, lunch and dinner in a neighborhood-style corner cafe/market.  

In November of 2011, Bread and Butter Concepts opened what they called Kansas City's first "gastropub" - Gram and Dun.  The gastropub craze has hit most major markets combining an English-style public house with a restaurant that also focuses on food.  Gram and Dun goes a step further by offering gourmet-style offerings in a fun, casual and relaxing atmosphere.  

BRGR is located in the Corinth Square shopping mall on West 83rd St. at Mission Road in suburban Prairie Village, KS. (see map)  (Urban Table is also located within the mall.)  It was a beautiful, but crisp mid-day when I pulled into the parking lot in front of BRGR and found a parking spot right up front.  BRGR has a nice little outdoor seating area complete with a fireplace with heavy duty metal and glass tables and sturdy metal chairs.  Even though it was nice out, I decided to eat inside.

I was greeted by a hostess and asked if I could sit at the bar.  She said that would be absolutely no problem.  I walked across the big open contemporary/industrial style of dining room to the three-sided bar.  I found a seat at the bar and my server/bartender came over to greet me.  I asked for a menu and then asked what they had for beers.  She pointed at a big board behind me and said, "That's what we have on tap and in bottles, hon."  

It was a pretty extensive list with a number of Belgian-style beers, microbrews, regional beers and, of course, the big guys and the usual imports.  Interestingly enough, they had beers such as Pabst Blue Ribbon, Schlitz, Old Style, and even Hamm's in cans.  I tell you, I do like Old Style and try to keep some in my beer fridge at all times.  But this time I decided to have a Magic Hat #9 from Vermont.  It, too, came in a can.  

Burgers are, of course, the main feature at BRGR.  But they do have salads and a number of appetizers on the menu.  They also have turkey and portabella mushroom burgers along with chicken breast sandwiches, BLT's and something called the C2 - ground chicken and ground andouille sausage with blue cheese, watercress, caramelized onions and served on a corn bun.  That actually sounded rather interesting to me.  

One of the things that caught my attention right off the bat wasn't on the menu, but what was on the bar.  BRGR has their own bottles of mustard and ketchup that they make in-house.  I thought it was a nice little touch to distance themselves from other burger places in the area.  

Some of the burgers on the menu at BRGR were pretty interesting.  The Sheboygan featured a mix of ground chuck and short rib blend, topped with fried cheese curds, Wisconsin cheddar mustard, and something called Jay's bacon sausage, and all on a pretzel bun.  The Ring of Fire was topped with chili, pepper jack cheese, jalapenos, and an onion ring and served on a corn bun.  They also had their own variation of the Twin Cities favorite, the Jucy (Juicy) Lucy.  Similar to the ones you find in Minneapolis/St. Paul, BRGR's Jucy Lucy was stuffed with American cheese and topped with lettuce and mayo, and served on a kaiser bun.  

BRGR had a burger called the Big Mock that was similar to a McDonald's Big Mac with two beef patties, Swiss cheese, topped with a special sauce and onions, lettuce and pickles on an egg bun.  And the S&P was just a basic cheeseburger with your choice of one of four different types of cheese.  

For my first visit to BRGR, I went with their signature burger, simply called the BRGR.  It featured ground chuck mixed with chopped caramelized onions, then topped with American cheese, lettuce, pickles and their homemade mustard and served on an onion bun.  For good measure - and a buck more - I got a fried egg on top of the burger.  (For $2 more per burger, you can upgrade to ground bison.)  My server asked me if I wanted any fries or onion rings to go with the burger.  She said, "We have these outrageously great truffle tater tots, too."  I thought about it for a second and then said that the burger would be enough for me on this visit.  

The burger came out about 15 minutes after I ordered.  It was a good thing I didn't get fries or tater tots or anything else with it because the burger, alone, was huge.  Pickle slices and shredded lettuce were already falling off the burger before I even picked it up.  I ordered my burger medium, meaning that they flip the burger twice during the cooking process.  Looking at the burger patty, I thought it looked a little well done for my taste with a lot of char marks on the outside. 

But the first taste told me that that it wasn't overcooked.  There was still some pink in the middle, but it didn't appear to be as juicy as I like my burgers.  The burger meat held together well and had a good flavor, but there seemed to be some "pizazz" missing from the overall taste.  The bun was good and held together well.  I liked the egg on the burger giving kind of a "steak and eggs" taste.  And I did like the homemade ketchup that I added to the burger.  It had sort of a zippy taste without being spicy.  

Maybe I went into BRGR with expectations too high.  For burgers in Kansas City, I'm spoiled by the burger at Westport Flea Market.  Each burger that I have in Kansas City from here on out is going to have to be measured against the one at Westport Flea Market.  That's not to say the burger at BRGR was bad - far from it.  It was very good, but I guess I was just looking for something even better than what I had.  I did like the atmosphere and decor in the place. My server/bartender was outstanding in taking care of me.  And the burger was above average, but there was just something missing from making it a great burger.  Still, I'm going back to BRGR at some point to try another burger, have some more eclectic beers, and probably try those truffle tater tots.  All in all, BRGR is one of the better places to get a burger in Kansas City.   

Winstead's - Kansas City

Late last year on a trip to Kansas City, I found out about the Kansas City Casual Food Chowdown contest that was sponsored by the Kansas City Star in 2011.  I was somewhat surprised to see one of the finalists for the Best Burger category was a local area chain that I had known about for years by the name of Winstead's.  I had driven past a Winstead's location many, many times over the past 30+ years during all my travels to Kansas City, but I had never stopped in to have one of their burgers.  Since it finished second to the great burger that is served over at Westport Flea Market, I thought I'd better find out what Kansas Citians were talking about.   

Winstead's has a very long and interesting history behind them.  The first Winstead's opened as a root beer/hamburger stand in Springfield, IL in 1936.  Kathryn Winstead pioneered what was one of the first drive-in restaurants in the U.S. where people would back into a stall, flash their lights and a car hop would come out to take their order.  Burgers made from ground steak, flattened on a flat top grill were a favorite for many people in Central Illinois. 

Around 1938, Kathryn Winstead's brother, Jack, opened a Winstead's location in nearby Jacksonville, IL.  A sister of Kathryn and Jack's opened a location in Fort Wayne, IN, and another sister, Nelle, opened a location in Sedalia, MO.  Nelle married a local Sedalia banker by the name of Gordon Montgomery and the two began to talk to older sister Kathryn about opening a location in the Country Club Plaza development area in Kansas City, MO.

When the Winstead sisters found a location around 47th and Main in the new Country Club Plaza development, they were hesitant to open a burger joint because Kansas City was run by local political machine boss Tom Pendergast and all new development in south central Kansas City was run through the equally powerful J.C Nichols.  Although they feared Pendergast and knew that he could easily run them out of business if he wanted, the sisters forged ahead and opened their first Winstead's in Kansas City in 1940.  

J.C. Nichols took pity on the sisters, looking down his nose at their root beer/hamburger stand and only charged the sisters for rent on the property.  When beef became rationed during World War II, the sisters found themselves having to scramble to keep their place open.  However, after the war ended, business began to flourish.  They eventually bought the property from J.C. Nichols and grew their business as the automobile revolution hit in the 50's.  On a good day, Winstead's would serve over 5000 burgers.

Pictured at right - The first Winstead's in Kansas City. (Photo courtesy Beth Partin.) 

In 1952, Kathryn Winstead retired from the business. Amassing a nice little nest egg from the little burger stand, she turned over the reins of the business to Nelle and Gordon Montgomery.  The Montgomery's did a little internal expanding in the following years. 

French fries were introduced in 1957 along with milkshakes at Winsteads.  Many a first date was had at Winstead's and many of those first dates turned into marriages.  The married couples would eventually take their kids to Winstead's for their first restaurant burger.  Winstead's has served generations of Kansas Citians over the years. 

Two years after the death of Kathryn Winstead in 1967, the Montgomery's sold the Winstead's stand to Morris and Victor Lerner, brothers who owned King Louie International, a Kansas City-based corporation that ran bowling alleys and made bowling attire.  The Lerner's expanded by opening two new Winstead locations - one in North Kansas City and the other in Overland Park, KS.  (Nelle Winstead Montgomery died in 1990 at the age of 92.  Gordon Montgomery passed 14 months after her death.)

In 1982, the Lerner family sold King Louie International to an investment group.  The investment group was not interested in the Winstead restaurants and they looked at either closing or divesting themselves of the small chain. In stepped local restaurateur Nabil Haddad.  

Haddad had an interesting life up to that point - he was a millionaire at the age of 19 by selling American rock and roll records along with American books from authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac and John Steinbeck in a small shop in present day Palestine.  At night, Haddad would retire to a small shack and sold burgers and Coca-Cola's to a zealous group of enthusiasts.  Haddad would say later that it was the first hamburger stand in the Middle East.  

Due to political turmoil in Palastine in 1963, Haddad was sent to live with relatives in Baghdad.  However, a week after he arrived, a military coup toppled the Iraqi government and Haddad spent some time in an Iraqi prison.  After being released later that year, Haddad eventually made it to the United States where he began to work for a McDonald's franchise.  Haddad later became a franchisee and a major stockholder in the McDonalds' corporation.  He ended up buying other restaurants in and around the Kansas City area and founded the Haddad Restaurant Group in the early 90's along with his sons, David and Abraham.  Today, the Haddad Restaurant Group oversees 9 Winstead locations in the greater Kansas City area.  

The location on Metcalf at 80th St. in Overland Park (see map) is the one I have driven by dozens of times over the past few years.  In fact, one of my old dealers in Kansas City had a location just behind the Winstead's on Floyd St. (picture below left courtesy Kansas Travel.org)   Each of the Winstead locations have a distinctive tower on the front of an art deco-style building.   

The interior of the Winstead's in Overland Park is brightly lit and downright spiffy.  Comfortable chairs surround sturdy tables sitting on a carpeted floor.  There are booths next to large windows along the side.  The kitchen area is in the back corner and open so you can see them making the food from vantage points within the restaurant.    

I took a seat in one of the spacious booths along the windowed wall and a waitress called out, "I'll be with ya in a minute, hon."  It was after the lunch rush and there were, maybe, four other tables occupied while I was in there.  The menu was on the table and I took a look through what they had.  I knew I was going to get a burger, but they also had BLT's, tuna salad, grilled or crispy chicken, and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.   They also serve breakfast sandwiches - egg and sausage, egg and bacon, egg and steak, etc. - from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.  Of course, you can get a Winstead's burger at any time a Winstead's is open.  Most of them are open from 6:30 to midnight (1 a.m. on the weekends), but the original location near 47th and Main in Kansas City, MO has a 24 hour drive thru lane.  

I really didn't know what to expect from a Winstead's burger, but sort of got the idea that it was similar to a Steak 'n Shake burger - a chain that preceded Winstead's and who opened their first location up the road from Springfield, IL, in Normal, IL in 1934.  I do like a Steak 'n Shake burger, but I find them to be not a very good value.  Because of that, I haven't eaten in a Steak 'n Shake for probably 15 years.  

When the waitress showed up, I decided on getting a double Winstead burger with everything.  Everything are your four main toppings and condiments - ketchup, mustard, onions (grilled or raw) and pickles.  You can also add mayo for no charge.  For a 39 cent upcharge you can get cheese on your Winstead burger.  Bacon is an additional 95 cents, and lettuce and tomato are an extra 15 and 20 cents, respectively.  Although I do like cheese on my burger, I decided for my first Winstead's burger to just get it plain.  The waitress asked if I wanted any fries or onion rings.  I said, "Nope.  Just the burger is fine." 

"Do you want a soda or a shake," she asked.  I told her I just wanted water.  She shrugged her shoulders and said, "All right.  You're pretty easy!"   

The burger came out in less than ten minutes and was wrapped in a small piece of wax paper, the old-style way of holding onto the burger as you ate it without getting your hands greasy.  I discarded the paper before I ate the burger because I like the feel of the juices on my fingers.   

The burger featured two flattened patties of ground steak meat and had a little bit of a crust on the outer shell of the meat.  A nice fresh onion slice and copious amounts of dill pickles were on the burger along with a splash of ketchup and mustard.  

My first bite of a Winstead's burger yielded a wonderful taste in my mouth.  As I've said many times in the past, I'm not sold on the "smashed" burger concept, but I'm quickly warming up to it.  While the outer shell of the patty did have a little crunch to the bite, it seared in the juices that gave the burger a great taste.  The bun wasn't large, but it was flavorful and added to the overall superb taste of the burger.  I made quick work of the burger, left $4.50 on the table for the burger and a small tip for the waitress, and left feeling good about my first Winstead's burger.

Not really knowing about Winstead's before my first visit was, I was happily surprised at how good their burgers are.  For generations of Kansas Citians who grew up eating Winstead's burgers, it's no wonder that they made it to the finals of the Casual Food Chowdown in the burger division.  My first Winstead burger was a pleasurable experience, one that I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that I wish I would have known how good the burgers were long before this.   I thought the burger at Winstead's was better than any I've had at a Steak 'n Shake and it was a MUCH better value.  While I would probably go to Westport Flea Market before I'd go anyplace else in Kansas City for a burger, I can't deny that Winstead's makes a pretty damn good burger.  One that I would easily go back to have again at some point.  

SPIN! Neapolitan Pizza - Overland Park, KS

Almost a couple of years ago now, the Kansas City Star sponsored a contest called the Casual Food Chowdown where they pitted 16 restaurants against each in four categories - barbecue, burgers, pizza, and tacos - and put them each in a bracket-style tournament where people voted on-line for their favorite places.  Once the Final Four were picked, they finished up voting for their favorite overall casual restaurant in the Kansas City area.  The winner - and not to my surprise - was Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue (see my entry on Oklahoma Joe's here and here), but the other Final Four participants were Westport Flea Market for burgers (click here to see my entry on Westport Flea Market - the third best burger on my Best Burgers - 2012 list), Ponak's Mexican Kitchen for tacos (click here to see my entry on Ponak's), and a place that I wasn't familiar with called SPIN! Neapolitan Pizza.  Since I'd eaten at three of the four category winners in the past, I decided to try SPIN! for a pizza on a recent visit to Kansas City. 

Pizza isn't usually on my radar when I go to Kansas City.  With so many world class barbecue and steak places in the town, I really haven't sought out any pizza places for a number of years.  I remember eating at a Minsky's a few years back, but it wasn't all that great.  With a strong Italian heritage in the city, I figured there had to be some place that had good pizza and I was hoping SPIN! would be just that place.  

SPIN! Neapolitan Pizza has been around the Kansas City area since 2005.  Gail and Dr. Richard Lozoff had started a chain of bagel places in the Kansas City area called Bagel Bagel.  The local chain had grown to nine locations before the Lozoff's - and partners/in-laws Mitchell and Debra Swaden - sold off the chain in 1994 to Boston Market who then developed Bagel Bagel into the Einstein Bros. Bagels chain.  Gail Lozoff, whose grandfather and father were bakers in the Kansas City area, worked on the executive staff for Einstein Bros. in Denver before returning to Kansas City to work for Houlihan Restaurants as their chief concept officer.  

The Lozoff's would go out to eat quite a bit and they found that most casual places were either expensive or repetitive in their choices of food.  Gail Lozoff left Houlihan Restaurants and worked on a casual pizza place concept with her husband and a business partner, Edwin Brownell.  The group opened their first SPIN! pizza place in Overland Park in 2005.  Today, there are five SPIN! Neapolitan Pizza locations in the greater Kansas City area (they are looking at opening a sixth location very soon), and they recently began to sell franchises of the concept.  Their first franchisee, Craig Hofman, the owner of the Lucille's Barbecue chain in Southern California, plans to build about 35 SPIN! locations in SoCal.   

It was the original Overland Park location that I visited one evening during a trip to the Kansas City area a few weeks ago.  It's located in the Leawood Plaza strip mall on the south side of 119th Street behind the Cheesecake Factory.  (see map)  It was around 8 p.m. when I got into the place.  When you walk in, you are greeted by a guy who is standing underneath the menu for SPIN! on a board.  You place your order for pizza and drinks right then and there.  It was similar to the concept I encountered at Punch Neapolitan Pizza in Minneapolis a couple years ago.  I hoped that the pizza at SPIN! would be better than the one I had at Punch.  

In addition to pizza at SPIN!, they have a number of salads, grilled panini sandwiches, flatbreads and spreads, and other sandwiches on the menu.  The menu at SPIN! was developed with local Kansas City chef Michael Smith, a James Beard award winner who is the owner of - naturally - Michael Smith, an upscale restaurant in downtown Kansas City.  

I was going to get a pizza and they have a number of specialty pizzas including their margherita pizza that was named one of the top dishes of the year a couple years ago by Restaurant Business magazine.  SPIN! regularly wins local awards for best pizza in the Kansas City area.  Their pizzas are one size only and I ended up getting a pepperoni pizza and asked if they could put some sausage on it.  I also ordered a couple Boulevard Pale Ale's to go along with the pizza.  He gave me a table card with a number on it and I went to find a place to sit. 

The pizza at SPIN! is baked in a large wood-fired oven in true Neapolitan fashion.  They use locally sourced and fresh ingredients for their pizzas.  They get their Italian sausage from Scimeca's Sausage,  a longtime local meat market that caters to Italian restaurants in the greater Kansas City area.  

I found a table with a bench seat along the wall in the dining room. There were two large groups - a group of 20-somethings at one large table, and a smaller group of middle-aged ladies across the industrial/contemporary dining room.  SPIN! has won a handful of awards for its decor.   Not long after I sat down, a young lady brought over my two beers with a glass.

Since wood-fired Neapolitan pizza doesn't take long to bake, I got my pizza about 10 minutes after I ordered at the front counter.  It featured large slices of pepperoni with chunks of sausage across the top of the pizza.  Fresh mozzarella was used for the cheese with a light tomato sauce mixed in.  The crust was thin in the middle, but more thick on the outer edges.  The misshapen pizza was probably around 11" inches in diameter.

The overall taste of the pizza was very good.  The crust had a nice chewy texture, but it wasn't doughy in the least.  The pepperoni had a nice spicy and salty taste, and the Italian sausage was sweet and spicy.  But it wasn't greasy, at all.  It easily passed the "Does it taste good with a beer?" test that I always use as a determining factor whether a pizza is good or not.  It was an excellent pizza.    

I did my best in trying to finish the whole pizza, but I ended up a couple pieces short.  I got a box from one of the servers to take the remaining two slices back to the hotel for breakfast in the morning.  

So, I've now tried all four category winners in the KC Star's Casual Food Chowdown.  I have to concur with the readers who voted Oklahoma Joe's as the best, but it was certainly tough to chose between the other three.  For pizza, SPIN! acquitted themselves very well and it is no wonder they win many "Best Pizza" awards in the Kansas City area.  Now that they're on my culinary radar for restaurants in K.C., I'm sure I'll be back again at some point.   

Westport Flea Market - Kansas City, MO

I want to give a shout out to Tricia T. who sent me a note telling me that she thought Westport Flea Market in the Westport Entertainment and Shopping area of Kansas City, MO had the best burgers in that area.  I wasn't familiar with Westport Flea Market, so on a recent trip to K.C. I decided to have lunch there one day.  I had trouble finding it, driving by it once.  But when I figured out where it was, I was almost embarrassed that I didn't know about this place before.

From the street, the Westport Flea Market is pretty non-descript.  For the uninitiated - like me - it sort of does look like a building that houses a decrepit flea market.  And that's probably what I thought as I know I've driven past the place on Westport Road (see map) many times in the past.  In fact, there's a Sonic Drive-In just across the street that I've eaten at a couple times in the past.  Had I known a good burger joint was just across the street, I would have gladly ditched the Sonic burger in favor of a good ol' bar and grill burger.  

Actually, the Westport Flea Market and Bar and Grill - in its present state - has been around since 1981.  It truly is a flea market/bar and grill.  There are a handful of booths run by vendors (hours vary).  Looking into some of the fenced in spaces, it looked like an eclectic mix of kitsch and nostalgia.  

The background story of Westport Flea Market goes back even further than their opening in 1981.  Prior to World War II, the building housed the Calhoun Mantle and Tile Company - a business that made mantles for fire places and sold ceramic tiles for floors.  Due to a downturn in home building during World War II, the company went out of business and the building sat vacant for a handful of years.  In 1950, the building was bought by the old Kitty Clover potato chip company out of Omaha and served as their Kansas City-area factory until 1963.  

The building was transformed into a restaurant in the mid-60's called The Place in Westport.  It was primarily a bar and grill that sold burgers and beer - similar to the present day Westport Flea Market.  It was sort of a bohemian type of place that featured dancing and also sold artwork from local artists.  It was in business for just a few years before closing around 1973.   

In the mid-70's, the building was transformed into a retail market space called Things Unlimited, the precursor to what became the Westport Flea Market.  With the downturn in the economy in the late 70's, the flea market went into bankruptcy.  A Kansas City area investor, Mel Kleb, bought the Westport Flea Market and reopened it as a bar/grill/flea market.  

The Westport Flea Market thrived for years, very much known for their big juicy burgers and their variety of beers they had on tap.  But in 2005, Hooters came calling, wanting to put in a Hooters restaurant in the Westport area of Kansas City.  Kleb, being the consummate businessman, took their offer and began the process of selling the business.  

Then two things happened.  The first involved a young entrepreneur by the name of Joe Zwillenberg who found out that Kleb was selling the business.  Long a fan of the Westport Flea Market, Joe contacted Kleb and wanted to buy the Westport Flea Market from him.  Kleb told him that the deal was already consummated with Hooters.  Undeterred, Zwillenberg, who ran a burger joint styled after the Westport Flea Market, finally sat down with Kleb and offered him a downpayment of $25,000 and showed him a line of credit from his bank to finance the remaining part of the purchase.  Kleb still resisted, saying the deal with Hooters was done.  However, Kleb told the young Zwillenberg that if the deal fell through, it was his to have.  Zwillenberg was determined to have the Hooters deal fall through.  

The second thing that happened was when the Westport Neighborhood Association found out that the Hooters corporation was going to demolish the existing building to put up a new restaurant, they put up a fight to stop the demolition.  While the fight was going on to stop Hooters from building a new restaurant, Kleb was getting checks from Hooters on a monthly basis to purchase the building and business.  However, due to an accounting oversight Kleb didn't receive a check one month.  Kleb immediately called it a breach of contract and told Hooters that the deal was over.  He sold the business to Joe Zwillenberg.

Two months later on March 1, 2006, Kleb and Zwillenberg consummated their deal with the "passing of the burger" - a five-pound ceremonial burger that was made for the occasion. (Picture at right courtesy KC Confidential.com)  Zwillenberg brought his "Joe's Burgers" concept over to the Westport Flea Market and the rest, as they say, is history.  

Zwillenberg is no stranger to the food service industry.  He has a long history of working in various capacities in a number of restaurants in the Kansas City area.  He was a singing waiter at the age of 17, he was a bartender at an upscale bar/restaurant at the age of 20 - both jobs he got by lying about his age.  

After graduating with a degree in hotel and restaurant management from the University of Missouri, Zwillenberg started to work for the Gilbert/Robinson restaurant corporation, owners of the Houlihan's restaurant chain and J. Gilbert's Wood Fired Steaks in suburban Overland Park.  He managed a couple Houlihan's in the Kansas City area before he decided he wanted to get into business for himself in the mid-90's.  

After a short experience as a partner in a restaurant that soured him on ever having a partner again, Zwillenberg started Joe Joe's Italian Eatery, an Italian-style bistro in Kansas City's mid city area.  Joe Joe's is said to be the first place to serve panini sandwiches in the Kansas City area.  

There was a Hardee's just across the street from Joe Joe's and it closed up a couple years after Zwillenberg opened his Italian bistro.  Zwillenberg had been looking at wanting to do a catering company and he ended up buying the old Hardee's and opening his catering business - Joe Joe's Catering.  It continues to be one of the top catering businesses in Kansas City today.

Having a large love for the Westport Flea Market concept, Zwillenberg lifted a menu from the business on one visit and used it for his blue print for his own burger joint, Joe's Burgers.  It wasn't long after he opened his burger joint that he found out that the Westport Flea Market was up for sale.  It was then he contacted Mel Kleb and that's the beginning of their relationship which eventually led to Zwillenberg taking over the Westport Flea Market, saving the building and sparing the Westport area from the mediocre food served at a Hooters.   

It was around 1:30 when I got into the Westport Flea Market.  I took a quick look around and decided to have a seat at the L-shaped bar.  I looked behind the bar and saw their very impressive line up of draft beers that they have on tap.  I wasn't certain I wanted a beer, but looking at all those tappers sort of made me thirsty. 

I took a menu and began to look through it to see what they had to offer at Westport Flea Market.  Actually, there's a lot more than just burgers on the menu at Westport Flea Market.  They have a number of sandwiches, including Joe Zwillenberg's famous grilled chicken panini that he brought over from his days running his Italian bistro.   The menu features a large array of appetizers, a handful of salads, daily specials and a special kids menu.  In fact, their burger menu is only three items long - the Flea Market burger, the smaller Mini Market burger, and a patty melt that features the Mini Market burger on a toasted rye bread with grilled onions and Swiss cheese.  

The burgers have been named "Best in Kansas City" by a number of polls consistently over the past 20+ years.  Westport Flea Market gets their beef from McGonigle's Meat Market, a famous Kansas City butcher shop that is nationally known for their steaks and other cuts of meat.  It's been awhile since I've done an entry on a butcher shop.  The next time I go to Kansas City, I need to take a large cooler with me and get some beef from McGonigle's and do a Road Tips entry on the place.

A waitress/bartender came over and greeted me after a bit.  She asked if I wanted something to drink and I asked back, "Do you have Boulevard Pale Ale on tap?"  Actually, that was a pretty stupid question - any beer bar worth their salt in Kansas City has Boulevard Pale Ale on tap.  She said that they did and wondered if I was ready to order some food.  I had noticed in the short time that I was there that a guy was calling out people's names over an in-house P.A. system and they would go to a window and pick up their food orders.  I said, "Do I order food from you?"

She said, "Yep!  We'll call out your name and you pick up your food at the window over there."  She pointed at a small dining area just beside the bar area.  "There's a small condiment bar down there and you dress your food with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, whatever."

I said, "Well, I understand your burgers are pretty good."

"The best in town," she quickly shot back.  

I ordered up a burger, medium.  She asked, "You want cheese on it?  Cheddar, Swiss, pepperjack..."  I stopped her at pepperjack.  

She then asked, "You want any grilled mushrooms, bacon ?"  I said mushrooms sounded great.   And I got a choice of sides with the burger, as well.  Curly fries, cole slaw or cottage cheese were my choices, but for an upcharge I could get onion rings.  I wasn't certain I wanted fries, but cottage cheese sure sounded good to me.  

After about 15 minutes, I heard my name called over the P.A. and I went over to the pick up window to get my burger.  The condiment bar featured onions, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes and some other things.  I got some onions, pickles and the tomato slices, though small, looked very fresh for the time of year.  

Sitting down with the burger, well...  You ever have food sat down in front of you and the smell of it is so good that you KNOW that it will be good?  That's what the Flea Market burger smelled like.  There were a gob of fresh grilled mushrooms on and around the burger that was covered with a thick blanket of pepperjack cheese.

My first bite - it was ecstasy.  Oh, my God!  I immediately said, "Ummmmm...." as I chewed my first bite.  The burger was juicy and overly flavorful.  It had that old time flat grill seasoned taste to it.  The juices just flowed out of the burger.  The sesame-seeded lightly toasted bun was thick, but still pretty light to chew.  It went well with the burger meat.  About the only quibble I had with the burger was that it was probably more medium-rare than medium.  I know that if my wife would have ordered a burger medium and it came out like this she would have sent it back.  But I was fine with it.  I'll just have to remember to order it medium-well the next time.  

With the great tasting grilled mushrooms, the fresh and forward tasting onions and the tangy pickles, this burger was a winner.  I immediately realized had to put it in the Top Ten of my Best Burger List.  I'll have to figure out where I'll put it when I finally do my updated Best Burger List 2012 sometime in the coming weeks.  I could easily see why it's been named the best burger in Kansas City for so many years.  And I was also a little embarrassed that I hadn't had one of these burgers before this visit.   As many times that I've been in Kansas City in the past, I should have known about Westport Flea Market before this.

As I got finished, my waitress/bartender came over and asked how the burger was.  "Killer," I replied enthusiastically.  And it was.  

She handed me my bill and I got out my credit card to hand to her.  She said, "Uh, normally we don't take credit cards..."

I said, "Oh!  OK!  No problem!"  I got a $20 bill out of my pocket and handed it to her.  She gave me $4.65 in change and I left $3 bucks for her tip.  OK, so rookie mistake and something to remember for next time - Westport Flea Market only takes cash.  They have an ATM in their billiards area for those who are caught short on cash for their food.

Before I left, I took a look around the place.  Toward the street side of Westport Flea Market there's a dining room with a number of vintage beer cans that line the walls on shelves.  This room was actually closed off for diners at this time, but they have two other dining areas - the one pictured above near where the pick-up window is located, and a dining area up near the bar.   

So, thanks to Tricia for turning me onto Westport Flea Market for a great burger.  I was overly impressed with the place, the food, the service and and the history behind the business.  Once again, I'm somewhat embarrassed by the fact that I had no idea that a great burger place like this existed in a city that I've been traveling to for over 25 years.  I highly recommend going to Westport Flea Market if you're in K.C. and want to go to a fun and interesting place with a world-class burger.     

Town Topic - Kansas City

Since 1937, Town Topic in Kansas City has been churning out burgers for the masses, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  What started out as a White Castle, Town Topic uses a flat grill and smashes onions into the top of the burger patty during the cooking process.  When they're done, the patties are flat and crispy on the outer fringes with caramelized onions embedded into the meat.  I've been wanting to try a Town Topic burger for quite sometime and I had the chance during a recent trip to Kansas City.  (Photo courtesy of Serious Eats.com)  

There are three Town Topic locations in the greater Kansas City area - the one on Broadway just north of Southwest Blvd. that I went to (see map), another one literally around the corner and three short blocks away on Baltimore (see map), and a third location in what was the old Valentine Diner in suburban Shawnee Mission, KS (see map).  Only the Broadway location is open 24 hours, the other two close around 7 p.m.  

The original Town Topic opened in 1937 as a White Castle just down the street from the current Broadway location.  Owner Claude Sparks opened to little fanfare and rang up $21.00 in sales on his opening day.  A few years later, Sparks said good-bye to White Castle and opened his first Town Topic diner four blocks north on Broadway in the Crossroads section just south of downtown Kansas City.  The Baltimore Ave. location opened a few years later, and in the late 80's the Shawnee Mission Town Topic location opened.  Today, Town Topic is still owned by the Sparks family with Scott Sparks running all three locations.  

There's a somewhat large parking lot next to the Town Topic on Broadway.  Actually, I think there are more parking spaces than seats in the little restaurant (I counted - it seats 13 with a stand-up counter along one window on which to eat).  I was a little worried I'd be able to get into Town Topic as it was just before 1 p.m. and I knew that it was a pretty popular place during the day.  But I was able to get in with no problems.  I found a stool at the end of the counter and took a look at the menu on the wall behind the counter.  

While burgers are the main item on the menu, Town Topic is also known for their breakfasts, homemade chili and thick milkshakes.  I've been told that many a late night partier has downed Town Topic's "Truckstop Omelet" - a four-egg omelet stuffed with hashbrowns, cheese and your choice of sausage, bacon or ham.  It sounds somewhat similar to a "Magic Mountain" that has satisfied the late night hunger cravings of drunks for years at Ross' Restaurant in Bettendorf, IA.    

The burgers at Town Topic aren't very thick, so I ordered up a double cheeseburger with everything from one of the three waitresses working behind the counter that day.  And because they aren't very thick, it doesn't take long for a burger to show up in front of you.  

The crusty outer shell of the meat patty sealed in the juices and flavor of the burger.  I'm guessing the flat griddle that the burgers are cooked on is probably close to 70 years old and it makes for some great flavoring to the burgers.  The burger, itself, was pretty good sized (I'd read where they were the size of White Castle "sliders" - they were much bigger than that.) and they easily covered the somewhat average bun.  While I still have a slight aversion to "smashed" burgers, I'm quickly warming up to the concept thanks to the taste of the burgers like the one at Town Topic.  I'm glad I got a double as a single would have been overwhelmed by the bun.

And the burger was good at Town Topic.  I can easily see why thousands of people have craved their burgers since 1937.  The place is a local institution in Kansas City and full of nostalgia and history.  While I'm not overly certain that I'd race back to Town Topic, I'm sure I'll go back at some point in time.  And like it's been since the 1940's, the original Town Topic will be exactly the same on my next visit, whether it be later this year or in three years.

KC Smoke Burgers - Kansas City

On a visit to Kansas City just before the end of 2011, I was in the Westport area of Kansas City looking up the new location for Vinyl Renaissance, a record store/audio dealer in the greater Kansas City area. The owner of Vinyl Renaissance had invited me to stop by his new store on West 39th St. and I made my way there during the middle part of the day. As I was going down W. 39th, just inside the Missouri/Kansas border, I happened to look over and see a place called KC Smoke Burgers. After my visit to Vinyl Renaissance, I decided to back down the street and have lunch at this burger place. (see map)

KC Smoke Burgers opened in December of 2010 in what was the former Jerusalem Cafe, a Middle Eastern restaurant that was once one of three locations around Kansas City. Owner Farid Azzeh decided that there were too many similar restaurants in the immediate area and came up with a concept of a smoked burger restaurant. After remodeling the restaurant into a burger place, KC Smoke Burgers was born.

They grill the burgers first, then they put them in an enclosed pot with wood chips on the bottom, the burger on a little grill and a pot top over the burger. Leaving it in the smoke pot for a short time closing out the cooking process gives the burger a hearty smoked taste. (Photo courtesy of the Arnot family.)

It was just after the noon rush and a number of professionals, quite possibly from the Kansas University Medical Center which is just two blocks away across State Line Road, were finishing up their lunch. (KC Smoke Burgers' web site is geographically challenged. They say they are located in Kansas and not Missouri.) A booth in the corner was open and a waitress took me over there. She asked me if I wanted anything to drink. "We have Pepsi products," she said.

I asked if they had Boulevard Beer, which is a pretty stupid question because nearly every bar/restaurant/barbecue joint/burger joint in Kansas City has Boulevard Beer. She said, "We don't serve alcohol here."

Whaaaaaat? A burger joint with no beer? A red flag popped up in my head. What kind of place was this? I just got a glass of water instead.

The inside of KC Smoke Burgers wasn't all that big. It featured a high ceiling with an arched wood beam across the length of the restaurant. Tables and booths were throughout the place offering seating to about 40 to 50 people at a time. Above the front door was a plaster mural of some of the buildings along the Plaza, one of the municipal icons of Kansas City. There's an outdoor seating area that was shut down for the winter.

On the concrete brick walls was a bunch of graffiti. Interestingly, it appeared that most of the graffiti was done by people with similar penmanship. Graffiti reached from the floor to the ceiling. It was sort of interesting and strangely weird in a sort of forced way of decorating. 

The menu at KC Smoke Burgers features a number of basic burgers, as well as a handful of specialty burgers. They have a lamb burger with ground lean lamb meat and topped with a garlic cucumber sauce. They also had a gyro burger that featured a 50/50 mix of ground lamb and beef, mixed with Greek spices and topped with Greek Tzatiki sauce. They also had a Kansas City variation of the Twin Cities "Jucy (Juicy) Lucy" stuffed cheeseburger.

Their basic burgers featured a Danger Zone Fire smoke burger topped with jalapenos and chopped habaneros, as well as pepper jack cheese. They also have a Bacon cheese smoke burger, as well as a Challenge burger - something that evidently very spicy.

In addition to burgers, KC Smoke Burgers has all beef hot dogs (including Chicago-style hot dogs and chili dogs), Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, grilled chicken sandwiches, a gyros sandwich (old habits from a former Mediterranean restaurant are hard to die), and something called a grilled chicken gyros sandwich.

I decided to go with the Bacon cheeseburger and you get your choice of one of six different types of cheese. I took pepper jack cheese and I asked if I could get mushrooms along with the burger. It cost 50 cents more, but I didn't care.

It takes awhile to get a cooked burger at KC Smoke Burger. I'm sure between the grilling, then the smoking process it's going to take awhile. I was hoping that they didn't overcook it. When the girl brought out my burger and took it off the smoke pot and placed it on the lower part of the bun, I could tell from the hardness of the meat that it was overcooked. But the the presentation was nice including the branded "KCSB" in the top of the bun.

Even though I wasn't looking to get fries, they came with the burger. The smoky smell from the smoke pot was still in the air as I doctored up my burger with pickle slices, lettuce, a tomato slice and sliced onions that came with the meal.

The bacon was thin and pretty pedestrian when it comes to bacon. The burger was definitely overcooked and not very flavorful. Actually, about the only thing I could taste was the smoke flavor. And I really couldn't taste the mushrooms - I had to stop once just to pull the toppings off and look to see if they had actually put the mushrooms on the burger. They had, but they were grilled down to almost nothing.

I had a few fries and they were cool, limp, mushy and basically lifeless. I ate what I could of the burger and left the fries on the plate. When the waitress came over to take my plate and leave my bill she asked how it was. "Good," I said, knowingly lying. It wasn't.

I can't give KC Smoke Burgers any type of glowing recommendation. I can't give it even a glimmer of a recommendation. The burger was overcooked, it was too much of a smoky taste to it. The fries were bad. It just wasn't a good dining experience. You may want to try it if you get to Kansas City to see if you like it. But I certainly won't go back.

 

Woodyard BBQ - Kansas City, KS

Once again, I'm sorry that I don't have the name of the person who sent me an e-mail last summer telling me that I had to go to Woodyard Barbeque on the Kansas side of Kansas City.  I do remember that I was told that it wasn't much to look at as far as atmosphere is concerned, but to overlook all that because the food was pretty good.  On one trip to Kansas City just before the end of the year, I had dinner at Woodyard Barbeque on Merriam Lane in Kansas City, KS.  (see map)  Merriam Lane runs parallel to Interstate 35, just before it meets up with Interstate 635 that takes people from Johnson County in Kansas up to Kansas City International Airport.  I used to make that run years and years ago when I worked for a company in southwest suburban Olathe for about five years back in the 80's when I first started to travel for work.  I know I had passed Woodyard Barbeque hundreds of times over the years on trips to Kansas City, but it turns out that it has only been open as a full time barbeque house for about 10 years.  

It was a cold night when I drove down Merriam Lane past warehouses, industrial businesses and other non-descript commercial buildings.  Set back from a street a bit is the old farm house that serves as the nerve center for Woodyard Barbeque.  I drove past the place and then doubled back and pulled into the parking lot in front of the place.  There was a faint smell of smoky wood in the air and it was coming from the large brick smoker located in front of the house.  It was the smoke remnants of the meat that was cooked earlier in the day. 

There is an outside patio - actually a couple of them that I saw.  There's one that attached to the front of the  house and another one across the lane from the house to the west.  The patios feature picnic tables and antique-looking metal tables and chairs.  It was very rustic in its appearance.  Since it was cold, of course, no one was seated outside.  But I was told that in the summertime, especially on the weekends, the patios can get packed. 

The inside of the main building for Woodyard Barbeque featured a small dining room next to the counter where you order your food.  A couple guys were in there enjoying their barbeque at the old farm-style wooden tables.  A large picture of Guy Fieri, host of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network.  I went up to the counter and a guy greeted me.  I said, "Guy's been here?"  

He said, "Oh, yeah.  He did a piece on us a couple years ago."  I found the video for Woodyard Barbeque from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on You Tube: 

Even though there was a big board with all the food they do at Woodyard Barbeque, the guy at the counter asked if I needed a menu.  I did and he pointed out some basic printed menus in a bin on the wall next to the counter.  He asked, "First time here?"  

I told him it was and that I had been told about this place by someone.  I said, "This place looks pretty interesting and it smells pretty good, so far."  

He told me that Woodyard Barbeque had been at this location for over 60 years, and they'd been doing barbeque for about 30 years.  And just within the past 10 years that they started to sell barbeque full time.  

The genesis of Woodyard Barbeque began back in 1913 when Frank Schloegel (pronounced SCHLAY-gul) opened the Southside Coal Company near the Westport area of Kansas City where he and his son, Frank, Jr., sold heating coal to customers around Kansas City.  Once fuel oil took over for coal heating, Frank, Jr. moved the business to the current location in the 50's and changed the name to Southside Patio and Wood.  He sold wood for customers that still needed wood for heat, but he also sold patio bricks, lawn ornaments, sand and other things that people would ask for.  

With the advent of the barbeque craze in Kansas City, Frank, Jr. began to provide other barbecue joints in the area the apple, pecan, cherry, hickory or oak wood they used to cook their barbeque.  During the weekends, Frank, Jr. would fire up his grill and cook free food for his customers over the wood that he supplied to other barbeque vendors.  

His son, Frank III, took over the business and continued the practice of smoking meats on the weekend.  But he took it a step farther as he began to smoke meats for charity fundraisers and church groups.  Because his smoked meat was so good, Frank III was pressured into opening a restaurant that served barbeque.  Initially, it was only opened on weekends, but about 10 years ago, Frank Schloegel IV - yep, the fourth generation son, decided to open through the week (they're closed on Sundays). 

It became a family thing for the Schloegels - Frank IV's sisters helped lay bricks in the patio out front.  His cousin helped with the design of the large brick smoker and his brother-in-law helped him build it.  Today, Frank IV's cousin Mark O'Bryan is the pitmaster, smoking the meats on a nearly daily basis.  And former manager Joe Daly is now a co-owner of the place along with Frank Schloegel IV.

I'm not certain, but it may have very well been Joe Daly at the counter that particular visit.  He was showing me pictures of Frank Schloegel III who still comes in from time to time to talk barbeque with the steady customers they get in the summertime.  "Wintertime, we're a little more slow at night," he told me.  "But we still have a pretty good lunch crowd.  And we do a bunch of Christmas-time catering.  We can do groups as small as 10 or as large as 10,000."  

I looked through the menu, trying to find some sort of a sampler platter.  They had the usual ribs, brisket, pulled pork, chicken, turkey, ham, and sausage on the menu.  They had a combo that had two ribs, a chicken leg, sausage and brisket.  I'm not big on smoked chicken and I would have rather had pulled pork than sausage.  Just under that, they had a four meat combo platter.  I took the pulled pork, ham and double brisket.  "You don't want any burnt ends," he asked me.    

"Naw," I replied.  "I know a lot of people think of burnt ends as a delicacy, but I've never warmed up to 'em."  

He said, "We have a burnt end chili that is to die for."  I told him that I thought I had enough food for that particular visit.  But at the last moment, I asked if I could get a couple baby-back rib samples - they sold them for $1.75 each.  He asked me what side I wanted and I took their baked beans over cheesy corn, potato salad or cole slaw.  I grabbed a couple beers to take to my table while I waited for the food to show up.  

The guy brought out the meet platter and the ribs about five minutes after I ordered them.  Man, this was a lot of food for $13.50!  He told me that the barbecue sauce was over by the door.  They had two different types of homemade sauces - an original that was a sweet Kansas City style, and a hot that had a sweet and peppery taste.  The guy seated at the table near the sauce dispensers said to me, "The hot isn't all that hot."  He was right - it had a little spiciness to it, but it wasn't overpowering in heat.

I dug in and grabbed a rib first.  Big and thick with succulent pork, the ribs are dry rubbed with a homemade concoction that includes garlic, cayenne, sea salt, lemon pepper and three spices that you don't normally associate with barbeque - ground cloves, ground cardamom and ground tumeric, three spices you'd usually find in Indian food.   The meat was moist, tender and pulled effortlessly off the bone. One thing they don't do at Woodyard Barbeque is pull the skin off the back of the ribs like other places will.  It helps keep the moisture in and it's easy to peel off during the eating process.  (I'm gonna have to try that the next time I do ribs.  I have a good friend who taught me to take the skin off.  It's a pain in the ass to do, but he says that's the way to do it.  I may beg to differ after having the ribs at Woodyard Barbeque.) The combination of the faint smoke taste and the rub concoction gave the baby back rib a wonderful taste sensation.  It was very good even without any sauce added to it.     I made quick work of the two ribs I had.  

I dug into the pulled pork next.  It may have been some of the best pulled pork that I'd ever had.  It was moist, flavorful and had a hint of smoke.  With a little bit of the homemade hot sauce, it was fabulous.  I immediately wished I would have gotten a double portion of the pulled pork instead of the brisket.  

The brisket was, eh!  Actually, it was a little cold as it wasn't heated up enough (I'm sure they smoke a lot of their meat and refrigerate it as a number of barbecue houses do these days).  It was OK, but it was far from the best brisket I ever had.  I was disappointed in the brisket, to say the least.  

The ham was very good, but not anywhere as good as the pulled pork.  The ham was thinly sliced, had a great cured smoke flavor to it.  I was sort of craving ham that particular day and I'm glad I got it.

The baked beans were good, not outstanding, but good enough.  They were good without adding any additional barbeque sauce, as I like to do.  But they weren't anything special, even with the sauce.   

I got back up to get some more barbecue sauce and by this time another gentleman had joined the guy at the table next to the sauce dispensers.  I heard him say, "Man, I love this chili!"  I looked over and he had a bowl of Woodyard Barbeque's famous burnt end chili and it did look very good.  It had large chunks of pork burnt ends, and was thick and rich.  I thought about taking some to go with me and heating it up in the morning in the microwave.  But after I finished what I could of my meal, I decided that I'd come back and get pulled pork and a bowl of chili the next time.  

So, my scorecard for Woodyard BBQ - Baby back ribs = Excellent.  Pulled pork = May have been the best pulled pork I've ever had.  Ham = Above average.  Brisket = Below average.  Sauces = Average.  Baked Beans = Average.  Ambiance = Interesting.  History = Overly interesting.  

Woodyard Barbeque is not a fancy place, even for a regular Kansas City-style barbeque joint.  If you can get past the fact that it's a little rugged and rustic, the food at Woodyard Barbeque was - overall - very good.  I even left with a smoky wood smell on my clothes. The ribs and pulled pork more than made up for the short fall in the quality of the brisket.  Next time, I'm going for more pulled pork and a bowl of chili. 

Shanghai Boy - Lee's Summit, MO

Kevin and Chris used to work at an old dealer that I called on - Accent Sound - in Overland Park, KS. When the owner retired, no one stepped up to buy the business and the employees sort of scattered in the wind, ending up at other audio stores - or in Kevin and Chris' situation - they opened their own place, Soundbytes KC. One day when I was visiting earlier this year, Kevin came in with a cheeseburger. It smelled great. I asked, "Where did you get that, Kev?"

He said, "Shanghai Boy."

I said, "Shanghai Boy? That Chinese restaurant about a mile west of here?"

Kevin replied, "Yep! You wouldn't think a Chinese restaurant would make a good cheeseburger, but these guys do." I made a note to stop at Shanghai Boy at some point. Earlier this fall, I had the opportunity to do so.

The story I got from Kevin and Chris about the place was Shanghai Boy is housed in what was an old Dairy Sweet or something like that. It was a fast food restaurant with 10 letters in its name and they sold ice cream, hence the ice cream cone above the Shanghai Boy sign. The new owners bought letters to replace what was on the original sign and came up with the name of Shanghai Boy because, well, it had 10 letters in that name, too.

I took off down the street after leaving Soundbytes KC and headed west toward Shanghai Boy (see map). Actually, I accidentally passed Shanghai Boy - I passed the first entrance and when I realized I'd done that I tried to get into the second entrance, but that was blocked with a vehicle trying to get out onto busy SW 3rd St. Not wanting to hold up traffic, I went around the block and pulled into the parking lot.

The inside of Shanghai Boy is pretty non-descript. It looks like any fast food joint with cramped booths with two or four person tables. With the large windows letting in the sunshine and the fluorescent lighting, you could definitely say it was well lit.

The menu for Shanghai Boy is on a series of boards above the front counter. Interestingly enough, most of the prices of the food are either incomplete or missing on the menu. While most of the menu is Chinese food, there is board off to the side that had their burgers listed. A guy in front of me ordered Chinese, as did a couple directly behind me in line. But I followed Kevin's suggestion and got a double cheeseburger with everything. Everything is lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, mustard and ketchup.

I got the burger and took it to the car. I found that I didn't have any water, so I drove down the street to a Quik Trip and got a bottle of water to have with the burger. I sat in the parking lot of the Quik Trip and unwrapped the burger.

It didn't look any different from most fast food burgers that are out there. It had a sesame seed bun that covered the two cheeseburger patties. The veggies and condiments were on the bottom bun under the patties. The taste of the burger was pretty good. The bun was woefully dry, however, and as I've said many times in the past, the mark of a great burger is the bun. You have a dried out or overly chewy bun and it really detracts from the overall taste of the burger.

But the smell of that burger is exactly what I remember from the one I smelled when Kevin brought it into his store - it had a that great, flat griddle smell to the burger and the patties were a wonderful taste. There was a little too much lettuce, but overall it was an above average burger. What kept it from being a truly outstanding burger is the bun. Too dry and that was too bad.

Shanghai Boy is a pretty good place to get a burger if you're not willing to patronize any of the fast food chains - like me. I don't know about their Chinese food, but the burger was better than you'd find at most fast food places. I'd rather give my money to a mom and pop operation than a big corporate chain any day. I just wish the buns at Shanghai Boy weren't so dry.

(Update - I was recently in Lee's Summit and drove past the Shanghai Boy location and found that it was no longer open.)

 

Blanc Burgers + Bottles - Leawood, KS

I've been wanting to stop at Blanc Burgers + Bottles for quite sometime, ever since I first read about the place in a local Kansas City magazine a couple years ago.  They're known for not only their delectable gourmet burgers, but for their large and eclectic selection of beer and wine.  On a recent trip to K.C., I went to the south Kansas City Blanc Burgers location in the Mission Farms shopping area of suburban Leawood (see map).

Actually, the Blanc Burgers location in Leawood is one of three locations for Blanc Burgers.  The original location opened in Westport in 2008 when chef Josh Eans and three investors opened the doors.  The road Eans took to becoming a chef was not like other chefs.  First of all, he had no experience working in a restaurant growing up.  Many chefs either started out working in a restaurant or their family was in the restaurant business.  Eans had an academic scholarship to Arizona State University with hopes of becoming a doctor down the line, but dropped out after a year and moved back to Kansas City to re-evaluate his life.  It was during this time back in Kansas City when he met his wife-to-be, Abbey-Jo.  

(Josh Eans pictured at right) 

Living in a rental house in suburban Kansas City, Josh and Abbey-Jo talked about what they would like to do with their lives.  They talked about owning a restaurant and Abbey-Jo came up with the idea of going to culinary school together.  Josh and Abbey-Jo enrolled in the Le Cordon Bleu/Scottsdale Culinary Academy in Arizona.  After graduating from there, Josh first worked at the Sea Island Resort in Georgia before getting a job as a line cook apprentice at Seeger's, a now-closed upscale restaurant in Atlanta.

Now married and expecting their first child, Josh and Abbey-Jo decided that back home in Kansas City would be a good place to raise a kid, so they moved back to the area.  Josh took a job on the line at the upscale 40 Sardines restaurant (which, too, is now closed).   

During his time at 40 Sardines, Josh met Ernesto Peralta, Jr. (pictured at left) who was a bartender for the upscale Capital Grille in Kansas City.  Peralta and his wife, Jennifer Price, were looking to do their own restaurant/bar and recruited Eans as a consultant in the project.  A co-worker with Peralta, Eddie Crane, was also one of the partners of the new restaurant which eventually became The Drop, an acclaimed bistro near the Westport area of Kansas City, MO.  Eans became the chef at The Drop as well as their sister restaurant, Martini Corner.  

As The Drop was developing into a new dining destination for foodies across the Kansas City area, Eans, Peralta and his wife, as well as David McMullin came up with the Blanc Burgers concept, seeing that there was a void in the market place for upscale burgers.  The four formed their own restaurant company, The Circle Restaurant Group.   

Josh Eans moved from The Drop to Blanc Burgers + Bottles to become the executive chef.  The first Blanc Burgers opened in the Westport area in March of 2008.  It was an immediate hit with people with their burgers made from corn/grain/alfalfa fed beef from California (the group found that customers didn't care for the grass-fed Kansas beef that was suddenly becoming the rage across the Midwest for natural beef foods).  The second location in Leawood opened in 2009 and a third location opened in January of this year up in Omaha. The group opened a more downscale burger joint in Lee's Summit, MO called B2, but it closed up after about a year in business.  It appears the upscale burger is what people want.  So much so that the group closed down their original Westport location and moved to a much larger building in the Country Club Plaza area in 2010.  

In addition to using natural beef in all their burgers, Blanc Burgers uses locally baked brioche buns, as well as locally grown produce and herbs.  Plus they make their own ketchup and their own pickles.  The one thing that will set Eans off quicker than anything is when a customer asks for store-bought bottled ketchup instead of his homemade condiment.  

The lunch rush had subsided when I made my first visit to Blanc Burgers.  I had my choice of sitting out on their patio as it was a lovely early fall day in Kansas City, or their narrow, but well-lit dining area, or at the bar.  The selection of bottles - wine, beer, liquor and pop -  behind the bar was intriguing to me, so I opted for a seat there.  The very personable and helpful bartender greeted me, gave me a menu and asked if I wanted anything to drink.  The chalkboard behind the bar featured a number of beers and natural soda pops that Blanc Burgers rotates in and out on a seasonal basis.  One of my favorite Oktoberfest beers is Bob's 47 from the local Kansas City brewery, Boulevard.  They had just gotten them in and I ordered one of those.  

Bright and white is the interior design of the Blanc Burgers. The main walls are white as are the chairs and table tops.  Contemporary lighting with white lamp shades hung low from the ceiling.  Peralta's wife, Jenifer, came up with the color concept for Blanc, which, of course, means white in French.  

Blanc Burgers + Bottles has a very impressive roster of beers to choose from.   I was very surprised to see that they featured Capital Brewing Company's Supper Club beer - a beer you don't find that far away from their brewery just outside of Madison, WI.  It turned out that they were out of it that day or I would have gotten one just to have one.  Supper Club is one of my all-time favorite beers.  

And even though I'm not a pop drinker any longer, I was equally impressed with the list of soda pops Blanc Burgers had to offer.  Many of them were eclectic and made from natural ingredients.   They had a Thai basil and clove soda pop, as well as sarsaparilla, birch beer pop, and lemon-lime 7 up.  They also had bottles of Mexican Coca-Cola, the more sweet - and some say better tasting - Coca-Cola.  

The burger menu was intriguing.  Topping the list was an American Kobe beef burger served with a mustard/mayo aioli sauce, truffle butter and topped with watercress greens on a salt and pepper brioche bun.  They have the "Classic" burger that they top with aged white cheddar, lettuce, tomato and a red onion slice along with their homemade pickles, ketchup and mustard and served on a sesame-seed bun.  They also had the "Oscar" burger that is basically the same thing as a steak Oscar, only on a bun.  The take the American Kobe beef and top it with poached blue crab, asparagus and bernaise aioli, and serve it on a rosemary brioche bun.

In addition to the burgers on the menu, Blanc Burgers also features a ground pork burger, a chicken sandwich, a grilled mahi-mahi sandwich and a couple of vegetarian burgers.  They also feature a small list of salads and appetizers, as well as a number of handful of sides, such as hand-cut French fries, truffle fries, sweet potato fries and Boulevard beer-battered onion rings.  

Two burgers that caught my eye were the "Au Poivre" burger - a cracked black pepper encrusted burger, topped with a creamy green peppercorn sauce, grilled onions and watercress, then served on a salt and pepper brioche.  The other one - the "Bison" - featured a lean bison burger topped with a fried egg along with peppadew jam, peppadew havarti cheese, red onion, mayo and lettuce on a four seed brioche bun.  Oh man - both sounded wonderful.    

As I said, the bartender was very personable and was eager to answer any questions for me.  I told him that I was having trouble figuring out what I wanted and he immediately stopped me.  "The Au Poivre burger is, hands down, my favorite on the menu."  

I said, "That was easy.  The Au Poivre is one that I was looking at."  

He asked what the other ones were and I said, "Oh, just the Bison burger."  

"The Bison burger is very good, too," he said.  "But I just sort of like that little pepper 'pop' in my mouth with the Au Poivre."  

He asked if I wanted any sides and the Boulevard onion rings looked intriguing.  "But I couldn't finish a whole order," I told him.

The bartender immediately replied, "I'll put in a half-order for you.  How about that?"

Sold! 

When the burger came out, it looked scrumptious.  The burger had an ample amount of cracked peppercorns around it, the green peppercorn sauce wasn't drenched over the top, but rather subdued under the burger patty.  And the salt and pepper brioche was light and spongy.  From the first bite, I knew I had a winner.  The peppery taste of the burger was just exquisite.  The bun turned out to be a little chewy, but still light enough not to be a detriment to the overall taste.  I tried some of the homemade ketchup and it was sweet and had a more strong taste than regular ketchup.  It was very good. 

The onion rings were also very good.  The Boulevard beer batter was flavorful and flaky.  They were very, very good.  It was a tough lunch to beat.

After I finished up, my bartender asked, "So, how did you like the burger?"

I said, "Awesome!"

He said, "Yeah, it is, isn't it?  I just love all that pepper taste in my mouth with every bite I take."  

The burger at Blanc Burgers + Bottles was outstanding.  The beef was overly flavorful, even without the cracked pepper it in.  The natural taste of everything from the toppings to the beef to the bun was simply superb.  Josh Eans is looking to expand throughout the Midwest and I'm hoping that at some point he'll look at expanding into Iowa so Blanc Burgers will be closer to me than Omaha or Kansas City.  The burgers are a little more expensive than your regular burger joint, but not by much compared to chain restaurants.  And the burger is a helluva lot better.  Blanc Burgers is going to get a strong consideration when I do my Best Burgers List in 2012.  

 

 

Johnny's Hickory House Bar-B-Que - Mission, KS

Thanks to one of my dealers in the Kansas City area who mentioned Johnny's Hickory House Bar-B-Que in passing during a conversation we had about barbecue caterers in the area, I had the pleasure of trying the place out on a recent visit to the arguable barbecue capital of the world. It's always great to find new barbecue places in and around Kansas City and I was eager to give Johnny's a try, considering I'd never heard of the place before.

The origins of Johnny's Bar-B-Que begins in 1977 in the southwest Kansas City suburb of Olathe when a young Johnny White opened his first restaurant. He ran it for five years before selling it. He decided to open a new location in a building on Broadmoor Ave. in Shawnee Mission (see map). That location is still going strong today. Johnny's Bar-B-Que also has a location back out in Olathe (see map).

It also turns out that Johnny's Bar-B-Que was featured on the Food Network program, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and host Guy Fieri visited the restaurant in early 2010 as part of his show on Kansas City barbecue restaurants. Here's the segment on Johnny's from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives -

Quite honestly, I didn't know that Fieri was there until I started doing research on Johnny's for Road Tips. Evidently, there is a big signed poster of Fieri and a "wall tag" that Fieri painted on the wall at Johnny's. I completely missed both on my visit there. But, then again, my wife says that I'm not a very observant person.

I programmed in my GPS to take me north to Shawnee Mission - which, in itself, it completely confusing to me as I hear people in K.C. refer to Shawnee, Mission or Shawnee Mission. But there is no reference to Shawnee Mission on my GPS which then made me have it search for Johnny's Bar-B-Que, which it immediately found. It turns out that Shawnee Mission is an area of towns on the Kansas side of the border mainly between Kansas City, KS and Overland Park. Mission is the name of the town that Johnny's is in. Johnny's is a little tough to find in that it's nestled back off Johnson Drive at Metcalf. I have driven by Johnny's Bar-B-Que for years without knowing it was even there. (Once again, back to what my wife says about being observant.)

The parking lot of Johnny's is behind the building off of Broadmoor. It was just past 7 p.m. when I got there and there weren't a lot of cars in the lot. Good, it wasn't packed, so getting a table would be easy. I went into the building and came upon the front counter area where hundreds of bottles of barbecue sauce from around the nation were on display along with some articles on Johnny's from over the years. The lady who was waiting tables told me I could sit anywhere I like and I took a seat in a booth in the corner just inside the dining room.

The dining area is brightly lit with a handful of televisions around the room. A large number of antique barn stars were on the walls. Booths bordered the dining room at Johnny's Bar-B-Que with a handful of four and six seater tables in the middle. The waitress gave me a menu and took my order for a beer.

The menu at Johnny's Bar-B-Que is not unlike many others around the Kansas City area. They feature burnt ends - when they're available. I'm not a big fan of burnt ends, but some people consider them a delicacy. Of course, they have have ribs, barbecued chicken, beef brisket, ham and pulled pork, all smoked in Johnny White's huge self-designed and homemade in-house smoke room. The sides at Johnny's include baked beans, mac and cheese wedges (whatever that is), cole slaw, onion rings and french fries - or you can get "frings" which is a half order of fries and a half order of onion rings.

I always like to get the combinations when I go to a barbecue joint, especially a new one for me. Johnny's offered a two-meat dinner where you had your choice between brisket, pulled pork, ham, sausage, turkey or chicken. But it didn't offer anything like a half or quarter slab of ribs in the combo. I really wanted to try some of the brisket and some of the ribs. Then I looked over and saw that you could "add a rib" to your meal for $2.99. I figured that I'd get the pulled pork and brisket, then get three pork ribs to go along with the meat. I ordered up a side of baked beans and a side of cole slaw.

When the waitress brought the food to the table, I knew I'd made a mistake in regard to the ribs. The pork ribs were huge! Plus the fact that the portions of the brisket and the pulled pork were generous, as well. Then, the sides were in pretty good sized serving cups, plus there were fries AND white bread slices served with the meal. The picture of the pork rib (above right) is after I'd taken a couple bites off the end of it. They were big, meaty, slathered with sauce and very good.

The brisket was lean, sliced thin and also very good. The pulled pork was OK - above average - but not as good as the ribs or brisket. The cole slaw, huh uh. I had a bite and it was pretty bland. Same with the fries. Nothing special there. The baked beans were very good, however. And even though they didn't really need it, I still added some barbecue sauce to them. I guess Johnny's has a couple three barbecue sauces, but only one was made available to me at the table. But that's OK - I was more than stuffed by the time I figured I could have asked for different sauces.

Overall, I'd have to say Johnny's Bar-B-Que was very good - a pleasant surprise to say the least. That was a lot of food for about $21 bucks plus a couple three beers. Next time I'll know not to order three ribs, but maybe only one. Still, there are dozens of barbecue places in the Kansas City area and I know I've only scraped the surface of the ones that are around. I found a couple others that were featured in the "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" show that I'll have to try on future visits. Hopefully, they will all be as good as Johnny's Bar-B-Que is.

Kauffman Stadium - Kansas City

With the end of the 2011 Major League Baseball season today, it's always a melancholy time of the year for me. Summer is over, winter is closing in and, to me, there is nothing more lonely than a baseball field in the dead of winter. Oh, I know the playoffs and World Series are coming up, but for me baseball is over for the season. I may give a cursory glance at a playoff game on TV, but I don't like to watch the insipid network coverage of Major League Baseball. However, to get one last baseball fix in before it all ended, I had to go to Kansas City for some meetings last week and I was able to take a night out and go to Kauffman Stadium to see the Royals play the American League Central Champions Detroit Tigers.

People in Kansas City were optimistic before the season started that the young Royals ballclub was going to make a big splash this year. With one of the best minor league feeder systems in all of baseball, many observers felt that Kansas City could have a surprising year, but the majority of the baseball pundits felt the Royals were possibly a couple three years away from contending once again. Even with a quick start that saw them at and/or near the top of the division standings the first month of the season, the Royals faded quickly after losing at least five games in a row two times in the months of May and June. The Royals will end the season firmly entrenched in fourth place of the AL Central division.

With the anticipation of better days ahead for the Royals, Kansas City fans came out and supported the home team this season. Nearly 110,000 more people went through the gates of Kauffman Stadium this past season versus the 2010 season. And with the renovation of the stadium three seasons ago, it's much more of a fan-friendly environment - definitely on par or even above most major league baseball stadiums.

I had not been to the renovated stadium during my recent travels to Kansas City. I think the last time I was there was 2008 when I went to a game with a local dealer. At the time, renovation work was fully underway and was completed in time for the start of the 2009 season. I'd been asked by a handful of Kansas City area people during my travels over the last couple of years if I'd been out to the "new stadium". I had to chuckle thinking that Kauffman Stadium has been around since 1973 when it was originally known as Royals Stadium. Although it wasn't really new, people in Kansas City felt it was new to them.

Since I knew I was going to be doing a lot of walking around to look at the renovated stadium, I got a standing room only ticket for the game against the Tigers. According to the chart at the ticket window, standing room only tickets run $10 bucks. But the lady at the ticket window said they only had $11 dollar standing room only tickets that evening. I was too dumbstruck to ask, "Hey, what's the deal?", until I found out later that depending upon the night and who is in town to play the Royals standing room only tickets can run between $10 and $15 bucks. Actually, $11 bucks to attend a Major League Baseball game isn't too bad.

Upon entering the stadium, the first thing that struck me was how wide the concourses were compared to the pre-renovated Kauffman Stadium. Before the concourse under the grandstand was - maybe - 25 feet wide and when you tried to pack 30,000+ people into the place AND have the concession stands in the concourse, as well, it created bottlenecks and traffic jams of the most ungodly proportion. With the renovation, the concession stands were moved back about 20 feet giving people a wide walk way to and from their seats.

The renovated stadium also offered a 360 degree concourse completely around the stadium - something the "old" stadium didn't have. They added seats, a sports bar, family amenities and renovated their famous fountains and put in a new scoreboard in center field. This new area also allowed fans to stand just behind the fountains and watch the action from the outfield - something I sort of like to do. The outfield concourse also features a "Walk of Fame" with bronze statues of the three Royals whose numbers have been retired - George Brett, Frank White and Dick Howser - along with a statue of Ewing and Muriel Kauffman who brought baseball back to Kansas City in 1969 and for whom the stadium is named after.

Troubling to me, however, was the family fun area just past the outfield concourse area. It had a carousel, a video game room, playground equipment and a miniature golf course. Call me a traditionalist - or a fun-hater for kids - but I don't think I'd take my kids to a ballpark to ride a carousel, play video games or have a round of miniature golf.

However, one area of in the outfield just beyond the left field concourse was a small baseball field called the "Little K". It had an artificial surface and allowed for young kids to come onto the field and hit a few balls thrown to them by a worker. I thought this was a better thing for kids to do at a ballpark than ride a carousel or play miniature golf. Actually, this little kid (pictured bottom left), who probably wasn't much past the age of 3, was hitting the ball really well. He had an amazing swing for as little as he was. I was trying to set up my video camera on my phone to catch him in action, but he was done before I could get a quick video.

Also along the left field concourse at Kauffman Stadium is the new Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame. Not only did it have exhibits and displays from the 42 years the Royals have been in existence, but it also had displays for the Kansas City Monarchs of the old Negro Baseball League, as well as some for the old Kansas City Athletics.

There was a theater that had a short video presentation on the history of baseball in Kansas City, a number of kiosks and wall-displays of former Kansas City greats who played for the Monarchs or Royals over the years. It also had historical timelines of baseball history in Kansas City, features on Royals Cy Young and Gold Glove Award winners, and a timeline of Ewing Kauffman's efforts to not only bring baseball back to Kansas City, but on his efforts to build a new stadium for his Royals.

In a room with a large video display showing highlights of the 1985 World Series is the world championship trophy that the Royals won. I know this is really gonna rankle those of you who are huge St. Louis Cardinals fans because of the horrible call in Game Six that literally stole the World Series away from the Cards. But, to me, who is a fan of baseball, it was pretty neat to see up close.

Also in the Royals Hall of Fame was a display of 3,154 baseballs shaped into a huge number 5 for George Brett. The baseballs signified the number of hits Brett had in his 21 year career with the Royals. The bat that Brett used and the ball that he hit for his 3000 Major League hit late in the 1992 season are also on display embedded within the number 5. The Royals Hall of Fame had a guy standing near the display and he kept saying, "Please do not touch the baseballs. They are suspended on metal rods and we don't want the balls to get dirty." And almost as soon as he said that, some 30-something rube went over and tried to grab one of the balls. I just stood there, dumbfounded. I sort of looked at the guy who tried to grab one of the balls, then I glanced at the Hall of Fame worker and sort of pointed at the guy. The worker sort of shook his head and said, "I could scream 'Do not touch the baseballs' at the top of my lungs and people would still want to touch them."

I said, "Maybe you ought to just say nothing and when someone reaches out to touch a ball, yell "Hey! Get away from the baseballs!" He sort of chuckled over that.

One of the growing trends among major league baseball stadiums are in-house sports bars/lounges that serve food. Just beyond the right field wall is Rivals Sports Bar, the Kauffman Stadium sports bar that is open to the public. With a baseball theme and over two dozen televisions turned the Royals game it was actually a pretty cool place to hang out during the game. There was a little patio with waitress service next to it that overlooked the field just behind the fountains in right field.

Above right is the custom made 360 degree circular bar at Rivals. It allowed for people to stand at the bar and easily watch the action through the floor to ceiling windows that looked out onto the field. Even though there was a pretty good crowd there that evening (just shy of 27,000 people came out - about 2/3rds the capacity of Kauffman Stadium), I heard one guy remark that this was the least amount of people he'd ever seen in Rivals.

Of course, the game had to be played and I always like to get the first pitch of any Major League ball game that I attend. Here is the first pitch that evening from Kansas City's Luis Mendoza to the Tigers' Austin Jackson. In the starting line-up that evening for the Royals were five guys (out of ten - including the designated hitter) who started their seasons in Omaha for the Royals AAA team. Three of those guys were playing for the Royals when I was there earlier this season (to see my entry on my visit to Werner Park in Omaha, click here). As I said, the Royals have one of the best minor league systems - if not THE best minor league systems - in all of Major League Baseball. So there's cause for optimism among the Royals faithful for years to come.

I ventured up to the upper deck of the stadium to take a look around. They have two open areas that are sponsored by Proctor and Gamble that will allow people to stand and watch the game. There are designated standing room only areas along the outfield concourse areas, but I stood in a number of areas during this game and I wasn't hassled in the least. In fact, I had very helpful ushers ask me if I needed help finding my seat. When I told them I just wanted to stand to watch the game, they left me alone or, better yet, told me to enjoy myself. I found the staff at the renovated Kauffman Stadium to be overly friendly and helpful.

And, of course, if you're a regular reader of Road Tips you know that I have a scoreboard fetish when it comes to Major League ballparks. This is the Royals' CrownVision scoreboard that is a marked improvement over their old scoreboard. The CrownVision scoreboard is 106 feet high by 85 feet wide. It was designed, built and installed by Daktronics, a Brookings, SD-based manufacturer of high-end sports scoreboards and video screens. It has 1800 lines of high definition resolution and features line-ups for both the offense and defense, stats for the batter, inning-by-inning scoring and the count and outs. The scoreboard will then shift to a huge video display to show instant replays in high definition. Although it isn't the neatest scoreboard I've found in the Major Leagues, it was still pretty cool.

Beer and hot dogs are a staple for me at any ball game, major league or minor league. I always have to try the hot dogs at any given stadium. I got one of the Royals' hot dogs from a concession stand for $4.75 and a 22 oz. Bud Light for $9.00. The hot dog was overcooked and a little dried out from the warming drawer they kept them in. I would have graded the hot dog a C because the taste wasn't actually all that bad. But I would have preferred a sizzling hot dog directly off the grill. The beer, however, was very cold. And I like cold beer at a ball game.

Walking around later in the game, I happened upon a hot dog stand out along the left field concourse. I sort of went up to the place - called the Dugout Dog House - and took a look at the various styles of hot dogs they had to offer. They had Chicago-style hot dogs with the tomatoes, pickle relish, sport peppers and the works, the Royal Bacon hot dog with bleu cheese and real bacon bits and chopped red onions, the Island Dog with smoked ham, pineapple slices, mandarin orange chunks, with cole slaw and teriyaki sauce, and the El Diablo Dog with chili, pepper cheese, and jalapeno peppers. I was contemplating getting the El Diablo until the guy in front of me turned and said, "Man, the All-Star dog is the best. They put pulled pork on top of a dog, cover it in barbecue sauce, then put on pickles and cole slaw. Damn, is it good!"

The thought of any type of a tomato-based product on a hot dog or a brat almost turns my stomach. About the only tomato-based sauce I like on a brat or hot dog is the Secret Stadium Sauce at Miller Park in Milwaukee. But this guy talked so passionately about the All-Star dog that I had to give it a try.

The Dugout Dog House has either regular or foot long flat-grilled all beef hot dogs. The grill cook rolls the hot dogs to give them an even char on the outer casing. Just as I like 'em - hot off the grill. I followed the guy's lead in front of me and ordered a regular All-Star dog.

The grill cook pulled a plump all-beef hot dog off the grill, put it in the bun and then proceeded to slather it with copious amounts of pulled barbecue pork, topped with an equally large amount of cole slaw (pictured below left). Then he topped it off with dill pickle slices and a large squirt of barbecue sauce. I got a 16 oz. bottle of Bud Light to go along with it (although they did have a number of very good beers to choose from). The total cost for beer and specialty dog was $14.25. Ouch!

But from the first bite I have to say it was worth the price. The bun was moist and light, the top of which was piled on with the cole slaw, pulled pork and barbecue sauce. Once you got past that, the grilled hot dog was rich and flavorful. It was so much better than the nearly lifeless hot dog I got earlier in the evening. This was just an outstanding combination of taste sensations. In fact, it was one of the all-time top hot dogs I've ever had in my life. Remember, I'm not big on a lot of tomato-based product on a hot dog, but having the pulled pork with the barbecue sauce on top was out of this world.

And I'm not ashamed to admit that I went back later in the evening to get another one. However, this time it wasn't as good. They were getting ready to close up for the night after the 7th inning and the bun wasn't as moist and light as the first one, the hot dog wasn't quite as crisp as the first one. But the pulled pork and the cole slaw/barbecue sauce toppings were still wonderful.

I left soon afterward as the Royals ended up winning the game by a score of 10-2. The "new" Kauffman Stadium is a great place to watch a ballgame and the amenities - including a truly outstanding hot dog from the Dugout Dog House - are major league worthy. But, it's going to be another six months before I get fired up to hear the crack of the ball hitting the bat, along with warmer temperatures, sizzling hot dogs and ice cold beer. Winter bums me out, but knowing that baseball isn't that far off is what keeps me warm. And a trip back to Kauffman Stadium next year is a must for me. Especially for an All-Star dog.

 

Jose Pepper's - Overland Park, KS

Today, I give a shout out to Ryan Davis and his wife, RaeChelle.  I met them earlier this summer during a baseball outing we had here in the Quad Cities.  RaeChelle Davis is the news anchor for WQAD, the local ABC affiliate, and is paired along side with another casual friend of mine, Jason Fechner.  The Davis' grew up in Kansas City and went to school at Western Kentucky.  We talked about places in and around K.C., how beautiful the campus was at WKU, and, of course, my visit to Mariah's in Bowling Green, KY.  (See the post on Mariah's here.)  We began to talk about restaurants around the greater Kansas City area and I was telling them about Oklahoma Joe's and how much I liked it.  RaeChelle asked me, "Have you ever been to Jose Pepper's in Overland Park?"

I told her that it didn't ring a bell.  She said, "Oh, my GOD!  They have the best Mexican food in the whole world!  When ever we go back home, we always stop at Jose Pepper's!"  She was describing this cheese sauce at the place - escindada con queso - that was simply to die for.  As she was describing the taste sensation to me, I thought Ryan was going to cry.  Anything that good deserved a visit. 

I was in Kansas City recently and got into my hotel in Overland Park just after 9 p.m. one evening.  I looked up Jose Pepper's on my GPS and found that it was only 1.3 miles away.  I threw my bags in the room and programmed the GPS to take me to Jose Pepper's.  In a long and round-about way (my GPS has a tendency to do that rather than use the real world approach of taking a left turn instead of three right turns) I found Jose Pepper's (see map).

I immediately realized that I'd been there before. 

About six years ago, I had just put on a new dealer in Overland Park.  It was after closing time one night and I asked some of the sales crew if they wanted to go out and get something to eat.  They suggested this Mexican restaurant that was tucked back in the corner of a strip mall off of Metcalf Ave.  I remember the food was outrageously good and the margaritas were some of the best I'd ever had.  The problem was that on subsequent trips to Kansas City and hankering for Mexican food I couldn't remember the name of the place.  I had an idea as to where it was and driving up and down Metcalf I couldn't seem to find it.  I figured that it probably went out of business. 

However, this recent night when I found it, I realized that one of the big reasons why I couldn't find it was because it was hidden by a big bank at the corner of 103rd and Metcalf.  Sure enough, there it was.  I couldn't remember the name of the place (as I usually can't), but I can sure remember the food and, generally, where it is. 

Jose Pepper's is actually a small local chain of Mexican Food restaurants under the J.P.'s Southwestern Cuisine banner.  The parent company of J.P.'s Southwestern Cuisine is North Star restaurants which runs 8 Jose Pepper's throughout Kansas City, one in Topeka and one in Wichita, and the Cactus Grill in suburban Leawood, KS. (click here to see all the locations.) The original Jose Pepper's - the one at 103rd and Metcalf - opened in 1988. 

Jose Pepper's has been getting some local notoriety lately - and not for the best type of P.R.  They just settled a sexual harassment lawsuit that was brought on by an 18-year-old waitress who accused a former assistant manager at the Cactus Grill of inappropriately touching her and making sexual suggestions. 

And earlier this year, a judge decided that a class action suit against the chain could go forward after Jose Pepper's was found in violation of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act by printing more than five numbers of a customer's credit card number on their receipt.  The lawsuit covers over 45,000 transactions between December of 2006 and December of 2007.  The lawsuit could award each person who used their credit card at a Jose Pepper's or at the Cactus Grill during that period up to $1000.  Understandably, Jose Pepper's lawyers say the lawsuit would be "annihilating" to the chain, but the judge allowed the lawsuit to proceed.

Well, I certainly didn't care about any lawsuits when I got into Jose Pepper's around 9:15 p.m.  There were a few people in the bar area and just a handful of people in the dining room.  I contemplated sitting in the bar and having dinner, but I ended up going for a booth along the wall in the dining room.  The hostess guided me to the table, dropped off the menu and told me that they had a 2 for 1 special on Patron margaritas - $10 bucks for two 28 oz. margaritas.  I immediately signed up for one of those.  A young man brought over some fresh corn chips and salsa to get me started.

The menu at Jose Pepper's features a number of authentic Mexican foods including enchiladas, chimichangas, tamales - even seafood tacos featuring grilled mahi or shrimp.  Oooo...  I remember this place now.  They had GREAT mahi tacos!  San Diego style with the cabbage.  Ummm....  That's why I kept trying to find the place.

The original hostess - also a waitress - brought my first margarita to the table.  She said that another waitress would be helping me out.  Not long after that, a younger girl - well below 20 years old - with braces on her teeth timidly approached me to see if I was ready to order. 

I was leaning toward getting the fish tacos, but I'd also been looking over the combination plates.  The one that really caught my eye was the number 4 combo - a shredded beef hard shell taco, a pork tamale and a cheese enchilada.  Only I asked if I could substitute a beef enchilada instead of the cheese enchilada.  The young girl said, "Oh, gee.  I don't really know if we can.  I can ask."  I also got an order of the espinaca con queso cheese sauce.

I'd downed my first margarita and was ready for the second one.  When the young waitress brought out the espinaca, I asked her to bring me the second margarita.  She said, "I'll get someone to get that for you."  It dawned on me that since she was under 21 she couldn't serve me a drink.  The first waitress/hostess brought me my other margarita. 

I do have to say that the espinaca con queso was absolutely outstanding and sinfully rich.  The chunks of peppers they put in the cheese sauce gave it a little kick, but not enough that deterred from the overall taste sensation.  While the bowl wasn't all that big, it was way too much for one person to eat.  But I did take a large chunk of cheese sauce out of the bowl.   

I never really knew if the substitution I requested would make it to my plate or not.  The waitress basically forgot about me and the food took an excruciatingly (it's a word - I looked it up) long time to get to my table.  I was hoping that it was because the food was good and authentic, and not pre-made and micro-waved like you find at some Mexican restaurants.  Finally, about 20 minutes after I ordered, my food showed up.  The wait was worth it. 

She was able to make the substitution of the cheese enchilada for the beef enchilada and the seasoning on the beef was outstanding.  But the highlights of the meal were the pork tamale and the shredded beef taco, which was placed in its very own holder. 

The pork tamale was just this side of heaven - flavorful, a nice corn meal outer shell with loads of seasoned sliced pork meat inside.  The pork literally melted in my mouth.  I'm not big on really doughy tamales, but this one was not that oppressive.  It was sensational. 

For as much as I like grilled fish tacos, I'm about as big a sucker for shredded beef tacos.  And the shredded beef taco at Jose Pepper's was no exception.  The beef was tender and ripe with flavor.  The taco shell was nice and crunchy.  It was as close to the perfect taco that one could ask for.  You're much more likely to find a shredded beef taco on the menu than one that features ground beef.  This one was 4 star taco. 

I couldn't finish my meal - I left a good portion of the corn meal dough tamale on the plate, but picked out the pork.  I made quick work of the shredded beef taco and finished what I could of the beef enchilada.  The meal was exactly what I remembered it to be six years prior - completely outstanding. 

I will say that the biggest drawback was the service at Jose Pepper's.  It took too long for the food to come and I was almost over-gorged on the chips and espinaca con queso dip by the time it finally showed up.  Also, having an underaged girl serving me while I was ordering drinks was a minor hassle.  (I ordered a Dos Equis beer when she brought me out my food and the other waitress didn't get it to me until my meal was nearly finished.)  But the food was just outstanding and it was tough to beat the $5 dollar 28 oz. Patron margaritas.  Times two.   

I certainly have to thank Ryan and RaeChelle for mentioning Jose Pepper's.  And I'm overly glad that I was able to find it once again.  Now that I know what I'm looking for and where it is, it will be a staple during my trips to K.C. - just like Oklahoma Joe's has become for me.  I just hope that class action lawsuit doesn't hurt them in the long run. 

Joe's KC Barbecue (Formerly Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue) - Olathe

While in Kansas City recently, I had just gotten back from a long trip out toward West Central Kansas and decided to try and find the newer of the two locations of Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue - the location on Strang Road in Olathe, KS (see map).  Oklahoma Joe's has suddenly risen to the top of my "favorites" list of a long line of great barbecue places in the Kansas City area.  (You can read my original post on Oklahoma Joe's here.) 

The original Oklahoma Joe's is located in what is basically an old gas station in Kansas City, KS (below left).  It is one of the more unique places I've been to for any type of restaurant.   The barbecue I had on my first visit was absolutely fabulous - the brisket was out of this world and the ribs were very, very good.  Each time I get back to K.C., I have to have at least one meal at Oklahoma Joe's.

 
I was staying out at my usual place in Overland Park, KS - the Hilton Garden Inn - and the Olathe Oklahoma Joe's is much closer to my hotel than the original one in Kansas City.  The Oklahoma Joe's in Olathe (above right - picture courtesy of Kansas Travel.org) is located in a newer strip mall and has ample parking around the building.  Even coming up on 8 p.m., I was having trouble finding a place to park because it was packed with people at that time.  The one in Kansas City, Kansas (or KCK, as the locals refer to it) serves its last meal at 8:30 p.m through the week.  The Olathe location closes at 9 p.m. for the late eating suburbanite crowd.  (The KCK location is open until 9:30 on weekends and the Olathe location closes at 10:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.  Both locations are closed on Sunday.)  

 

The inside of Oklahoma Joe's in Olathe (picture right courtesy of Kansas Travel.org) is vastly larger than the original location, but it doesn't have any of the rib joint ambiance that the KCK Oklahoma Joe's possesses.  The menu in Olathe is nearly identical to the KCK location and the line to order at the counter was nearly 12 people deep when I walked in.  It allowed me ample time to peruse the large blackboard menu on the wall to see what I really wanted to eat that evening.

Without getting into the detail that I did with my original post, I'll just say that I went with the Two Meat Dinner - pulled pork and brisket with a side of baked beans and Texas toast, with a couple bottles of Bud Light to help wash the dust out of my mouth from a long day of driving and to help cut into the zippy chipotle pepper taste of Oklahoma Joe's "Night of the Living Sauce" barbecue sauce.

While the surroundings at the Olathe location was more of a corporate chain restaurant, the food was probably as good as the original Oklahoma Joe's in KCK.   The brisket was devastatingly delicious, tender and lean with a hint of a smoke taste.  The pulled pork was equally tender, but sort of lacked a good smoky base to the meat.  But putting a combination of the Oklahoma Joe's regular "Cowtown" sauce and the more spicy sauce together, the taste sensation with the pulled pork was not lost.  And adding some of the "Night of the Living Sauce" to the baked beans helped flare up an already wonderful side dish.

Next door to the Oklahoma Joe's restaurant in Olathe is a barbecue store that sells smokers and grilles, sauces, rubs, wood chips and barbecue accessories.  It's similar to the stuff you'd find at Smoke 'n' Fire in Overland Park, but much smaller in size and in selection than what Smoke 'n' Fire offers.

I've heard that the decor and ambiance of a restaurant can make the food taste better.  I sort of like the old rib joint feel to the original Oklahoma Joe's in KCK compared to the slick, contemporary interior of their Olathe location.  While it is comfortable with larger tables and a larger dining area than the original place, I think the KCK Oklahoma Joe's is just a notch better than the one in Olathe.  That's not to say that I didn't like my meal at the Olathe Oklahoma Joe's, it was very, very good - still one of the best, if not THE best barbecue in Kansas City.  But even though it's a little more of a haul from where I stay when I'm in the Kansas City location, I'd go back to the Oklahoma Joe's in KCK before I'd go to the one in Olathe.

Bristol Seafood Grill - Leawood, KS

Trying to impress a potential custom audio/video dealer in the Kansas City area earlier this summer, we agreed on dinner for four of his staff at Bristol Seafood Grill in suburban Leawood, KS (see map).  I'd eaten at the Bristol location in St. Louis a number of years ago and I do remember it as being very good.  I was sort of surprised to see one in suburban Kansas City and wondered if it were part of the same family as the one in St. Louis. 

Yep, it sure is.  In fact, there are four Bristol Seafood Grill's these days - the one in the Creve Coeur area of St. Louis, a location in the far western St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon, one in downtown Kansas City in the new Power and Light District near the Sprint Center, and the one we went to located in the Town Center Plaza in Leawood.  The original Bristol Seafood Grill location was in the Country Club Plaza of Kansas City, but that closed up in 1995 (more on that later). 

The four Bristol locations are owned by the Houlihan's corporation, the Kansas City-based restaurant chain with 97 locations in 20 states that had been in and out of financial trouble in the late 90's and right after the turn of the century.  In addition to the Bristol and Houlihan's restaurants under their corporate umbrella, the restaurant company also owns J. Gilberts, a very good Kansas City-area steakhouse that I wrote about here; the Devon Seafood Grill with locations in Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Hershey, PA; the Braxton Seafood Grill in the Oak Brook Center in suburban Chicago; and Chequers Seafood Grill in Atlanta.  The Devon, Braxton and Chequers Seafood Grills all have the same concept and theme as the Bristol Seafood restaurants. 

Like the others, the Bristol Seafood Grill is more of an upscale casual restaurant.  The bar area is usually full of people and can get very loud at times, while the dining area is more subdued with sturdy chairs and heavy tables covered with white linen.  The executive chef of the Leawood location is Dan Uche, overseeing a staff that makes a number of delectable items to choose from.

A couple of the people were late for our 6 p.m. meeting - one was having car trouble, the other - the owner - was still on a job site.  I sat down with two of the people who I'd known for years and years from working in the audio/video industry, catching up on old times.  The person with car trouble showed up about 6:30 and we were still waiting on the owner.  We decided to order a couple appetizers - Bristol's tuna sushi rolls and a double order of their famous crab cakes.  Our waiter, who was a very agreeable fellow, was already getting high marks for his sense of humor and his attentive nature.  

The center piece of the dining room was this wonderful stained glass dome that was situated right over the top of the room.  I was told that the glass dome was in the original Bristol restaurant in the Plaza area of Kansas City, but that restaurant shut down in 1995 because of a dispute with the then landlord of the property.  When they decided to build a location in Leawood in 2006, they actually pulled the dome off the old building, crated it up and then helicoptered the crate out to the Leawood location where it was put on top of the existing building.  The light filtering through the stained glass dome gave the main dining area a nice warm glow.    

It fully appeared the owner was knee-deep in his work, but did tell one of the people that he'd be there as soon as he could, even if it were just to drop by for a bit.  And the person with car trouble said that he'd probably only be able to stay for a drink and some appetizers as he needed to attend to his automotive problems.  The other two guests and I decided to just to go ahead and order up our food and worry about getting something for the owner a little later on.  

Our appetizers showed up at the table and the tuna sushi rolls was just excellent.  The crab cakes were large and rich - one of my guests said, "I usually order a double order of them for dinner, they're so good." 

And they're filling!  I ate one and I thought there would be no way I could eat a double order of these!  

The guest with the car trouble excused himself to leave, and one of the others made a quick call to see where the boss was.  He was still more than an hour away from leaving and it would have still been a 45 minute drive to the Bristol.  He told us to go ahead and order something and he'd worry about getting something when he got there.  

The menu at Bristol Seafood Grill is very extensive with fresh fish, steaks, pasta and even their rendition of a shrimp enchilada.  There were a couple nightly specials, but I was sort of looking at the Big Eye tuna from Hawaii.  Usually, the Bristol's seafood selections are cooked over a mesquite flame, but our waiter had a blackened cajun special that evening.  I asked him if I could get the Big Eye tuna rare, but blackened and he said, "We can do anything you like with it, sir!"  

I said, "Could you take it out back and drag it through the parking lot, then slam it against the building a couple times?"

The waiter feigned indignation.  "Our seafood is already handled roughly, sir!  That's what makes it so tender!"   He was a great guy.  I got mashed sweet potatoes and a vegetable medley for my sides.

One of the guests order the seared scallops served with a lemon-asparagus risotto.  And the other person ordered the swordfish special along with roasted yellow russet potatoes and asparagus.  

The Bristol's wine list is also pretty extensive with a number of very good wines from a number of vineyards from the Pacific Coast, Australia, New Zealand, France and Italy.  Since everyone was having seafood, I went with a bottle of the Ferrari Carano Fume Blanc from 2008, a light and dry wine that I particularly love with seafood.  I thought it to be a little over priced at $46 bucks, however.  But Bristol was an upscale place and the entrees weren't all that cheap either. 

After talking a little shop and going over some things about their business for a little bit, our entrees showed up at the table.  My blackened Big Eye tuna had a nice sear around the edges, topped with a generous amount of Cajun seasonings.  My knife went easily through the fish and from the first bite I was in heaven.  The combination of the spicy seasonings and the freshness of the fish set off a party on my taste buds.  It was absolutely fabulous.  And very surprising, considering the great seafood dishes I had in Hawaii.  The fish I had at Bristol that night easily beat one or two where I had seafood in Hawaii.

My one guest said his scallops were very good, as well.  "I usually get the double order of crab cakes, but I wanted to try something else tonight.  These are great."

My other guest was fully satisfied with her swordfish.  "I don't know how they get the fish so fresh here in Kansas City," she said.  "But I've never had a bad meal at Bristol."  

Toward the end of dinner, one of my guest's cellphone rang.  It was the boss, he was on his way and would be there in 20 minutes.  We ordered up an order of crab cakes and a salad for him so he'd have it as soon as he walked in.  

He did come in about 25 minutes later, apologizing profusely for missing a good portion of the evening.  But I fully understood.  He had a big job that he needed to complete for a client and even if that meant skipping out on the dinner meeting, so be it.   But we talked business as he ate his salad and crab cakes.  And that continued well into the evening and up to the time that Bristol was getting ready to close at 10 p.m.  

Although nothing was finalized or agreed upon that evening, I think the meeting went about as well as it could have considering the circumstances.  But I will say the meal at Bristol Seafood Grill was just excellent.  I remember it being good when I first ate at the one in St. Louis over 20 years ago.  My blackened Big Eye tuna was just stellar and the service was outstanding.  I gave the waiter a little extra tip as we basically rented a table for six for the night with only three people sitting at it most of the evening. 

Before we left, the general manager - Phil - came over to see how the evening was.  I told him that it was one of the more pleasurable dining experiences in my travels.  He told us to come back and see them again.  

I'm hoping to land this dealer in the Kansas City area because they're located not far from the Bristol Seafood Grill.  And I wouldn't mind going back there again at some point.