KCRag Forum

Highlander wrote:I am a little relieved reading the comments above. While I had high hopes for this place and definitely have my own hierarchy of KC bbq (Joe's would be upper tier for sure but not tops), the Texas Ice House format concerned me. Having been a resident of Texas for much of my adult life, I never really thought the ice house concept was all that great and I certainly put their bbq (albeit high meat quality) on a lower rung than KC bbq. Generally, ice houses do not have wait staff, you order from a counter and carry your food to your table. The meat sits out and gets dried out and the beer is generally served in cans and bottles that customers grab from an ice chest before sitting down...not many droughts available and generally not craft beer. I don't like the vinegary sauces and most do not even serve french fries with bbq. Happy to hear that there is sit down service (nothing is more annoying than paying a lot for a meal and being unable to find a table), the BBQ remains distinctly local flavored and that there will be a host of craft beers on tap (having to drink bud light is a deal killer for me). I could do without another over the top sports bar-ish place though. That said, I'll try it out but it will take a lot to dethrone Jack Stack as my go to place for urban bbq.

Don't fear. It's good.

StrangerThings wrote:I’ve never seen a national story about Gates or Arthur Bryant’s.

What’s funny is Arthur Bryant’s has an in the news page on their website that makes it really easy to find the articles about them.

https://www.arthurbryantsbbq.com/arthur ... press.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/trav ... d=pl-share

I was in this store in the middle of rural Ohio.
https://www.lehmans.com/kidron_store
I found Arthur Bryant’s BBQ sauce for sale there.

We tried County Road for lunch yesterday and it was pricey like Q39/JackStack and doesn't have the smokey flavor due to indoor pits (like Q39/JackStack) but it was still pretty good. Should do well for what P&L is. They do need to dump the country music though, kinda spoiled the lunch for all of us - rushed to get out.

Well toursity 'theme' restaurants is what P&L appears to want to attract. They should at least turn volume down, or no music at all.

No bubba gump?

BBQ and country music=Texas
BBQ and jazz=KC

I was just at the original Joe's last night, country music was blasting out the door. So it's definitely within their brand.

Plus per cityscene, it's a mix of music styles with blues and classic rock thrown in.

StrangerThings wrote:Thanks, I'm not knocking any KC BBQ places, I've just seen more articles about Joe's over any other local spot recently on the national level. I read one of the articles off of Arthur B's "in the press" section and the best take away in all this was in there, "Good BBQ is highly subjective". I'll just stop there.

That's because the national press just latches onto whatever the previous national press story was. Joes is not really "KC" bbq. It's good enough to make it in KC, but it's not the best in KC by a long shot.

And the theme of the new place with all the country music and what not is also a made up theme of what tourists and the national press would imagine the KC bbq experience to be like, but it's made up.

KC bbq is urban bbq. While most bbq has a rural, southern, culture, KC's is urban and is mostly developed by African american culture, not cowboys.

It might be "Kansas" bbq, like that retarded ass place in downtown San Diego that is run by transplanted Kansans that calls itself Kansas City BBQ. That place is embarrassing to both Kansas "City" and KC bbq. But people probably imagine they are in KC eating authentic KC bbq when they go there. It's what they already think KC is like.

I mentioned Famous Dave's only because the atmosphere sounds very similar. Famous Dave's bbq is terrible.

I think it's still a great addition to the P&L district. It's a perfect fit and it will even be popular with downtown residents and workers mostly because there is just not a lot of options for bbq in the heart of downtown. But it's not KC bbq. It's more like suburban Texas frontage road bbq.

And if places like Joes is someday all that's left in KC, then authentic KC BBQ will be about as dead as the KC Blues and Jazz music scene.

They said they were doing a mix of country and Texas blues and classic rock....should do less country imo.

moderne wrote:BBQ and country music=Texas
BBQ and jazz=KC

More people listen to country music in Kansas City than jazz. Thus, why it's played in P&L restaurant designed for the masses.

FangKC wrote:

moderne wrote:BBQ and country music=Texas
BBQ and jazz=KC

More people listen to country music in Kansas City than jazz. Thus, why it's played in P&L restaurant designed for the masses.

I can’t picture hearing jazz music ever when eating BBQ

Is there a restaurant in town that does this?

GRID wrote:

StrangerThings wrote: KC bbq is urban bbq. While most bbq has a rural, southern, culture, KC's is urban and is mostly developed by African american culture, not cowboys.

Well, Henry Perry came here from rural Tennessee, the Bryant’s came here from rural Texas, the Gates’ came from Memphis and bought Old Kentuck BBQ from a guy who came from Alabama. Not sure how urban bbqed opossum and raccoon are.

Either way, I’m pretty sure everyone here knows what your real hang-up with Joes is.

StrangerThings wrote:Hell, some say BBQ in America really got started in the late 1800’s by cowboys who were a part of cattle drives. They had pretty tough meat and needed to smoke and slow cook it for hours. So if that’s even half true.

That’s not even half true. As close as it gets is that there was some Mexican pit cooking tradition cowboy camp cooks were familiar with. But BBQ is a distinctly black, southern invention.

The fun thing about arguing about BBQ is that you can do it in every country too.

This is the weirdest BBQ fight I've seen.

chingon wrote:

GRID wrote:

StrangerThings wrote: KC bbq is urban bbq. While most bbq has a rural, southern, culture, KC's is urban and is mostly developed by African american culture, not cowboys.

Well, Henry Perry came here from rural Tennessee, the Bryant’s came here from rural Texas, the Gates’ came from Memphis and bought Old Kentuck BBQ from a guy who came from Alabama. Not sure how urban bbqed opossum and raccoon are.

Either way, I’m pretty sure everyone here knows what your real hang-up with Joes is.

While it's true that KC BBQ has its "origins" elsewhere, KC has absolutely evolved its own style of BBQ that's distinctively different from what you get from other regions from the way the meat is cooked down to the sauce and the sides. According to wikipedia, Bryant was the first to add molasses to cut the vinegary taste of Perry's sauce which I would guess essentially started the KC style sauce.

What makes KC BBQ stand out is that there is no one style. KC will smoke most anything, even jackfruit, and while molasses is considered a KC 'style' what sets KC apart from other BBQ centers is that there is a huge variety of sauces. We do an Asian inspired one with rice vinegar, ginger, lemongrass and lime leaves, which a friend has sold at a farmers market. But to a KC BBQ purist, the sauce doesn't make BBQ, it's just a condiment. That is, putting a great sauce on processed meat doesn't make it BBQ. The goal of the purist is to rub/smoke meat so perfectly it doesn't need sauce. Many BBQ restaurants fail at this, especially those that use indoor pits (County Rd, Q39, JackStacks outside original). But indoor pits allow better control of meat texture at expense of flavor.

Kind of a deviation from the subject but it was a surprise to me that pizza and mexican and not bbq are the restaurant foods of choice around the KC area (except for Wyandotte County).

https://pudding.cool/2018/02/restaurants/

Highlander wrote:

chingon wrote:

GRID wrote:

Well, Henry Perry came here from rural Tennessee, the Bryant’s came here from rural Texas, the Gates’ came from Memphis and bought Old Kentuck BBQ from a guy who came from Alabama. Not sure how urban bbqed opossum and raccoon are.

Either way, I’m pretty sure everyone here knows what your real hang-up with Joes is.

While it's true that KC BBQ has its "origins" elsewhere, KC has absolutely evolved its own style of BBQ that's distinctively different from what you get from other regions from the way the meat is cooked down to the sauce and the sides. According to wikipedia, Bryant was the first to add molasses to cut the vinegary taste of Perry's sauce which I would guess essentially started the KC style sauce.

Sure on your larger point about KCs style. But calling that style inherently “urban” is a bit of a Rhetorical Kansas City shuffle, when Grids point is he doesn’t like Joes because it’s in Kansas and it got real famous. I’m like Joes, not cause it’s in Kansas, or because I think it’s the best BBQ in KC, or the coolest experience (not that any of the Gates locations or Bryant’s is particularly functionally urban, anyway, I’d bet OK Joes has a higher population density around it than any of them), but I know if I have family in town who want good BBQ there is no way I’d risk taking them to Bryants or Gates over Joes.

With regards to molasses, Bryant’s (original) sauce doesn’t have molasses in it. Neither does Gates, I don’t think. I don’t know that it ever did, I’ve certainly not heard it told that way. There’s long been a rumor that it used to use a fermented pig blood base, now it’s thickened with lard. One of the things I always found puzzling about perception of KC BBQ as “sweet sauced” is that I think that mostly stems from he ubiquitousness abroad of Masterpiece.

Arguing about BBQ might be the dumbest thing around. Find what you like and eat what you like. Try new things. That's what I love about KC BBQ, we will smoke anything, any way we like. So glad we're not dogmatic about beef, tied to pork or religious about having to have mustard in our sauce. Just smoke it and enjoy.

I've had jackfruit with spicy sauce at Char bar that was amazing, and I never thought I would like that.

History is just the wind in your sails. You hold the rudder, go where you want. Even if it means going against the wind.