/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71003416/022.JoesKC.7.jpeg)
A Bourdain-approved brisket sandwich at a gas station, smoked pork belly tacos at a buzzy pop-up, turkey legs stuffed with mac and cheese, and more of the best barbecue in KC
by Liz Cook Updated
View as Map
by Liz Cook Updated
Since Henry Perry, the self-styled father of Kansas City barbecue, opened his first lunch stand in 1908, locals and tourists have been trying to pin down what exactly defines the KC barbecue style. Some point to our lean, thin-sliced brisket, a workaday preparation meant to be piled in ribbons on a squishy white bun. Others point to burnt ends, one of the city’s proudest inventions: fatty, tender trimmings from beef brisket with crunchy, caramelized bark. But pitmasters here are just as preoccupied with beef and pork ribs, hand-cranked sausages, moist and salty pit ham, and smoked fowl.
Here’s as close to a barbecue thesis statement as you’ll get: The modern Kansas City “style” is doing a little bit of everything well and doing it with a side of sauce.
Under that expansive umbrella, the barbecue restaurants on this list range from walk-up windows with a handful of picnic tables to full-service restaurants with cocktails and cloth napkins. The best way to experience KC barbecue is to visit both the old-school institutions that helped define the genre and the new guard of innovative pitmasters expanding its boundaries.
Liz Cook is a freelance writer based in Kansas City, Missouri, and the creator of the experimental food newsletter Haterade.
Thanks to Scott’s Kitchen, travelers with even the shortest layovers have no excuse to pass on Kansas City barbecue. Scott’s Northland location is as close as you can get to Kansas City International Airport without going through security. It’s also one of the only places in the city where you can order barbecue at 7 a.m. If you go for breakfast, try the brisket tacos. If you go for lunch — still try the brisket tacos. The spice-crusted, thick-sliced brisket is just one of many reasons locals without travel plans make the drive to the area.
In a city defined by its “melting pit” embrace of miscellaneous meats, there’s something radical
about specialization. After a long stint toting his offset smoker around the city in a trailer, KC Turkeyleggman (née Matthew Montgomery) opened his first permanent location last year, where he continues his laser focus on glossy, super-sized turkey legs smoked over a blend of hickory, cherry, and pecan. The most popular order here is the Bussdown Legg, a turkey leg slashed open and stuffed with Montgomery’s gooey mac and cheese (reminiscent of the legs at Houston’s famous Turkey Leg Hut). If that sounds gimmicky, trust that the barbecuing isn’t. Montgomery’s leggs are rich and smoky, with moist meat and ideally crisp, bronzed skin. Don’t skip the sides: The mixed greens (a blend of kale and collards) are some of the best in the city, studded with smoky morsels of — you guessed it — turkey. Carry-out if you can; dine-in space is limited to just one table and a few stools.
There’s no secret to the success of Chef J, a next-gen barbecue destination in the city’s historic Stockyards District. Pitmaster Justin Easterwood’s 1,000-gallon offset smoker — which he calls “Big Mila”— is parked right outside. That smoker yields thick, fall-apart slices of beef brisket and tender ribs with a bold bark. The sandwiches are just as good. Try the Tennessee Dip, a pulled pork sandwich served with a cup of spicy, vinegary red sauce. Easterwood isn’t precious about mixing regional influences: His gold sauce, coarse with mustard, hints at South Carolina, while his signature sauce is vinegar-based and stippled with pepper and celery seed. Kansas Citians have embraced him all the same. A new, larger location (with four custom-built offset smokers) is in the works for KC’s Pennway Point district, with an opening tentatively slated for fall 2024.
The second you walk through the door at Gates, you’ll be greeted with a “Hi, may I help you?” more sung than spoken. If you need a minute to decide, just ask — or order a beef Nooner: ribbons of thin-sliced brisket and a small mound of chopped burnt ends piled on a pliant bun. Add a generous squeeze of the beloved house sauce, which is subtly sweet but balanced with vinegar, smoke, and a blush of heat. Gates has been a local institution since 1946; while the restaurant has six locations now, the Brooklyn Avenue location is a favorite for its old-school cool and boisterous bar.
On the weekends, you’ll find a mix of locals, tourists, and Beltway politicians at this Jazz District restaurant, which writer Calvin Trillin famously decreed “the single best restaurant in the world” in 1972. Bryant’s decor hasn’t changed much since Trillin’s visit: a time capsule of Formica, framed newspaper clippings, and greasy floor tiles. The cooking has changed, though. To meet demand, Bryant’s now cubes whole briskets for most of its burnt ends. (To ensure your ends are cut from the brisket point, go with the 3B sandwich.) No matter what you order, top it with a generous splurt of Bryant’s brick-red, distinctively bitter sauce. No one makes a sauce like Bryant’s — whether that’s good or bad is one of the city’s enduring culinary debates.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73504971/Wheat_Photography_1.0.jpg)
Barbecue snobs tend to overlook restaurants with cloth napkins and metal silverware. But at Fiorella’s Jack Stack, a single, humble side dish has kept the critics at bay: Kansas City-style cheesy corn. Jack Stack popularized the dish — a slightly tangy, velvety cheese sauce cut with crisp morsels of smoky pit ham — in the 1980s, and it’s since become an essential part of the city’s barbecue tradition. For a main, you can’t go wrong with an order of ham, but you may as well lean into the upscale atmosphere with the unique (and extravagant) crown prime beef rib. Although Jack Stack has six metro locations, the Freight House restaurant, just off the streetcar line, is particularly cute and convenient for tourists.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73504972/Jack_Stack_Photo_1.0.png)
Most nights, chef and butcher Vaughn Good helms the kitchen at Fox and Pearl, a stylish spot for wood-fired cooking. But every Thursday, he descends into the restaurant’s basement lounge for Night Goat, the city’s best craft barbecue pop-up. Expect house-made hot dogs, mouthwatering pastrami sandwiches, and smoked pork belly tacos served on supple pork-fat Caramelo tortillas (made in nearby Lawrence, Kansas). While hours are limited right now, Good plans to dedicate the lounge to Night Goat full time this fall.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73504973/Pilsen_Photo_Co_op_3.0.jpeg)
This dressed-down sandwich spot is more often populated with locals on their lunch breaks than tourists. That might have something to do with Edwards’s long-time slogan: “Eat it an’ beat it.” Sure enough, the food comes out fast so customers can get back to their jobs, but no one will give you any guff for camping out in one of the red banquet chairs or taking the time to squirt an extra layer of glossy, smoky sauce onto your sandwich. The most famous option is the Big D: brisket on rye with Swiss cheese and a crunchy crown of onion rings.
Q39 is a bit more polished than some competitors, the kind of place where there’s a nontrivial possibility of seeing someone spray sauce onto a starched collar. But this family-friendly restaurant is a local favorite for its uncanny ability to turn out consistent barbecue at a high volume. Founder Rob Magee, who died in 2021, cut his teeth on the competition barbecue circuit, and the competition-ready combo plates remain the thing to order here. The original location in Midtown is always crowded, so make a reservation or plan on a long wait; it’s easier to snag a table at Q39 South in Overland Park, Kansas. (A third location in Lawrence, Kansas, is set to open this fall.)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73504974/Pilsen_Photo_Co_op.0.jpg)
It would be easy to survey Char Bar’s industrial-chic dining room and expansive, outdoor beer garden (complete with a fire pit and bocce courts), and write it off as style over substance. That would be a mistake. Sure, Char Bar is crowd-pleasing, with table-service, brunch cocktails, and vegetarian entrees. But the restaurant is also quietly serving some of the best burnt ends in the city, which perfectly balance seasoned bark and yielding bite. Although Char Bar has two locations, the original Westport restaurant is more centrally located.
Formerly known as Oklahoma Joe’s, this Kansas City, Kansas, mainstay operates inside of an old gas station. Lines can be long at peak hours, perhaps in part because Anthony Bourdain named Joe’s one of his “13 Places to Eat Before You Die.” It would be easy to coast on that reputation, but Joe’s has remained consistent over the years, with top-notch beef ribs, burnt ends, and tender brisket; try that last one on the Z-Man, one of the city’s iconic sandwiches, which tops ripples of brisket with smoked provolone and two onion rings. To eat like a local, call ahead for carryout, which you can grab after waiting in a separate, much shorter line. Don’t miss the seasoned fries or dirty rice.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73504975/030.JoesKC.0.jpeg)
All of the action happens right under your nose at this classic counter-service restaurant, where cooks shuffle whole briskets, racks of ribs, and hams around a three-tiered pit lacquered jet-black with grease. Although founder LC Richardson died in 2021, his granddaughter, Tausha Hammett, runs the restaurant now and has kept the recipes (and that original three-tiered pit) in place. Stick with the classics: burnt ends, brisket, and ribs. Like a few other old-school Kansas City joints, LC’s lets you order your ribs from the “short end” or “long end” (the long-end ribs tend to be better rendered).
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73504976/IMG_5637.0.jpeg)
Maybe it’s the 15-minute drive from downtown, or maybe it’s that you have to pass by LC’s Bar-B-Q on the way to get here — whatever the reason, Big T’s has flown relatively under the radar compared to some of the city’s other barbecue giants. That’s a shame, because the wood-fired brisket and ribs coming out of Timothy Jones’s brick pit are consistently great. Dine in to soak up the restaurant’s charmingly retro vibes, with decor evoking KC’s stockyard roots.
Few pitmasters have had as big an influence on KC barbecue in recent years as Tyler Harp. Since coming on the scene in 2019, he’s launched a local barbecue festival and an educational podcast, and inspired a host of aspiring craft barbecuers to switch to offset smokers. Get here early to sample Harp’s incredibly rich sausages and meltingly soft, thick-sliced brisket. If you’re thinking that brisket sounds more Texas-style, you’re right. But Harp has never let regional expectations define his cooking, adopting techniques from across the country even as he pays tribute to the pitmasters that first put KC on the map.
Note: Harp Barbecue plans to close for several weeks and reopen this fall at 12094 W. 135th Street, Overland Park, KS, 66221.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73504977/Tyler_Harp_1.0.jpeg)
Buck Tui opened in 2021 promising something new: KC barbecue executed with Northern Thai flavors and techniques. Chef Ted Liberda (who also owns the excellent Waldo Thai with his wife, Pam) has lived up to the mission, combining creative barbecue plates with date-night cocktails and kitschy (yet delicious) appetizers like brisket rangoon and smoked butterscotch wings. Order the two-meat plate to try both Liberda’s Isaan Thai pork sausage, fragrant with lemongrass and makrut lime, and a tangle of coriander-seasoned smoked pork. The accompanying sides (jasmine rice, tangy papaya slaw) brighten up even the richest barbecue plates.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73504978/buck_tui_pineapple_pork_ribs_1.0.jpeg)
Link copied to the clipboard.
Scott’s Kitchen
Thanks to Scott’s Kitchen, travelers with even the shortest layovers have no excuse to pass on Kansas City barbecue. Scott’s Northland location is as close as you can get to Kansas City International Airport without going through security. It’s also one of the only places in the city where you can order barbecue at 7 a.m. If you go for breakfast, try the brisket tacos. If you go for lunch — still try the brisket tacos. The spice-crusted, thick-sliced brisket is just one of many reasons locals without travel plans make the drive to the area.
KC Turkeyleggman
In a city defined by its “melting pit” embrace of miscellaneous meats, there’s something radical
about specialization. After a long stint toting his offset smoker around the city in a trailer, KC Turkeyleggman (née Matthew Montgomery) opened his first permanent location last year, where he continues his laser focus on glossy, super-sized turkey legs smoked over a blend of hickory, cherry, and pecan. The most popular order here is the Bussdown Legg, a turkey leg slashed open and stuffed with Montgomery’s gooey mac and cheese (reminiscent of the legs at Houston’s famous Turkey Leg Hut). If that sounds gimmicky, trust that the barbecuing isn’t. Montgomery’s leggs are rich and smoky, with moist meat and ideally crisp, bronzed skin. Don’t skip the sides: The mixed greens (a blend of kale and collards) are some of the best in the city, studded with smoky morsels of — you guessed it — turkey. Carry-out if you can; dine-in space is limited to just one table and a few stools.
Chef J BBQ
There’s no secret to the success of Chef J, a next-gen barbecue destination in the city’s historic Stockyards District. Pitmaster Justin Easterwood’s 1,000-gallon offset smoker — which he calls “Big Mila”— is parked right outside. That smoker yields thick, fall-apart slices of beef brisket and tender ribs with a bold bark. The sandwiches are just as good. Try the Tennessee Dip, a pulled pork sandwich served with a cup of spicy, vinegary red sauce. Easterwood isn’t precious about mixing regional influences: His gold sauce, coarse with mustard, hints at South Carolina, while his signature sauce is vinegar-based and stippled with pepper and celery seed. Kansas Citians have embraced him all the same. A new, larger location (with four custom-built offset smokers) is in the works for KC’s Pennway Point district, with an opening tentatively slated for fall 2024.
Gates Bar-B-Q
The second you walk through the door at Gates, you’ll be greeted with a “Hi, may I help you?” more sung than spoken. If you need a minute to decide, just ask — or order a beef Nooner: ribbons of thin-sliced brisket and a small mound of chopped burnt ends piled on a pliant bun. Add a generous squeeze of the beloved house sauce, which is subtly sweet but balanced with vinegar, smoke, and a blush of heat. Gates has been a local institution since 1946; while the restaurant has six locations now, the Brooklyn Avenue location is a favorite for its old-school cool and boisterous bar.
Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque
On the weekends, you’ll find a mix of locals, tourists, and Beltway politicians at this Jazz District restaurant, which writer Calvin Trillin famously decreed “the single best restaurant in the world” in 1972. Bryant’s decor hasn’t changed much since Trillin’s visit: a time capsule of Formica, framed newspaper clippings, and greasy floor tiles. The cooking has changed, though. To meet demand, Bryant’s now cubes whole briskets for most of its burnt ends. (To ensure your ends are cut from the brisket point, go with the 3B sandwich.) No matter what you order, top it with a generous splurt of Bryant’s brick-red, distinctively bitter sauce. No one makes a sauce like Bryant’s — whether that’s good or bad is one of the city’s enduring culinary debates.
Fiorella’s Jack Stack BBQ
Barbecue snobs tend to overlook restaurants with cloth napkins and metal silverware. But at Fiorella’s Jack Stack, a single, humble side dish has kept the critics at bay: Kansas City-style cheesy corn. Jack Stack popularized the dish — a slightly tangy, velvety cheese sauce cut with crisp morsels of smoky pit ham — in the 1980s, and it’s since become an essential part of the city’s barbecue tradition. For a main, you can’t go wrong with an order of ham, but you may as well lean into the upscale atmosphere with the unique (and extravagant) crown prime beef rib. Although Jack Stack has six metro locations, the Freight House restaurant, just off the streetcar line, is particularly cute and convenient for tourists.
Night Goat Barbecue
Most nights, chef and butcher Vaughn Good helms the kitchen at Fox and Pearl, a stylish spot for wood-fired cooking. But every Thursday, he descends into the restaurant’s basement lounge for Night Goat, the city’s best craft barbecue pop-up. Expect house-made hot dogs, mouthwatering pastrami sandwiches, and smoked pork belly tacos served on supple pork-fat Caramelo tortillas (made in nearby Lawrence, Kansas). While hours are limited right now, Good plans to dedicate the lounge to Night Goat full time this fall.
Danny Edwards BLVD Barbecue
This dressed-down sandwich spot is more often populated with locals on their lunch breaks than tourists. That might have something to do with Edwards’s long-time slogan: “Eat it an’ beat it.” Sure enough, the food comes out fast so customers can get back to their jobs, but no one will give you any guff for camping out in one of the red banquet chairs or taking the time to squirt an extra layer of glossy, smoky sauce onto your sandwich. The most famous option is the Big D: brisket on rye with Swiss cheese and a crunchy crown of onion rings.
Q39
Q39 is a bit more polished than some competitors, the kind of place where there’s a nontrivial possibility of seeing someone spray sauce onto a starched collar. But this family-friendly restaurant is a local favorite for its uncanny ability to turn out consistent barbecue at a high volume. Founder Rob Magee, who died in 2021, cut his teeth on the competition barbecue circuit, and the competition-ready combo plates remain the thing to order here. The original location in Midtown is always crowded, so make a reservation or plan on a long wait; it’s easier to snag a table at Q39 South in Overland Park, Kansas. (A third location in Lawrence, Kansas, is set to open this fall.)
Char Bar – Westport
It would be easy to survey Char Bar’s industrial-chic dining room and expansive, outdoor beer garden (complete with a fire pit and bocce courts), and write it off as style over substance. That would be a mistake. Sure, Char Bar is crowd-pleasing, with table-service, brunch cocktails, and vegetarian entrees. But the restaurant is also quietly serving some of the best burnt ends in the city, which perfectly balance seasoned bark and yielding bite. Although Char Bar has two locations, the original Westport restaurant is more centrally located.
Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que
Formerly known as Oklahoma Joe’s, this Kansas City, Kansas, mainstay operates inside of an old gas station. Lines can be long at peak hours, perhaps in part because Anthony Bourdain named Joe’s one of his “13 Places to Eat Before You Die.” It would be easy to coast on that reputation, but Joe’s has remained consistent over the years, with top-notch beef ribs, burnt ends, and tender brisket; try that last one on the Z-Man, one of the city’s iconic sandwiches, which tops ripples of brisket with smoked provolone and two onion rings. To eat like a local, call ahead for carryout, which you can grab after waiting in a separate, much shorter line. Don’t miss the seasoned fries or dirty rice.
LC’s Bar-B-Q
All of the action happens right under your nose at this classic counter-service restaurant, where cooks shuffle whole briskets, racks of ribs, and hams around a three-tiered pit lacquered jet-black with grease. Although founder LC Richardson died in 2021, his granddaughter, Tausha Hammett, runs the restaurant now and has kept the recipes (and that original three-tiered pit) in place. Stick with the classics: burnt ends, brisket, and ribs. Like a few other old-school Kansas City joints, LC’s lets you order your ribs from the “short end” or “long end” (the long-end ribs tend to be better rendered).
Big T’s Bar-B-Q
Maybe it’s the 15-minute drive from downtown, or maybe it’s that you have to pass by LC’s Bar-B-Q on the way to get here — whatever the reason, Big T’s has flown relatively under the radar compared to some of the city’s other barbecue giants. That’s a shame, because the wood-fired brisket and ribs coming out of Timothy Jones’s brick pit are consistently great. Dine in to soak up the restaurant’s charmingly retro vibes, with decor evoking KC’s stockyard roots.
Harp Barbecue
Few pitmasters have had as big an influence on KC barbecue in recent years as Tyler Harp. Since coming on the scene in 2019, he’s launched a local barbecue festival and an educational podcast, and inspired a host of aspiring craft barbecuers to switch to offset smokers. Get here early to sample Harp’s incredibly rich sausages and meltingly soft, thick-sliced brisket. If you’re thinking that brisket sounds more Texas-style, you’re right. But Harp has never let regional expectations define his cooking, adopting techniques from across the country even as he pays tribute to the pitmasters that first put KC on the map.
Note: Harp Barbecue plans to close for several weeks and reopen this fall at 12094 W. 135th Street, Overland Park, KS, 66221.
Buck Tui BBQ
Buck Tui opened in 2021 promising something new: KC barbecue executed with Northern Thai flavors and techniques. Chef Ted Liberda (who also owns the excellent Waldo Thai with his wife, Pam) has lived up to the mission, combining creative barbecue plates with date-night cocktails and kitschy (yet delicious) appetizers like brisket rangoon and smoked butterscotch wings. Order the two-meat plate to try both Liberda’s Isaan Thai pork sausage, fragrant with lemongrass and makrut lime, and a tangle of coriander-seasoned smoked pork. The accompanying sides (jasmine rice, tangy papaya slaw) brighten up even the richest barbecue plates.