BBQ of KC (Part 3)



This is the third part of my series. If you haven't read it yet, please check out Part 1&2:  https://bbqofkc.blogspot.com/2025/09/bbq-of-kc.html

This week, for the first time in my life, I got Kansas City homesick. And for someone like me, visiting Nashville—Music City—you’d think that wouldn’t be possible. To compare, I got some Tennessee barbecue (restaurant pictured above: it was a vinegary and peppery Southern-style rub). It just wasn’t the KC style. Some folks might be reading this and not understand what this whole thing is about. What's so great about it? Why is some out-of-towner going around to all the different KC barbecue restaurants? My answer is that it’s a unique thing I want to celebrate with you—& I like to think I left every town better than I found it.





Big T's Bar-B-Q
Sauce was VERY tomato-y. More like a ketchup kind of taste with a little smokey flavor. That's what it's all about here folks, that's this style is so unique; it's simply not done like this in other parts of the country. You can see the meat falling off the bone; there was no bite, it just effortlessly falls into your mouth. This one deserves a revisit!





Wabash BBQ and Blues Garden
It was my love of barbecue and music that brought me here. At Wabash I saw two stages—not one, but two. The menu says "On our menu as the meat falls right off the bone," and it did in fact. Well-cooked, perfectly cooked ribs; a master of cooking ribs. It didn't seem to come with the sauce on it—that was on the side (and that's the way some prefer it, but I am fine with either way). This place definitely gets A+ from me; the hospitality was great as well. I prefer the sweet sauce to the hot sauce.





WolfPack BBQ & Burgers
Wolfpack is a new restaurant located downtown in Kansas City, near the market and the river. The atmosphere is very good, and it definitely has potential. The ribs were larger than I'm used to, and I had alittle bit of a bite. My friend, who went with me, had a chopped barbecue sandwich. And that looked pretty good too. Chopped is better than sliced in my humble opinion. I prefer the hot sauce to the sweet sauce.





Scott's Kitchen and Catering at Hangar 29
They have something called a Burnt End Bloody Mary - a very interesting-looking cocktail. For the ribs, the sauce was very molasses-y, I thought. They had a reddish kind of hue, and it was great, I mean really, really good. This is comparable to SLAPs, even with how well it was cooked and the quality of the meat the way it falls off the bone. I always like to see a boneyard with nothing left on the ribs!





LC's Bar-B-Q
LC's has a great smoky flavor, one of the best sauces for sure. The meat didn't quite come right off the bone; for me, it was good quality meat but it was just a little chewy. You need to cook it long enough for the connective tissue (collagen) to break down into gelatin. This is what makes ribs tender and causes the meat to pull away easily from the bone. The sauce was really, REALLY good, and it seemed like it had a very thick hickory smoke flavor. It was like eating smoke.





Fairway Meat Market
There are more than 100 barbecue spots in the KC metro, and it’s worth noting that many meat markets also sell great BBQ. One of my favorites is the Fairway Meat Market (formerly McGinley’s). Their burnt ends were the best I’ve had, and their ribs came with detailed reheating instructions: 300°F for 35 minutes. Since I wanted fall-off-the-bone ribs, I used the rule that for every 25° you lower the temp, you add 10% more cook time—so I baked them for 45 minutes and added the award-winning sauce they recommended. I’ve already gone back a few times. The sauce even won the American Royal World Series of Barbecue, which I sadly missed this year.




Q39
Q39 is popular and unique because it’s chef-driven KC BBQ with competition-level meats, wood-fired grills, made-from-scratch sides, and a polished dining experience. I had a delicious full slab with coleslaw and baked beans. It’s called Q39 because it originally opened on 39th Street, and “Q” is for BBQ, which is shorthand for barbecue.

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