Anthony Bourdain was serious about feasting on a well-cooked BBQ. The acclaimed chef, food writer, and TV show host knew how to spot a perfectly smoky, tangy, and unforgettable BBQ spread and made sure to speak up about the spots that truly earned his respect. Bourdain was known for being glaringly outright (and a little bit savage with some of his food takes), but his honesty was rooted in a love for discovering top tier meals around the world. Even while his passion for travel food shows such as “Parts Unknown” or “No Reservations” took him overseas, he still made a point of seeking out the best of American food, like the finest Chicagoan hot dogs and Southern BBQ joints. Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que is an eatery he swore by for his BBQ cravings.
In an episode of “No Reservations,” Bourdain praises the wide range of menu items at Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que and asserts that you go for the ribs. When Bourdain visited, the restaurant was known as Oklahoma Joe’s and was a local spot yet to rival with some of the city’s greater known spots. The first restaurant was opened in 1996 in Stillwater, Oklahoma and the original gas station store was opened the same year in Kansas City. Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que continues to serve the nation with Southern tastes, and also offers a range of sauces, spice blends, rubs, and other merchandise online so that the taste of Kansas can be enjoyed from anywhere. These days, the restaurant still operates from its Kansas City gas station location and also opened restaurants in Olathe and Leawood.
What’s so impressive about Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que, according to Bourdain
Even while Texas is thought of as the BBQ state with two of the top rated BBQ restaurants tucked away in the state, Anthony Bourdain had his eyes firmly set on Kansas City. In an article published in Men’s Health, the celebrity chef recommended the Kansas City joint as one of the best places to dine at before you die, claiming it as “the best BBQ in Kansas City, which makes it the best BBQ in the world.” Bourdain listed the brisket (especially the burnt ends), pulled pork, and the ribs as the menu items that stood out. The restaurant currently offers a wide variety of menu items where dishes range from rib dinners, slab dinners, burnt ends, mixed meat dishes, and more. A rib dinner starts at $16.29 and goes up to $20.49. A full slab dinner costs $30.99 and comes with one side dish and Texas toast. A full slab of ribs without the sides is priced at $27.99. The restaurant also serves chicken dishes, BBQ sandwiches, and seasonal desserts.
To this day, Bourdain’s recommendation continues to encourage meat-lovers to make their own pilgrimage to the Kansas City restaurant to try out the food for themselves. And it seems that Bourdain had a gift for picking out award-worthy and unsuspecting BBQ joints in the South: the restaurant founders, Jeff and Joy Stehney, have a solid reputation for snatching up some of the nation’s most noteworthy BBQ prizes, including the Jack Daniels World BBQ Championship and the Kansas State Championship from 1992 to 2017. In 2017, Jeff Stehney was even inducted into the American Royal’s BBQ Hall of Fame, meaning you can expect to tuck into some unbeatable flavors…