Large-scale transformation is underway in Kansas City’s Historic 18th & Vine Jazz District: a pedestrian mall through the middle of the neighborhood, museumexpansions, a new hotel, a new parking garage, multiple historic building rehabs including a long-closed historic theater, alongside new apartments and a remade Parade Park.
But advocates hope that another unassuming set of buildings, off the corner of 19th and Vine streets, that has deep ties to Kansas City’s culinary culture and Black history doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.
Of particular note is what’s now a boarded-up storefront that once housed a restaurant run by Henry Perry, Kansas City’s “barbecue king,” who laid the foundation for the city’s barbecue culture and legacy…