Chapter 5 | Is This The Ends?

barbecue sandwich

Singers have Broadway. Aspiring pitmasters? They come to Kansas City because if you can make a burnt end that makes Kansas Citians sit down and take notice, you can make barbecue anywhere. Our city’s esteem for barbecue — combined with pitmasters’ desire to perfect their craft — means that even our iconic barbecue dish is…

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Chapter 3 | Making Ends Meat

Cover photo for Chapter 3, "Burnt Legend"

The popularity of burnt ends created an unusual problem for pitmasters in Kansas City. Even with a ready supply of briskets, there wasn’t enough of the ends of those briskets to make the menu item known as “burnt ends.” Briskets taper at both edges — it’s the thinner parts that get crusty and crispy and deliciously charred.…

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Burnt Legend, our New Digital Series, Will Make You Hungry

Burnt ends piled high.

Kansas City is known for burnt ends, those charred, crispy bits of beef that are fatty and succulent and rich and… [sorry, we just had to leave the keyboard for the second, things were getting too steamy.] And Kansas Citians know that we’re known for burnt ends. It’s the first dish we tell visitors to…

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Sympathetic Vibrations | Sunday Music Funday

A woman sits with her guitar.

Of all the weapons in the weekend warriors’ arsenal, few are more enjoyable, more hallowed or more brag-worthy than a perfectly executed Sunday Funday. And we happen to be right in the middle of its sweetest season, offering the perfect confluence of (arguably) habitable outside temperatures and a cornucopia of live music options. Fundays can…

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Blessing the Barbecue

People in a butcher shop

At around 2:30 Thursday afternoon a long line begins to form in the back of Pak Halal, a local Middle Eastern grocery store in the heart of Lenexa. One by one, customers who had driven from “as far as Omaha” await their turn at the butcher counter to place their order. Most people are in…

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