Once Upon a Time… in Kansas City
A NOTE FROM THE WRITER: disKCovery has declared this year to be “The Year of the Pit”. This is the latest installment of a wide selection of articles, essays, and rankings devoted to a year-long deep dive into Kansas City barbeque. To see the rest of the 2Q23 series, click HERE.
The World Capital of Barbeque wields an influence that goes well beyond smoked meats. PHOTO CREDIT - disKCovery
Published August 18, 2023
You have probably wondered where barbeque’s popularity came from. If you haven’t, I would say it’s high time you’ve begun.
The best midwestern summers have their share of marvelous nights,
Where lit grills, packed coolers, and laughter unite.
Each home and yard fills with joy on these makeshift holidays,
As a potluck feast, brews, and yard games chase all worries away.
The sort of evenings you spend with family and friends.
The kind of nights that you hope will not come to an end.
Maybe you cook burgers, or brats, or some other meats.
Potato and pasta salads galore with tons of sweet treats.
A few bags of chips.
Sauces to top and to dip.
Maybe things go awry and what’s left to do?
But to order yourselves a pizza or two!
No matter the spread. No matter what you do,
In KC it’s likely some of these eats will be flavored B.B.Q.
But have you ever wondered about the rest of the nation?
And the barbeque flavors they reach for in social situations?
There’s so many regions that have their own ‘que,
So why is it that so many do as we do?
Not Carolina or Texas, Alabama or Tennessee.
The default for nationwide barbeque flavors is straight-up K.C.
When Americans reach to put barbeque sauce on their meat,
It’s our ketchup-based sauces on store shelves - thick, tangy, and sweet.
Why then do American chips, sauces, and ‘za,
Bear the barbeque flavors of Kansas City?
Is it by tradition? Popular vote?
By consensus? Or some committee?
If you haven’t given it much thought,
Or wondered how it came to be,
Perhaps you’ll have your answers,
After these stories, three.
Today, KC Masterpiece is a nationally distributed and recognized brand with a variety of flavors. Not only did the classic sauce begin in Kansas City, it actually was key in defining what Kansas City, and American, barbeque sauce is. PHOTO CREDIT - disKCovery
The Sauce Doctor
Imagine if you will, a day in the future when the World Capital of Barbeque is overlooked by our own “Mount Rushmore” celebrating the titans of this city’s barbeque scene. A proud monument standing over Kansas City, where the four faces who contributed the most to our barbeque prowess are eternalized in stone.
While there are a number of reasons this day will never come (with the most glaring being that our city has absolutely no mountains!), it is still a fun exercise to imagine who would adorn such a monument.
Of course, Henry Perry, would be the first face carved. He established this city’s barbeque tradition. His apprentice Arthur Bryant would be an obvious choice for the second slot. And following that Perry “coaching tree”, choosing a member of the Gates Family, likely Ollie, seems the best choice to be spot number three. As for that fourth face on the mountain? To me, there is a strong case to be made for Dr. Rich Davis.
Don’t know the name? You likely don’t. I can promise, however, you have heard of his contribution.
Born in Joplin, Missouri in 1926, and moving to Topeka, Kansas shortly after, Rich Davis showed himself to be a man of many talents from a very young age. As a child, he was a musical prodigy, dazzling many playing blues and jazz on the piano. Not only an adept player, Davis also showed a real knack for composition.
As he entered adulthood, Davis developed a passion for helping others. He decided to transition from entertainer to doctor. After graduating from Topeka High School, he attended nearby Washburn University and then received a medical degree from the University of Kansas. He practiced as a family physician before turning his focus to psychology and becoming both an adult and child psychiatrist. In this field, he would also serve as a professor at a handful of medical schools across the country. He also became a published author. His son, Rich Davis II, was later on the record as saying, “My dad was an unusually bright and talented guy.”
Among his collection of skills and interests, one consistent throughout Davis’s life is that he was always drawn to food. As a child, Davis’ father loved to hunt and fish which led to him teaching Rich all there was to know about grilling and smoking meats. Being in Kansas, that also naturally led to Davis learning about sauces. Rich Davis once noted, that back when he was growing up, “If you wanted a barbecue sauce, you had to make it from scratch.”
By the late 1970’s, Davis had moved back to the Midwest and was practicing medicine in Kansas City. Deciding at that time that he wanted to return to his lifelong love affair with food, it comes as almost no surprise that he turned his attention to sauces. He had a few concepts that he wanted to take to market. His first idea was two flavors of “muschup” (a mixture of mustard and ketchup). While there was interest in his original and dill-flavored muschups, Davis was encouraged to bolster his line-up with a third sauce. It was then that Davis fell back on something he knew quite well - barbeque sauce.
In true Kansas City fashion, Davis’s sauce began with molasses. In what has become a Kansas City tradition, he blended that with a ketchup base. Then Davis did something that has become the hallmark of what makes KC the BBQ Capital. He incorporated the flavors and traditions of other regions into his own Kansas City creation. So while thick and sweet, Davis’s sauce had a bit of an acidic and vinegary North Carolina flair. In the tradition of South Carolina and Georgia, there was just a hint of a mustardy earthiness. And the combination of spices that Davis opted for gave it a Texas-style kick on the back end. Topped off with a dash of liquid smoke*, writer Doug Worgul later described Davis’s end result to be “nice and lively”. He would go on to say, “it’s got some zip-a-dee-doo-dah.”
There was nothing quite like this sauce on the market but Davis wanted to be sure it stood out. Noting the preponderance of bright-colored labels on store shelves, Davis chose a black label for his sauce. The white text read, “K.C. Soul Style Barbecue Sauce.” The very first weekend that it was made available in 1977, it sold over 3,000 cases in Kansas City!
It was not long before Davis declared the sauce to be “my masterpiece” and re-branded it as K.C. Masterpiece.
For the next decade, K.C. Masterpiece was not just the most popular sauce in Kansas City and the surrounding region, it created an entirely new market that had never really existed prior. Sales continued to rise by an incredible rate of sixty percent per year! Locally, many pitmasters and restaurants began to market their own sauces and many of them were modeled after K.C. Masterpiece. While places like Arthur Bryant’s and Gates had sauces that were immensely popular, it was K.C. Masterpiece that became the standard bearer for what a Kansas City barbeque was. Doug Worgul once explained that, “It’s just a really good sauce, and it’s just kind of served as the base sauce, or the prototype, or archetype if you will, of almost all Kansas City barbeque sauces that came after.”
In 1980, Dr. Davis entered K.C. Masterpiece in the inaugural American Royal World Series of Barbecue and, perhaps unsurpisingly, it won the sauce division and was crowned “The Best Sauce in the World.”
In 1986, with an aim on marketing his sauce nationally, Dr. Davis sold his K.C. Masterpiece recipe and brand to the Kingsford Charcoal division of the HV (Hidden Valley) Food Products Company. It was a natural match. When people reached for America’s most popular charcoal, they would also be inclined to reach for what became America’s most popular barbeque sauce. In doing so, an entire generation was not only introduced to the flavor that came to define what Kansas City barbeque was but it forever forged an association in people’s minds between KC and barbeque. In the 1990’s, the K.C. Masterpiece brand took another step forward as it became the signature flavor for many years of Lay’s Barbeque Chips (More on that later!)
In developing his flavor and perfecting the Kansas City style, and taking it nationwide, Davis may have done more than anyone to share the good news of Kansas City ‘que!
While Davis did sell his sauce to a distributor outside of Kansas City in order to take it nationwide, the sale to Kingsford came with an interesting caveat that kept it local. Davis retained the right to use the K.C. Masterpiece name and sauce recipe in any restaurant ventures. He opened the first K.C. Masterpiece Barbecue & Grill in Overland Park, Kansas in 1987. K.C. Masterpiece was a more upscale barbeque restaurant and eventually grew to include a location on the Country Club Plaza, two locations in St. Louis, and two more in Chicago. Ultimately, the small chain fell apart for a variety of reasons with the final location, the original, permanently closing its doors in 2009.
In 2012, when the American Royal began the Barbecue Hall of Fame. Recognizing his contributions to both Kansas City style barbeque and everything that him and his sauce did to grow the popularity of barbeque nationwide, Dr. Rich Davis was a legacy induction into the Hall’s inaugural class. When Davis passed away at his Leawood, Kansas home in 2015, the barbeque community mourned the loss of this pioneer and innovator.
Even today, K.C. Masterpiece is one of the most popular barbeque sauces in the world. Nearly every other sauce on that list, modeled itself after that Kansas City style that Davis helped to establish. As a result, in grocery stores across the nation, the association between Kansas City and great barbeque continues to be fostered and grown.
While there will never be a “Mount Rushmore” of KCQ, it is fair to say that Davis would belong among those other greats. If Henry Perry was the “Father of Kansas City Barbeque”, then the Bryant brothers were clearly the sons. Another part of the Perry “coaching tree”, George Gates, Ollie Gates, and the entire family, embody the spirit of our tradition.
As for Dr. Rich Davis? He was the greatest evangelist that Kansas City barbeque ever had! And that is why, for more than forty years, when millions of people reach for a bottle of barbeque sauce, what they really end up grabbing is a taste of Kansas City.
Today, barbeque chips continue to be the second most popular flavor of potato chip in America. Kansas City’s own Guy’s barbeque chips are not only “legendary” by name, their legendary by default. They were the first barbeque flavored chips ever made! PHOTO CREDIT - disKCovery
The Snack Maker
In a nation where our cuisine is overwhelmingly borrowed from other cultures around the world, there are still a few culinary genres that are decidedly American. While barbeque is borrowed (first from Indigenous in the Caribbean and then from African-American communities in the South), its roots definitely lie here. As barbeque expanded and evolved it led to a number of distinct regional styles, and barbeque-inspired products. As discussed, Dr. Davis’s K.C. Masterpiece was one such product. Not only the archetype for most commercial sauces to follow, but that distinct Kansas City flavor made its way to other foods.
The most notable example was a partnership between Clorox (the parent company of HV Foods and Kingsford) and Frito Lay that led to the production of the Lay’s K.C. Masterpiece Barbecue Potato Chip. Speaking of potato chips, that is another culinary contribution for which the United States can take credit. It is said that the potato chip was invented at a restaurant in Saratoga, New York in the 1850s. The story goes that a cook invented them in order to spite a customer who complained about the thickness of the fries. What began as malicious compliance resulted in a tasty snack. While this unique mash-up of American cuisines did introduce an entire new generation to the flavors of Kansas City, the truth is that the Kansas City flavor had always been at the focal point of barbeque potato chips.
In fact, our city’s iconic flavor had been one of the most popular potato chip flavors for decades before Dr. Davis bottled his first sauce. Even today, according to the Simmons National Consumer Survey, barbeque is the second most popular flavor of potato chip in America after classic plain. So how did this classic potato chip flavor come to be? Like BBQ sauce, that also begins with a guy in Kansas City.
Sorry, not just any guy, but Guy. As in Guy Caldwell to be exact. In 1938, Guy Caldwell and his wife Francis, with nothing more than a peanut roaster tucked away in a back storeroom, started Guy’s Nut & Candy Company. Originally, the pair roasted and sold their brown bags of peanuts throughout Kansas City.
In 1945, the pair added potato chips to their repertoire as the company grew. In the early 1950’s, an Irish potato chip maker, Tayto, is credited with being the first to season their potato chips with other flavors. It did not take long for American chip makers, like Guy’s, to follow suit.
Not long after this innovation, inspired by the flavors already popular in Kansas City, Guy’s brother Newman combined a “unique blend of spices” to design a barbeque seasoning. Combining Guy’s chips with Newman’s seasoning, the brothers had a product that was smoky, savory, salty, and even a little sweet. By capturing the essence of Kansas City ‘que in snack form, the Caldwell’s had given the world its first barbeque-flavored chip.
The flavor was an immediate hit! As flavored potato chips became all the rage, several across the country rushed to replicate and put out their own spin on the barbeque flavor. These chips became so popular and had so many imitators so quickly that the question of who exactly invented the barbeque chip is still widely contested.
Under the guidance of the Caldwells, the company grew and the snacks surged in popularity. After the couple sold the company and retired in 1979, Guy’s Snacks fell on pretty hard times. For a brief period in the early 2000s, the company and brand actually ceased to exist entirely!
Luckily, that did not last. Nowadays, under new ownership, Guy’s Snacks is alive and well and living up to what they always were at their core - consistently innovative and unapologetically Midwestern. Headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, the snack makers continue to find inspiration for new flavors within our city. In recent years, they even took another stab at barbeque inspiration by partnering with Joe’s Kansas City to create a chip flavored with Joe’s ever-popular French fry seasoning. As the company continues to grow, and even expands into restaurants and bodegas, it continues to stay true to its roots.
More than anything, Guy’s continues to create a Kansas City-inspired barbeque chip whose flavor and origin is the stuff of legend. Much like K.C. Masterpiece, that legendary flavor set the standard for all who would dare follow.
Since 2019, Minsky’s Pizza has collaborated with Joe’s Kansas City on a seasonal offering. PHOTO CREDIT - Sarah Carey
The Pizza Man & the Pitmaster
The next time you find yourself sitting around a table with friends, ask the question of, “what’s the most iconic restaurant in Kansas City?” Very quickly, you will realize that you need to make barbeque its own specific category. That’s just the reality of living in such an incredible barbeque mecca.
But once you exclude barbeque from the proceedings, the short list that will be named become quite predictable. Town Topic and Fritz’s burgers will be brought up. Winstead’s burgers will come up, as will their Skyscraper shakes. The Roasterie’s coffee will likely get tossed in. If there’s someone from Independence in your crew, you’ll likely hear about Dixon’s Chili too. After all, it was Truman’s favorite. And if there’s a Nortlander in your midst, giving the powdered cheese tacos at In-A-Tub a shout is their sworn duty. Perhaps before any of these come to mind, someone will surely shout out Minsky’s. After all, year after year this local pizza chain is voted Kansas City’s favorite pizza and the restaurant has become synonymous with Kansas City.
But, while Minsky’s has been serving up their pizza and Italian favorites for nearly 50 years, they are not entirely insulated from that barbeque category. In fact, they made their own noteworthy contribution to barbeque, and American cuisine in general, that cannot be overlooked. It came about when this Kansas City icon crossed paths with a KCQ legend.
Minsky’s was created by Gregg Johnson in 1976. No stranger to the world of pizza, Johnson had actually helped to create another iconic midwestern pizza chain, Godfather’s Pizza, in Omaha just three years prior. It was not too long after opening his original South Plaza location, that Johnson decided to grab lunch next door at Jake Edwards Bar-B-Que. Now, if the name Jake Edwards rings a bell for you, it should. If the Edwards name is unfamiliar, that mistake is about to be rectified.
Jake Edwards, or as he was affectionately known “Big Jake”, is one of the early key figures in the history of Kansas City barbeque. He started slinging his barbeque during the early portion of the Great Depression. In 1938, he opened Old Southern Pit at 10th & Baltimore. This was nearly a decade before Bryant’s or Gates came on the scene! By 1960, his family of restaurants had grown to include five Kansas City locations including the South Plaza location next to the original Minsky’s.
As Johnson told The Kansas City Star last year, it was during this fateful lunch break that Edwards gave Johnson an idea. He suggested that Minsky’s make a barbeque pizza. In that same interview, Johnson expressed that he was initially skeptical because he had never heard of such a thing. However, after playing around with a concept and then getting rave reviews from his employees, Minsky’s started offering their barbeque pizza as a weekly special. By 1977, it was a permanent fixture on the menu.
And so, it came to pass that what is likely Kansas City’s most well known restaurant that is not barbeque, actually put themselves on the map with barbeque.
As seen with Guy’s and the barbeque potato chip, imitators soon followed. The claim of who invented barbeque pizza is similarly contested. Many of those claims come from California eateries. In weighing these claims, it is important to note two things. First of all, Minsky’s Edwards-inspired pizza was being served four to five years prior to the vast majority, if not all, of those claims. Secondly, nearly every pizza joint that tries to take credit for barbeque pizza, due to a market that was practically invented by K.C. Masterpiece, was using a Kansas City style sauce as the base for their pies. For that reason alone, no matter how you slice it, the roots of barbeque pizza lie in Kansas City.
These days, the original Minsky’s is still at 51st and Main serving up their pizzas that are “gourmet and going to stay that way”; as are sixteen additional locations on both sides of Stateline. In recent years, Minsky’s has moved beyond their original barbeque pizza and added some seasonal collaborations with well-known Kansas City barbeque joints to the mix. In 2017, Minsky’s partnered with Zarda BBQ and put their burnt ends on a pizza. In 2019, Minsky’s launched an incredibly popular collaboration with Joe’s Kansas City on a barbeque pizza. In 2020, they followed that up by teaming with Joe’s Kansas City and Boulevard Brewing on an Oktoberfest themed pizza. This year, they partnered with Joe’s once again as they created a pizza modeled after Joe’s Z-Man Sandwich, complete with a hefty topping of onion rings.
Not to be outdone, local pizza joints followed Minsky’s lead. Papa Keno’s and Woodyard Bar-B-Que teamed up on a pizza in 2019. Old Shawnee Pizza and Zarda collaborated in 2020. Just recently, Artego Pizza and Q39 got in on the fun by topping a pizza with smoked brisket and chipotle sausage. Beyond the local mash-ups, Minsky’s, and nearly every other pizza place in town, has some take on the classic barbeque chicken pizza.
And what became of the inspiration behind Minsky’s invention, Jake Edwards? He operated his restaurants until around 1980, when his son Danny took over the original downtown restaurant and renamed it “Lil’ Jake’s Eat It & Beat It”. In 2007, to make room for the Power & Light District, that tiny 18-seat BBQ joint relocated to it’s current location on Southwest Boulevard and changed its name once again. While sadly, neither Jake or Danny are still with us, that Edwards family sauce, recipes, and style of cooking live on at Danny Edwards Boulevard BBQ.
Given Minsky’s recent collaborations with some of Kansas City’s most prominent brands, it would be something see these two Kansas City icons come together once more.
As large as they both locally loom, the invention of barbeque pizza is far greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps by 2026, when both Minsky’s and barbeque pizza will turn 50, we can hope to see Edwards and Minsky’s join forces again?
Seeing these two return to the roots of their delightful innovation may seem like the stuff of dreams but, when you think about it; isn’t that how any great invention begins?
Barbeque sauce aisles such as these do not exist without K.C. Masterpiece. In defining what American barbeque sauce is, Dr. Rich Davis created an entirely new market segment! PHOTO CREDIT - disKCovery
So in the end, we have the most obvious cause.
The reason why KC flavors dominate barbeque chips, pizzas, and sauce.
Thanks to a few Cowtowners who captured the flavors we love most,
Kansas City’s barbeque essence can be found from coast to coast.
Dr. Davis’s sauce and Gregg Johnson’s signature slice.
The Caldwells created an iconic chip that’s quite nice.
It’s not that Texas or Carolina barbeque lacks merit.
It’s that those who loved KC’s style best chose to share it.
I wonder if that was their intent.
I wonder if they even knew.
That in spreading the taste of KC,
They’d make us synonymous with great ‘que.
Which is why when friends and families gather on those most marvelous nights,
There’s often a taste of Kansas City to be found in every bite.
Perhaps you understand why it shall be that way forevermore,
Now that you’ve read these three pieces of American barbeque lore.
Those Pesky Endnotes That I Often Insist Upon
*Liquid Smoke also has Kansas City roots. It was developed in the late 1800’s by Kansas City pharmacist Ernest Wright when he recognized that smoke condenses when it comes into contact with cold air and that by utilizing a condenser, he could liquify hickory smoke for culinary usage.
Were you aware of these three barbeque tales? Did I miss anything? Where did I fail?
As always, if there’s feedback or something you know; feel free to share it in the comments below!
