Fit For a King
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.
Regardless of the reason that people travel to Kansas City, once they get here, most of them share a common purpose - dining on some of our world-class barbeque.
Published February 27, 2023
“The best restaurants in the world are, of course, in Kansas City.”
Calvin Trillin did not mince words as he began his still-famous (well not “famous-famous”, but definitely “Kansas City famous”) opinion piece for Playboy in 1972. “Not all of them,” Trillin continued, “only the top four or five.” Fifty years later, this is still a city, filled with people like Trillin who take a lot of pride in our dining scene. If this was not already obvious enough, starting tomorrow, it will be even more so; particularly, to those who choose to visit our great city.
You might have heard - Kansas City is getting a brand new airport terminal. It’s going to be filled with local dining options. There’s been a story or two about that the past few months as well. In fact, our new airport opens tomorrow. You probably heard about that too.
Now, there’s a number of ways in which this building will be revolutionary, and there are hosts of articles about exactly that. However, let's not overlook or understate the obvious. This is not a marketing ploy. This is not a rebranding. It definitely is not a renovation.
“It’s a brand new airport,” Sherrie Medina explained to me. Sherrie is the Director of Marketing and Communications for the Vantage Airport Group. Vantage Airport Group is responsible for the concessions within the new airport. “There is no city anywhere in the US where they are getting a brand new airport,” Medina continued. “It’s pretty spectacular. There’s almost a national jealousy around Kansas City.”
It’s definitely an exciting time to be a Cowtowner! The timing for our new airport could not be much better. March brings with it the Big XII Men’s Basketball Tournament, followed a few weeks later by the Midwest Regional of March Madness. In late April, Kansas City will host the 2023 NFL Draft. This will attract thousands of people to our city! Most notably, The Soccer Capital of America is on a collision course with the summer of 2026 when we will host the largest (in terms of both scope and significance) event in the history of Kansas City - the FIFA Men’s World Cup.
Between now and then, many will travel to Kansas City for both work and pleasure. Our city will host conventions, festivals, concerts, and other gatherings. Given the recent pace, this city may even host three more AFC Championships before the 2026 World Cup! Travelers will visit our stadiums, fountains, and museums. Regardless of the reason they come here, nearly every single person who passes through our new airport will share a common goal - to get their hands on some of Kansas City’s world-famous barbeque.
“World-famous” is not meant to be hyperbole! Around the globe, those who know about Kansas City, know about our barbeque. Years ago, I was in Budapest and met a pair of fellow travelers from Romania. One of them asked me, “Where in the States are you from?” When I answered “Kansas City”, her boyfriend immediately replied, “Man, I need to try some of that Kansas City barbeque.” For the better part of a century, our city has been synonymous with world-class ‘que.
“There’s almost a national jealousy around Kansas City.”
How exactly did our barbeque become so famous? While it is difficult to pinpoint a singular cause or influence, it’s hard not to give a a fair amount of credit to Calvin Trillin. In many ways, he really did help put Kansas City barbeque on the map. In that same Playboy article, Trillin showered his praises on a number of local institutions that still persist today. What people remember most, is what he had to say about our barbeque. He described the ham and beef brownies with a side of coleslaw from Snead’s Bar-B-Q as a “marvelous meal” that he would not dream of leaving town without. The most notable excerpt, which nearly every Kansas Citian has read, is where he declared Arthur Bryant’s to be “the single best restaurant in the world.” To this day, that quote remains a key part of the Bryant’s story.
Perhaps, the better question is not, “how did Kansas City become so famous for barbeque?” Instead, we should be asking, “how did Kansas City become such a barbeque haven?” or “why is barbeque so prevalent in Kansas City?”. One could even ask, “when did Kansas City barbeque become a thing?”, “what influenced our signature style?”, or “where was the first Kansas City barbeque joint?”
For all of these questions, it is quite easy to pinpoint a single answer, and his name was Henry Perry.
One thing, it would seem, has always been true of Kansas City.
We have always known how to have a good time! Sure, the sordid history that led to our city being dubbed “The Paris of the Plains” is quite well-documented. However, not all of our history in this regard is so unsavory. Actually, much of it is quite, literally, very savory indeed.
If you were to read the very front page of the very first edition ever printed of The Kansas City (then Evening) Star from 1880, you would see a story in the center column that chronicles “The Grand Barbecue” *. The article provides an account of thousands of Kansas Citians celebrating the long-overdue completion of a railroad connection. As The Evening Star tells it, the festivities included a “sumptuous feast of fat things”. In other words, they celebrated with barbeque. A decade prior, the completion of the first Hannibal Bridge was rumored to have been accompanied by a parade, and, you guessed it, a barbeque. Historically, barbeque has always been a food of celebration. The same is true here.
So, when Henry Perry did in Kansas City in 1907, barbeque was clearly already here. It’s what he contributed to it, however, that made him King.
Today, there are over 125 barbeque joints, like SLAP’s BBQ (PICTURED) in the Kansas City metro. Without Henry Perry, that most likely would not be the case.
Henry Perry was born and raised in Western Tennessee, not far from either Memphis or the Mississippi River. There, both barbecue and river commerce were a way of life. When he was only 15 years old, Perry went to work in the kitchens on the riverboats. He would spend his teenage years, and well into his twenties, traversing the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and honing his culinary skills. He did leave the boats from time to time, spending stints in both Chicago and Minneapolis, but he continued to drift, until he landed in Kansas City.
Initially, his experience helped him find work as a porter in Quality Hill. It did not take long, however, for Perry’s entrepreneurial spirit and drive to get the best of him. Given his own expertise, he quickly recognized that there was an incredible opportunity for him in Kansas City, and that opportunity was barbeque.
An advertisement for Henry Perry’s restaurant in a 1917 edition of The Kansas City Sun showing the variety of smoked meats that he offered. PHOTO CREDIT - The Kansas City Sun
As has been established, barbeque has always seemed to be in Kansas City. Until Perry arrived, it just was not here in the way his brilliant mind envisioned it. What made this city such a fertile ground for the craft is two-fold. First of all, some of the best cuts of meat have always been found here. There is a reason they call this city “Cowtown” after all. Due to the combination of railroad and river access, ranchers from Texas and Oklahoma once drove millions of cattle to Kansas City. In the present-day West Bottoms, those cattle were sold, traded, harvested, and packaged, with the meat being shipped out east. Secondly, the rural areas that surround this city are abundant with hardwood trees. Our city proper once was as well, which may be why some of our major downtown streets - such as Oak, Walnut, and Locust - are named for such trees.
The abundance of the two ingredients needed for barbeque, beyond a trench and some patience, meant that both were cheap. Better than cheap, they may have been free to someone as resourceful as Perry. The wood would have been easy enough for him to procure on his own. As for the meat, there are accounts that Perry, and his future apprentices, may have gleaned the cuts that would fall off of wagons or trains. Perry likely found ways to get more undesirable cuts for next-to-nothing straight from the packing plants themselves. Arthur Bryant, one such apprentice, once remarked that Perry “started out with a hole in the ground” which indicates that Perry’s first attempts at smoking meat in Kansas City were truly “pit barbeque”.
Within a year of his arrival in Kansas City, Henry Perry seized the opportunity in front of him. In 1908, he set up a pushcart in a downtown alley where he sold smoked meats, wrapped in old copies of newspaper, to Garment District workers. This was the first recorded commercial barbeque enterprise in the history of the city.
“[Henry Perry’s] stand at Nineteenth and Highland streets is literally a mecca for hundreds who come to buy his savory delicacies.”
By today’s standards, Perry’s offerings may seem to miss the mark. In its infancy, barbeque was always about taking some of the toughest, most undesirable, cuts of meat and smoking them “low and slow” to transform them into something desirable. Perry sold meats that are still a part of our barbeque tradition such as ham, beef, mutton, and his famed pork ribs, which he sold for 25 cents a slab. However, he also sold smoked wild game such as waterfowl, racoon, woodchuck, and even opossum. While some of these options may not seem appetizing now, Perry sold out of his fares nearly every day. By 1910, his food was in such high demand that he opened a barbeque restaurant on the Eastside. Painted on the window, in large white letters, were three words, “THE BARBECUE KING”. While it may or may not have been the nation’s very first barbeque restaurant, as Perry would often claim, it was Kansas City’s first.
While Henry Perry likely introduced the world, and maybe the country, to barbeque sauce, his sauce was vastly different than the Kansas City-style sauce most know today.
Don’t be misguided. Henry Perry’s significance goes well-beyond simply being the first barbeque restauranteur here in the World Capital of Barbeque. It is even bigger than him being a successful, self-made, black entrepreneur in an era where that was largely unheard of. By 1917, he was so successful that the Kansas City Sun reported that Henry Perry was, “doing the biggest business of any Negro in Greater Kansas City.” Even still, his impact on Kansas City, and his craft, are much larger than that.
Within the walls of his very first restaurant, the self-proclaimed Barbecue King came to invent, and perfect, the style of barbeque that would eventually put Kansas City on the map. In a later interview with The Kansas City Call, Perry explained, “There is only one way to cook barbecue and that is the way I am doing, over a wood fire, with properly constructed oven and pit.” Perry believed in cooking his meats for a long period of time at a low heat, over a fire of hickory and oak, allowing the meat’s fat to drip on to the fiery wood below, which in turn created the thick smoke that flavored the meat. This style continues to be utilized by a number of local pitmasters today.
Another Kansas City barbeque tradition that Perry established was what Kansas City pitmaster Danny Edwards would later call the “eat it and beat it” approach. Henry Perry’s restaurants were always blunt, no-frills, and a place strictly for dining. Arthur Bryant once described Perry as “the greatest barbecue man in the world, but he was a mean outfit.” The King himself issued a decree that, “my job is to serve you, not to entertain you.” This sentiment still persists in many KC BBQ joints today.
Most notably, Henry Perry is responsible for introducing the element that is practically synonymous with Kansas City barbeque - the sauce. Perry kept large jugs of his signature sauce displayed in the windows of his restaurant, simmering in the sun. Many older Kansas City residents likely recall that this is something that Perry’s apprentices, Charlie Bryant and Arthur Bryant, would later emulate in their restaurant.
Now Perry’s version of barbeque sauce was quite a bit different than what we know today. It was a mixture of cayenne pepper, and other spices, with vinegar, and possibly even lard. It likely lacked tomato and certainly was without molasses. The Kansas City Call described it as “piquant sauce … which so tickles the palate that [customers] come back again and again for more.” Henry Perry described it simply as “hot stuff”. By many accounts, he undersold it. In his book, BBQ USA: 425 Fiery Recipes from All Across America, Steven Raichlen writes that “his peppery sauce brought tears to people’s eyes.” Calvin Trillin added that the sauce was “too hot for any human being to eat without eight or ten years of working up to it.” Still, it was Kansas City’s first barbeque sauce, and it is possible that Perry’s was the first barbeque sauce commercially available in the United States.
A photo taken by the U.S. Census Bureau of Henry Perry’s restaurant at 1900 Highland Avenue circa 1940. In many ways, Perry’s restaurant may have been the first integrated restaurant in the city. PHOTO COURTESY OF - Kansas City Public Library
The signature sauces, the variety of cuts, and the straightforward approach for which Kansas City barbeque is known today; that was all Henry Perry. Even the number of restaurants in Kansas City today has everything to do with Perry. Success breeds imitators and at the height of Perry’s reign as Barbecue King, it is said there were over a thousand barbeque restaurants, carts, and stands in the city. And yet, in spite of all the ways he established and shaped our city’s culinary calling card, most significant of all may have been Perry’s popularity.
The Kansas City Call described Perry’s restaurant as “nationally known”. It is said that Henry Perry’s restaurant made the east side of Kansas City a destination, and not only for locals. People routinely drove from as far as Lawrence, Omaha, and other parts of the Heartland to get a bite of the King’s “bestest meat you ever seen”. One letter to Henry Perry, printed in The Topeka Plaindealer in 1917, read, “I am enclosing money order here for three dollars. Please deduct postage and send me the rest in ribs, and you may put in some mutton.” Clearly, Perry’s fares were excellent and he had quite the reputation. Even more notable, is the people he was serving.
Henry Perry’s restaurant might have been the first truly integrated restaurant in the city! His food brought people together. People from all neighborhoods, walks of life, and races dined together at Perry’s restaurant. Local historian Sonny Gibson has described Perry’s restaurant, on multiple occasions, as “a place where segregation ended.” An article in The Kansas City Call recalls that Henry Perry enjoyed “mixed patronage.” Keep in mind, this was decades before Jackie Robinson would sign with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
“With a trade about equally divided between white and black, Mr. Perry serves both high and low. Swanky limousines, gleaming with nickel and glossy black, rub shoulders at the curb outside the Perry stand with pre-historic Model T Fords. Liveried chauffeurs gaze haughtily at humble self-drivers - but all have the common ambition, to sink their teeth in a bit of Perry’s succulent barbecue.”
While Henry Perry drew patrons from every part of an incredibly divided city, he recognized that his success was not possible without his own community. Perry may have been no-frills and even a bit “mean”, but he was also very generous, and surprisingly humble for a man who crowned himself king. On July 3, 1920, Perry began an annual Independence Day tradition where he fed over 1000 elderly people and children in the community, free of charge. According to The Kansas City Sun Perry spent over $300 (Nearly $4,500.00 in today’s terms) on a feast of beef, pork, and mutton sandwiches, as well as watermelon, lemonade, and soda during that first barbeque. When asked the reason why, Perry told The Sun, “God has been so good to me.”
At the time of Henry Perry’s passing in 1940, he was incredibly beloved in Kansas City, and the surrounding area. He had created an institution for which Kansas City continues to be known over eighty years after his passing. Perry’s restaurant transcended several racial and socio-economic divides, in a city that has historically been among the most divided in America, on both counts.
Both Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque (LEFT) and Gates Bar-B-Q (RIGHT) draw a direct culinary lineage from the Father of Kansas City Barbeque - Henry Perry.
“Kansas City might not even be Kansas City if not for Henry Perry ... If somebody other than Henry Perry had been the first to open a barbecue joint in Kansas City, God might have just gotten exasperated and decided, ‘Look, if you can’t get it right, I’ll let some other city be The Barbecue Capital of the World.”
After Perry’s death, his restaurant was left to his apprentice Charlie Bryant; he then sold it to his brother Arthur in 1946. Arthur Bryant put everything Perry had taught him to good use, and even kept all of his recipes, with one lone exception - the sauce. One of the very first things that Arthur Bryant did was “calm the sauce down” by adding molasses. He once told The Kansas City Star that, “Old Man Perry and my brother used to make the sauce way too hot.” Calvin Trillin once described Bryant’s decision to sweeten Perry’s recipe as a “humanitarian act”. This new style, and the spin-offs it would inspire across the city (most notably Rich Davis’ K.C. Masterpiece in the late 1970s), further cemented the style for which Kansas City became known. More importantly, it created the baseline for what most across the nation consider barbeque sauce to be, which is the Kansas City style.
Another former Perry employee, Arthur Pinkard, teamed up with George Gates in the same year Arthur Bryant bought his restaurant from Charlie. Together, Pinkard and Gates opened Gates Ol’ Kentucky Bar-B-Q. Pinkard taught Gates the Henry Perry method of letting the meat fat drip on to the fiery wood below. Today, Gates Bar-B-Q is still owned and operated by George Gates’ descendants. The Gates family still uses the exact style of smoking meat that Pinkard learned from Perry. In recognition of his contributions, a large photo of Arthur Pinkard is hung in every single Gates location.
Nowadays, Kansas City is home to well over 100 barbeque restaurants, trucks, and stands. We are home to the American Royal’s World Series of Barbecue. This city is home to Chiefs, Royals, and (for the second time ever) even Monarchs. We have even been home to a United States President. And yet, despite a brief stint in the 1980s, when a basketball team claimed otherwise, the World Capital of Barbeque has only ever been home to one king - King Henry I of the House of ‘Que.
Kansas City always had the ingredients for great barbeque, but, had our king never arrived, as Doug Wargul once put it, “Kansas City might not even be Kansas City”.
Bernetta McKindra, the granddaughter of Henry Perry, next to local artist Philip Bergantine, who painted a portrait of McKindra’s grandfather, The Barbecue King. Due to how overlooked Perry has been in Kansas City, it is within the last few years that McKindra has come to understand who her grandfather was and his contributions.
In this age of gastro-tourism, people experience the places that they visit with their taste buds and noses, just as much as with their eyes and ears. Think about the last travel recommendation that you asked for, or even gave. Certainly, it included an item, or a place, to eat. That is why, regardless of travel reason, most who pass through Kansas City’s new airport will share a common goal.
There has been so much buzz around the new airport in recent months, but Sherrie Medina believes that many publications missed a crucial part of the story. “It’s a sense of place,” she said. Medina explained, “People need to have a sense of the place they are [when inside the airport].” In her mind, the new airport accomplishes just that for Kansas City. Medina went on the describe the dining options within the new airport as a “real taste of Kansas City”. “Visitors can drink City Market Roasters or Messenger Coffee, they can eat barbeque.”
Barbeque, of course! Henry Perry’s gift that keeps on giving. After all, what better way to give travelers a sense of where they are than by providing them with Kansas City’s signature artform? Why wouldn’t Kansas City’s gateway to the world include the one thing for which the city is globally known above all else?
“We have a brand new airport that is begging for a brand new name to go along with it.”
Nonetheless, why stop there? Since Kansas City’s airport is indeed brand new, why should it continue with the same tired name as the old one? Why not seize this opportunity to give our airport a name that truly celebrates Kansas City? After all, this is a city that has always known how to celebrate; and barbeque is a food of celebration.
Two years ago, I stared THIS PETITION imploring Build KC and the Kansas City City Council to honor Henry Perry by naming the new airport after him.
Some will likely dismiss the notion of naming our airport for a restauranteur. Then again, Rome famously named their airport for Leonardo DaVinci. New Orleans, a city globally known for jazz, named theirs for Louis Armstrong. Liverpool’s is named for John Lennon of Beatles’ fame. And in Madeira, Portugal, their airport is named for their favorite son - soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. If these other cities can name their airports for local artists, why then should Kansas City not take the opportunity to celebrate one of our own? Why not take this chance to give one of our greatest icons recognition that is well past-due?
An abundance of local favorites, like Stockyards Brewing Co. (pictured), ensure that the new Kansas City International Airport has a real “sense of place”. PHOTO CREDIT - Adam Arredondo
Henry Perry established the first barbeque restaurant in Kansas City, and one of the first in the nation. He introduced this city, and possibly the nation, to barbeque sauce. In doing both of these things, he laid the groundwork for a municipal reputation that persists today. He trained and influenced those whose barbeque became the conduit by which Kansas City has become globally known. More importantly, in the Jim Crow era, he was a self-made black entrepreneur who found a way to bring together people of all races, classes, and stations. Kansas City, at that time, was one of the most segregated cities in American history. In that climate, Perry and his fares attracted outsiders to Kansas City’s Eastside.
In spite of all that he did for this city, there will be those that scoff at the notion of a major city naming our airport for a barbeque chef. To which I would respond, “has any other city ever had cause to do so?” Additionally, when did this become a city that cared what those outside of here think? It also turns out, this notion of naming Kansas City’s airport for a pitmaster is not as new, or original, as I once thought.
A couple weeks ago, I uncovered a The Washington Post article from 1982 where the writer reveals that, “[Calvin] Trillin has been campaigning for years to have the name of Kansas City International Airport changed to [Arthur] Bryant Memorial Field.” Speaking of Calvin Trillin, any good piece of writing, much like any good meal, always saves the best for last. It is then peculiar that the final paragraph of Trillin’s oft-quoted Playboy article is almost never referenced.
“What I can’t understand,” he wrote, “is why this town is full of statues of the farmers who came out to steal land from the Indians and full of statues of the businessmen who stole the land from the farmers but doesn’t even have a three-dollar plaque somewhere for Henry Perry.” He continued, “We have got to reorder our priorities.”
“What I can’t understand is why this town ... doesn’t even have a three-dollar plaque somewhere for Henry Perry.”
Trillin wrote that over half a century ago and still, it rings as true today as it did back then. Kansas City has failed to recognize one of our most important figures. We have overlooked the man who arguably made Kansas City, well, Kansas City. The only difference between now and then is that now, we have an obvious opportunity to right this wrong. We have a brand new airport that is begging for a brand new name to go along with it. It’s begging for a name that celebrates the best of this city.
Tell me, what in Kansas City is better than our barbeque?
What honor could be more fit for a king?
Now sure, putting Henry Perry’s name on the airport may not make him “famous-famous” but it would, at long last, make him “Kansas City famous”. And what, I ask you, could possibly be more “sense of place” than that?
Those Pesky Endnotes That I Often Insist Upon
*The title of this article inspired a 2001 book by Doug Wargul of the same name. Within those pages, Wargul provides an abridged history of barbeque in Kansas City. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to know more about the history of Kansas City barbeque.
Please, click HERE and SIGN THE PETITION to name the new Kansas City Airport Terminal for Henry Perry, the Father of Kansas City Barbeque.
