Kansas City BBQ

Having lived in the Memphis and Kansas City areas, I have come to truly appreciate the culture that surrounds BBQ. There is an entire identity and etiquette that goes along with the cooking and eating of various cuts of meat. Respect and appreciation are tied to this culture – regardless of the region that you live. With that, I must say, I absolutely prefer Memphis style barbeque over Kansas City – however, Kansas City is home – so I will have to learn to love the sweet and saucy.

As part of my assimilation, I was introduced to Gate’s BBQ. Now. The first time anyone goes to Gate’s is an experience – the memory of which is etched into your mind, along with other major events like losing your first tooth or senior prom. Everyone knows Gate’s. Everyone. And if you don’t – well, its pretty obvious that you don’t belong here. So, I had to go – think of it as a Right of Passage. I was prepared by friends and neighbors ahead of time: there will be yelling, there will be an urgency to collect my order, there will be a lot of people, chaos and deliciousness. Whew! Okay. I am ready.

As Josh and I arrived at the restaurant, there was no yelling. Strange. I was told to expect an accosting. As we waited in line we discussed our order, we rehearsed how we would say it, we confirmed with each other – there were no questions: Beef on Bun with fries, Burnt Ends with potato salad, extra sauce, two drinks. No complications, no substitutions – just clear simple lunches. There were even pictures of what we wanted on the menu, indicating popular items. KC favorites, even. Its our turn. Josh states our order to the lady behind the counter. Now, it seems appropriate to describe this woman as flustered. She appears to have had a long, tiresome day, though the restaurant has only been open an hour. She has, what polite individuals would describe as, a glisten on her forehead. However, it is more accurately stated that she has sweat on her face that her rolled bandana headband just is not going to absorb. Her apron is covering the left side of her abundant torso, she is… disheveled. As Josh states the order, her eyes glaze. She repeats something back that does not remotely sound like what we want. But, we rehearsed the order. There is no way Josh got this one wrong – he states it again. She rings the order into the register and calls back to the kitchen something that we did not request. Again, he states his lines. The sandwiches are corrected – halfway there. Now, the sides. Fries and potato salad. That is 6 syllables of information, two items – but alas, that is much too challenging. We are back to the glazed eyes, register buttons, and misinformation. Through this entire dialogue our dear cashier regularly looks to other people in line to ask if she can help them – there is no real pattern or discernable purpose to this and she does not follow through with her offer. It takes a full 7 minutes to get the food order correct. Most certainly not the 30 seconds expected. Now to payment.

It would seem that at some point during out lives, Josh or I completely faltered. I cannot think of a time when I kicked an old lady or pushed a toddler into a wasp nest – but Karma seems to have come back to punish us for such vicious deeds. Paying for the most complicated order in history proves to be torture. Josh initially inserts his debit card into the machine. Error. This initiates an entire series of reviewing the order, checking the record in the register, confirming the price, and trying again. After 3 attempts at using the debit card, cash appears from his wallet. Lord help us. This will require change and I am positive that the time this will take to figure out will put us in the middle of the dinner rush. She continues to offer help to other customers – these same customers have begun to glare at us. Wonderful. As I suspected, counting back change became an Olympic level challenge. I am losing IQ points as I watch the change be counted out of the drawer no less than 47 times. The glaring crowd softens their gaze. They realize that they too will have to endure this process.

The money is transferred and correct. We hope. We are handed our bag of food and Josh reminds Madam Sweats-A-Lot of the cups we will need for the drinks that were part of the order. She informs him that she did not ring them up. Josh’s face took on a look of defeat, anger, disgust, and disbelief – I chose to walk away. Understand, her face has not changed during this entire process. She does not get upset or frustrated, just continues her work in its most slow and confusing manor. It only took another 4 minutes to complete this transaction since Josh had exact change this time. Total time spent at the register: 18 minutes.

We sit in a quiet booth and begin eating our much-deserved BBQ. Josh’s heartrate begins to come back into a normal, healthy rhythm. This is everything he was looking forward to: Beef on Bun – a classic. Until he opened the container of sauce that was put into our bag – turns out that was baked beans. Beautiful. My burnt end sandwich contained something that resembled what is fed to baby birds. Evidently, the burnt ends are chopped into very small, minced, pieces. Ideally, this would mean the meat is evenly distributed across the sandwich. In my case, the slimy chunks of fat were placed in a thick repulsive layer across the bread. However, I did not want to seem ungrateful for the lunch that my dear boyfriend painstakingly ordered for me so I managed to choke down about half of the blubbery offering. The potato salad and fries were edible, but certainly did not make up for the labor required to obtain them.

So. I have been to Gate’s now. Somehow, I feel as though my experience will not be quite the treasured memory that it is to others – more like something that I will talk about in therapy after I drop into the fetal position from someone discussing baked beans. I still prefer Memphis style BBQ.