Chuck Eats KC - January 3, 2023

Chuck on the Radio This Week!

Happy New Year everybody! I will be a guest this Friday on Steve Kraske’s show “Up To Date” on KCUR FM. The show features local food critics and writers on the first Friday of each month. The theme this month is local vegetarian and vegan restaurants. The show starts at 9 a.m. Hope you can tune in!

Chuck Eats KC Menu for 2023

I started the Chuck Eats KC blog in the Fall of 2019. It went on hiatus in 2020 and 2021 for the obvious reasons. My project resumed in 2022, with blog updates, the launch of this newsletter and a podcast. The website got a directory and neighborhood guides. So what are my plans for 2023?

Blog - More frequent reviews, articles, essays, news and look backs at historic restaurants. Expansion of guides to include special subjects (barbecue, bakeries) and local cities outside the Kansas City metro.

Newsletter - Weekly issues for paid and comp subscribers, regular free content for everybody. Weekly issues may change in format, so one issue may have more reviews, another one might just be an interview, and others a mix like past newsletters.

Podcast - My goal is to produce at least one podcast a month. Hope to do more interviews with restaurant owners, chefs, and other people in the local food scene.

TikTok - Create regular updates based on visits to restaurants. Quick looks at both Kansas City general history and restaurant history.

I’m looking forward to 2023!

Kansas City-area restaurants you’ll never eat at again

This series looks at bygone restaurants in the Kansas City area (including Lawrence, Kansas). The website has several articles where I do brief looks at bygone restaurants.

Joe’s Barn

Joe’s Barn was a long running family style restaurant in Stanley, Kansas, a suburb in the southern KC metro. It looked like a barn. Was it a barn? Might be worth researching its origin story for a larger update. Joe’s Barn was a popular restaurant among Kansas Citians and it comes up whenever I ask people which are restaurants they miss.

Joe’s Barn was a large red barn structure with a huge parking lot, just on the northeast side of downtown Stanley, Kansas. The building was incredibly spacious inside with the capacity to host dozens of families, if not a hundred. Joe’s Barn had a weekly all-day buffet on Sundays. The big attraction was their “family style” or “country style” dinners. These typically featured broiled steaks, chicken, broiled ham steak, and fried shrimp. I recall the food as being fine. It was a popular destination for decades.

I vaguely remember eating at Joe’s Barn at least once when I was a pre-teen or teenager, probably having been taken there by my parents. This could have been in the late 1970s. But I’ve been by the restaurant thousands of times, as I went to middle school across the street and later Blue Valley High School just down the street. As a teenager, Joe’s Barn was off the radar, other than being an obvious building, because I saw it as a weekend destination for family dinners.

I know that a few, or maybe a lot more, of my high school classmates worked at Joe’s Barn during their teen years. It was one of the biggest employers in the Blue Valley School District.

What do reader’s remember about the restaurant?

“Great atmosphere and food for out-of-town kid.”

“My grandfather worked as a cook and manager for Joe's Barn and Joe's Bar B.Q. off of State Line Road and Blue Ridge Blvd. I remember most of these restaurants as well, like Patrikio's. It was my favorite for Mexican food and few ever knew of it. I also lived in that area as a kid growing up as my grandfather worked for Joe's Barn and Joe's Bar B.Q. around that same time. I also frequented Stephenson's and was really sad to see it go. Most good things come to an end and in these cases, they did come to an end, unfortunately. I also ate at Harry T's and liked it as well. I worked for U.S. Sprint security back in the day and we'd always have our office parties at Harry T's. Great memories!! Thanks for sharing this!”

Openings, Closings, Good Byes and Coming Soon

• Wolfepack BBQ is opening a location at 910 E. Fifth St. in Columbus Park (KCMO). It had been operating inside Callsign Brewing in North Kansas City.
• Harp Barbecue has opened at 6633 Raytown Road, in Raytown, Missouri. It had previously been operating inside Crane Brewing for several years.
• I accidentally discovered Vegan Jurnee last week when I was checking to see if Mattie’s was open or not. They are a vegan pop-up operating at 633 East 63rd Street in Kansas City, Missouri.
• The Vietnam Cafe in Kansas City, Kansas has re-opened at 3934 Rainbow Boulevard. Next to Five Guys and across the street from the University of Kansas Medical Center.

Picture of the Issue

Chuck Eats KC Podcast

The third episode of the Chuck Eats KC is now available to paid subscribers. The latest episode looks at restaurants in the Waldo neighborhood, reviews Kin Lin, and looks back at Annie’s Santa Fe. Listen to the latest episode.

Support Us Via Ko-Fi

You can support this project on Ko-Fi. We just launched a podcast, so any help is appreciated. This is an independent review project. We take nothing in exchange from local restaurants, so everything comes out of our own pockets.

Please support this project with a donation via Ko-Fi.

TikTok? TikTok!

Chuck Eats KC is now on TikTok at @chuckeatskc. I plan to post from local restaurants, visit locations of bygone restaurants, and talk about Kansas City history.

Mastodon and Tumblr

You can find regular posts from Chuck and Chuck Eats KC on Mastodon at @chuckmunson@kibitz.cloud and Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/chuckeatskc.

Chuck Eats KC Blog and Website

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