The World’s First Barbecue Museum is Coming to Kansas City

Humans have been cooking over open flames for at least 780,000 years. Even today, few can resist the tantalizing aromas and umami-packed flavors of tender baby back ribs or melt-in-your-mouth brisket.

Now, a new museum will celebrate America’s long love affair with fire- and smoke-kissed meat. Next spring, the Museum of BBQ is slated to open in Kansas City, Missouri, a place that’s famous for its thick, sweet-and-spicy sauce and burnt ends.

According to an announcement, the new venue will be the world’s first museum dedicated to barbecue. The museum is being co-founded by Jonathan Bender, a food writer and barbecue judge, and Alex Pope, a chef who owns a whole animal butcher shop.

Visitors will be able to explore two distinct “storytelling trails” spanning 4,223 total square feet, according to the announcement. First, they’ll learn about the different components of barbecue, including meat, rubs, spices, sauces, wood, fire and smoke, and learn how chefs transform these basic elements into succulent dishes.

Next, they’ll explore four main regions of American barbecue—the Carolinas and Texas, and Memphis and Kansas City—and see what makes each one unique.

“Barbecue is meant to be shared,” Bender tells KCTV’s Ryan Hennessy. “It’s meant to be experienced together, and this museum is designed to help you connect with both the elements and the regions of barbecue, of which Kansas City is the epicenter.”

Little ones will also be able to play in a ball pit-style area designed to look like a giant crock of barbecued beans, per the Kansas City Star’s David Hudnall. That area will also feature custom bean illustrations and bean puns.

“We saw this as a natural fit, for kids and adults to experience it together,” Bender tells Startland News’ Joyce Smith.

To round out the experience, visitors will be able to peruse rubs, sauces, aprons, shirts, hats and other barbecue-themed items in the gift shop.

The museum is slated to open in the spring of 2025 in the city’s Crown Center shopping and entertainment district. It will be near the National WWI Museum and Memorial, the Sea Life Kansas City Aquarium and the Legoland Discovery Center, among other attractions.

In the meantime, visitors can check out a miniature version of the museum near its planned entrance.

Today, Kansas City is home to more than 100 barbecue restaurants, plus the World Series of Barbecue competition and the Barbecue Hall of Fame. The Midwest city can trace its barbecue roots back to the early 1900s, when a Black chef named Henry Perry arrived from Memphis and began cooking meat in a brick-lined pit in the ground. Perry called himself the “Barbecue King,” per the Kansas City Star’s Michael Wells.

Perry cooked anything and everything—from possum and racoon meat to pork and mutton. Whatever he prepared, his barbecue “had an aroma that stayed with you. And that's what made them want to come back to him," historian Sonny Gibson told KCUR’s Mackenzie Martin in 2021.

“They traveled from as far as Leavenworth, Kansas, and Omaha, Nebraska,” Gibson added. “They would come down just to eat his food.”

The city’s rich barbecue traditions grew from there, with a second wave of pitmasters helping to cement its place in culinary history.

“Kansas City is a natural home for the Museum of BBQ,” says Bender in the announcement. “Barbecue is synonymous with the city because of the rich traditions here.”

Sarah Kuta | READ MORE

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.