Jones Bar-B-Q (Kansas City)

Deborah "Little" and Mary "Shorty" Jones are the daughters of Leavy and Juanita Jones, two of eight siblings raised in Kansas City.[1]^:120[2][3] Leavy Jones quit school after the 7th grade, worked as an electrician, and moonlighted as a pitmaster at an African-American owned barbecue restaurant, Hezekiah's, on 10th Street in Kansas City.[1]^:120[2][4] The sisters helped out part-time making their family's sausage recipe "since they were old enough to stand on a milk crate and help crank out links."[2] The sisters and their siblings worked at Hezekiah's on weekends growing up, and their brother Daniel eventually purchased it.[2] Deborah continued to work with her brother as an adult while also working full-time for the US Postal service. When Daniel died in the 1980s, Mary, then working full-time as a nurse, joined her, and they ran the business together.[2] They stayed on 10th Street until 2003, moved to 6th Street and stayed there until 2009, then downsized to a food cart on 12th Street[2] so they could focus on caregiving for their father, who had been injured in an automobile accident.[5]

In 2015, after their father died,[5] the sisters opened the restaurant at the current location, a former taco stand in a parking lot on Kaw Drive in an industrial section of Kansas City near railroad tracks.[2] The wood-fired smoker sits outside behind the stand.[2] Customers form a line outside to place their orders at a window.[2] The restaurant is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 am to 3 pm or until sold out;[3][6] they usually sell out by noon.[4]

As of 2016 The Kansas City Star considered them possibly the only Kansas City barbecue owned and operated by women pitmasters.[7][8][9] The sisters do not participate in the barbecue competition circuit.[10]

In 2018 they appeared on an episode of Steve Harvey's Steve in a segment titled "The Queens of Barbecue".[11][12]

In March 2019 the sisters and the barbecue were featured on the third season of American television series Queer Eye,[4] which was filmed in and near Kansas City.[13] They were nominated by Deborah's daughter, Izora, who told the show they had reopened a restaurant after having downsized to a food cart to help her pay for college.[13] Both they and the restaurant received a makeover, and they started bottling their sauce.[4] In the aftermath they had to put in a second barbecue pit to handle demand.[10] As of March 2019 they had not added staff, as they worried about hiring someone and then having to lay them off if demand fell.[10]

Jones Bar-B-Q sells ribs, turkey, burnt ends, brisket, sausage, and sauce made with their father's secret recipe.[1]^:120[2][14] They hand-grind and stuff the sausage, which as of 2001 was their top seller.[1]^:120 All meat is cooked pit-style over hickory logs.[10][15] When the Queer Eye show was renovating their restaurant, the sisters told them not to bother putting in an oven.[10]

In 2001 Doug Worgul featured them in the afterword of The Grand Barbecue: A Celebration of the History, Places, Personalities and Techniques of Kansas City Barbecue.[1]^:120 Worgul said the sisters' barbecue "represent[ed] an artisan approach that cannot be replicated in higher-volume barbecue restaurants" and calls the former taco stand, "the jointiest joint I've ever seen".[2] In 2016 Ardie Davis called it "old school", saying the barbecue is straightforward, not oversmoked, and not overtrimmed.[2][17]

In 2019 Jones Bar-B-Q's Coconut Pineapple sauce was named by Bloomberg News as one of their five favorite barbecue sauces.[18]

• Official website