Who wouldn’t want to turn a passion into a career? Jeff and Joy Stehney, owners of Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que, did just that.
It started in 1990 when Jeff and Joy began to attend barbecue competitions to support a friend who’d joined a barbecue team. Jeff was drawn into the smoky world of barbecue by the camaraderie, the music and the fun. “He loved spending the weekend barbecuing,” said Doug Worgul, director of marketing at Joe’s.
The couple bought a competition-style smoker, and Jeff talked his employer at the time into sponsoring a team. It didn’t take long for the team, dubbed Slaughterhouse Five, to start winning contests. And they won a lot of contests—from state competitions to national events. Jeff put in the time to practice and developed a good rub. As the barbecue got better and better, people started taking notice. Friends began to ask the couple to barbecue for wedding receptions and parties. They found themselves catering—and in need of storage space.
The Right Rub
Not far from Jeff and Joy’s Kansas City, Kansas, home was a gas station/convenience store, where they’d stop in occasionally. The store had fuel pumps, and there was a fried chicken counter inside. Liquor was sold in an adjacent building. The couple arranged to use extra space there to store barbecue supplies. “In 1996, Jeff and Joy decided to get into the restaurant business full-time, and they approached the owner of the convenience store and asked if he’d sell it,” said Worgul.
The liquor store, gas station and c-store at 47th Avenue and Mission Road helped provide revenue in those early days while Jeff perfected his rub.
Jeff and Joy Stehney were award-winning barbecue cooks before getting into the c-store business.
Jeff knew that Kansas City style barbecue starts with a great rub. He put together the perfect blend of ingredients. “You have to have a technique that produces great barbecue day after day, year after year,” he said. The rub includes the basics like salt and sugar, but there’s also a blend of peppers, smoke and citrus that gives it a unique flavor.
The menu of the 80-seat location hasn’t changed much since the 1990s. Joe’s still carries the basics—slow smoked brisket, pulled pork, chicken, ribs, sausage, turkey and ham. The traditional sides—beans, potatoes and coleslaw—are key here, but it’s the French fries that are a must-have item at Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Cue. “Our French fries are an enormously important part of our popularity. Jeff created a seasoning to put on the fries, which have been voted No. 1 for years by readers of local publications,” he said.
Z-Man and Rocket Pig
The Z-Man Sandwich is the signature menu item at Joe’s. It includes the famous slow-smoked brisket and smoked provolone cheese, topped with two fried onion rings on a toasted Kaiser roll.
It’s a favorite of late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, whose wife is from Kansas City. One night on the show, he asked viewers to send him a Z-Man, so the Stehney team froze the ingredients and sent the sandwich. And that’s when the idea emerged: Barbecue could be shipped anywhere.
“We smoke it the same as it’s done in the restaurant. Then we vacuum seal it, freeze it and have a third-party shipper store it and ship it out,” said Worgul. Customers can order a Chicken Z-Man, Pork Z-Man or Portobello Z-Man (a great alternative to meat), and the store will ship it anywhere in the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii.
Yet with the rising price of brisket, the team wanted to come up with a sandwich that had a better profit margin. Enter the Rocket Pig. “We wanted a fun signature sandwich with a fun name. We start with bacon and pulled pork tossed in a sweet-hot barbecue glaze that had previously only been used in competitions. We added beer-battered crunchy deep-fried jalapeño slices—not too hot—and smoked pepper jack cheese,” he said, adding, “I think it’s the best thing on the menu.”
One night, talk show host Jimmy Kimmel asked viewers to send him a Z-Man, so the Stehney team froze the ingredients and sent the sandwich.
Evolving Food, Customers
Eventually, Jeff realized that the food customers had loved for 20 years didn't necessarily meet the foodservice industry’s steadily improving standards. “Equipment, technique and even meat changes over time. You have to make sure your methods, techniques keep up with the changes,” explained Worgul. Today, there’s less fat content in pork and more fat content in beef. A lot of factors impact beef such as weather, feeding and breeding. “If you’re doing things the same way as 20 years ago, you’re not keeping up,” he said.
Worgul described Jeff Stehney as “a restless traditionalist who’s always changing his methods. He has a deep abiding respect for barbecue traditions that go back to the mid-19th century.”
These days, Jeff still competes. He was inducted into the Barbecue Hall of Fame in 2017, but he’s not the kind of guy to let his reputation do all the work. The goal at Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Cue is to serve customers the best barbecue. He does so at three additional restaurants in Kansas, and it looks like the expansion stops there for now. “Jeff isn’t interested in being the biggest,” Worgul said. “He wants to be the best.”