World’s First BBQ Museum Opens at Kansas City’s Crown Center
Just in time for spring, the Museum of BBQ in Crown Center will hold its grand opening on April 12. The world’s first museum dedicated to barbecue will walk guests through the elements and the main American regions of barbecue.
“The Museum of BBQ is a feast for your senses,” founder Jonathan Bender said. “Get ready to immerse yourself in the smoke and sizzle of the world of barbecue.”
Guests will enter the Museum of BBQ through an oversized door resembling a Southern Pride smoker door to begin their journey. The first five installations (meat, rub, wood and fire, smoke and sauce) show visitors how meat becomes barbecue through interactive activities and exhibits:
• Identify butcher cuts by putting together the pig puzzle, pose with a butcher’s apron and (plushy) meat, or get tips and tricks at a listening station.
• Continue the sensory experience with a spice guessing game in the rub room before checking out different types of smokers and wood in the wood and fire room.
• Play the smoke ring toss in the smoke room before you get “lost in the sauce.”
In the final five installations (Carolinas, Memphis, bean pit, Texas and Kansas City), visitors get to travel across America to experience the wide world of barbecue variations. Each regional room has a host of information about the history, culture and barbecue style that define a given place. There also are lots of fun moments to make memories and snap pictures:
• Pose with a championship mustard belt — a nod to the mustard-based sauce featured in central South Carolina — in the Carolinas room before getting your ribs tickled with barbecue-themed dad jokes in Memphis.
• Take a dip in the bean pit before learning how to order brisket in Texas and the legend of burnt ends in Kansas City.
Visitors to the Museum of BBQ at Crown Center will enter and exit through the retail store, stocked with a curated selection of barbecue sauces and rubs from across the country, with a special emphasis on the four featured regions (Memphis, Carolinas, Texas and Kansas City). The museum also carries meat spritzes, brines, injections and butcher paper for wrapping brisket.
“Kansas City has such a rich history of barbecue,” Bender said. “This is the perfect place to bring the world’s first barbecue museum to life.”
Located at Crown Center’s second floor (2450 Grand Boulevard, Suite 231), tickets are $10, and the museum will open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. More information and tickets are available at museumofbbq.co.
