BBQ so good it makes you want to...

The phrase I heard is slap your mama. But this is even weirder.

We went to Arthur Bryants. Considered on of the first and most authentic BBQ places in KC, if not the country. Especially for KC BBQ. We even went to the original one, down in the industrial downtown part of KC.

It is a dive. I didnt realize it really would be. We got there, and they gave us some pretty cold BBQ meat, which was about as good as anything I can make with ease. And I got the chopped pork sandwhich. Thinking this would be killer, what we really got was a pile of orange mush on wonder bread. Another odd thing was they simply put the food on plastic cafeteria trays. Not on a plate on a tray, but on the tray itself. It weirded me out for a while until I realized it is just as easy to sanitize that as a plate, but I have some kind of culinary bigotry going on.

However, its the CULTURE that really wowed us. A good siezed man (and I mean 6' 4", and pretty good shape, blue collar looking guy) gets a plate full of food. He gets up and walks out of the dining area into the hallway (Im assuming to the bathroom). The boys and I are eating (it was a BIG BOY trip, and Z hung the whole way), and all of a sudden the guy at the table next to us says "Man I think that guy picked up your food and walked out with it". We realize he is talking to the gentleman that went to wash his hands. I look at the guy and say "Youre kidding" and he says that hes pretty sure.

The boys look at me with some amusement, and my mind is swirling. The guy runs out of the front door, and 25 seconds later the 2 BIG boys from behind the BBQ Pit go racing out the door. The old man that cleans up the tables (we are talking about a man in his 70s probably) comes out with a triangle shaped spatula about the size of a cross section of cheddar cheese, and goes to the door.

Just at that point, blue collar man comes walking in with his food! We are all amazed, and we find out the guy took a bite of it before the guy could get it back. Im already thinking "if the pit man doesnt give him some food to replace it we GOT to take a collection and buy this guy some food after all that". Sure enough, they do the right thing.

And them Bryant, the programmer/genius from the hills of West Virginia says "They ought to make a commercial out of that. Its BBQ not only good enough to steal off a mans table, but its good enough to run him down and take it back!"

And then Zion just shrugged and kept eating his chopped Pig.