Meet new owners of Kansas City’s Arthur Bryant’s BBQ. They’re planning some tweaks
After more than four decades under the same owner, Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque restaurant has been sold.
The Rauschelbach family has owned the restaurant, at 1727 Brooklyn Ave., since 1982. The Bryant family owned the brick building, parking lot and trademark.
MMD Acquisitions LLC in Kansas City bought the restaurant, property and trademark in a deal that closed Nov. 30 but was only revealed recently. They spent December transitioning the operations.
Building housing legendary Kansas City barbecue Arthur Bryant’s gets new owners
The principals in MMD are Chris Stuewe and Andrew Miller. The purchase price was not disclosed.
“This is the first time there is common ownership in everything since 1982,” Miller said. “It’s a brand my grandfather used to eat, a historic Kansas City brand, an iconic Kansas City brand. To be a steward of a brand like this is surreal.”
They plan few changes to the restaurant. They are working to streamline operations and improve technology, such as adding online ordering, and curbside pickup, which they think will be especially popular during Kansas City Chiefs games. They also will put more focus on catering and mail order.
“We want to remind the city, the region and the world that Arthur Bryant’s is one of, if not the best, barbecue restaurants in the world,” Miller said.
Arthur Bryant’s previously had locations in the Legends Outlets Kansas City in Kansas City, Kansas, and the Ameristar Casino Hotel Kansas City. But the new owners said there was no plan to open additional locations at this time.
Miller had approached Jerry Rauschelbach, Arthur Bryant’s former president, about expanding the sauce line, while subtly hinting that he would be interested in buying the restaurant one day.
“I had to convince Jerry, and the family, that Arthur Bryant’s would be in good hands and they agreed,” he said.
R.J. Pittman of Dallas, Arthur Bryant’s great-nephew and former co-owner of the property and trademark with his sister Lovie Glenn, also of Dallas, said, “It was just time to let it go.”
The restaurant’s 28 employees plan to stay on under the new owners.
Rauschelbach is helping out during the transition. He said his two sons didn’t want to take over the business so he didn’t have a succession plan. When the Bryant family wanted to sell the building, he said that would have been a good deal for him if he was 40 years old, but he’s 60.
“Would I love to own it for a few more years? Probably. But retirement is really good now that I’m a month into it,” he said Friday morning. “They will let me come in if I have a desire to make some pulled pork, blanch fries or cut potatoes. That first time you go from zero to 100 in the spring, when the weather is warmer, it is an eye-opening experience. So they will need the help. And I don’t have to manage anyone.”
He said he had several offers for the restaurant, some from out of town.
“I am thrilled that they are local people and understand where Arthur Bryant’s has come from,” he said. “Not everybody in the process was local. It was very important to me that somebody understood the past and that they are restaurant people.”
Rauschelbach had previously confirmed the sale of the property but not the restaurant.
Stuewe grew up in a small Kansas town. He became a partner in a Manhattan, Kansas, restaurant while earning a degree at Kansas State University.
After graduating, he moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a general manager of a restaurant. He came back to the Kansas City area in 2007 to open Hash House A Go Go and then worked as general manager of Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant in the Power & Light District and Leawood.
He also worked for Kansas City’s Bread & Butter Concepts. He currently owns Tequila Harry’s Mexican Restaurant & Cantina in Overland Park.
He and Miller have been friends since they met in college.
Miller is president of Guy’s Snacks in Kansas City, Kansas. He expanded the longtime snack food company by opening Guy’s Deli & Pizza in Westport a year ago.
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Steuwe and Miller plan to open another operation, Guy’s Broadway Bodega in the Crossroads, 2101 Southwest Blvd., on Jan. 23. A Guy’s Deli & Pub will open in the new single terminal Kansas City International Airport in the spring.
Miller also owns Spanish Gardens Foods, Silva’s Foods, James Lemonade and Mama Socorro’s Authentic Mexican Products.
He plans to expand the retail side of Arthur Bryant’s, getting more Kansas City area and regional stores to carry the sauces and eventually selling the line in stores nationally. He also wants to improve merchandising, giving the sauces a higher profile on shelves.
Arthur Bryant’s traces its roots to “Barbecue King” Henry Perry, who set up a barbecue stand in the Garment District shortly after arriving in Kansas City in 1907.
Charlie Bryant was his protege. Then his brother Arthur came up from Texas to visit and never left. Perry put him on the payroll. Perry died, and Charlie took over. When Charlie retired in 1946 it was Arthur’s turn. He had his own ideas.
He moved to the current location in early 1959 and rebranded under his own name.
In 1972, journalist and Kansas City native Calvin Trillin pronounced it the “single best restaurant in the world” in a magazine piece. Since then, presidents and celebrities have made pilgrimages to the brick building. The black-and-white photos of them now line a wall, entertaining customers as they wait in the quick-moving line. Some days it stretches out the door and down the sidewalk.
Customers put their heaping plates of meat on Formica-topped tables with plastic squeeze bottles of sauce at the ready. Arthur called his place a grease house and never wanted to upgrade.
Last year, Rauschelbach shared its key to longevity: “We’re just a little grease joint in the ’hood and I’m OK with that. Nothing fancy. You get what you get when you got what you got decades ago.”
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