BBQ breakthrough: Woman line worker makes the cut at KC Arthur Bryant’s

The original Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque has served presidents, professional sports teams, movie stars and regular folk for decades.

But as far back as anyone there can remember, it has never hired a woman to work the line.

Karen Woods, 54, wasn’t setting out to break down any barbecue glass ceiling. She just need a job close to the bus line.

“They said, ‘Now it’s really fast, fast pace. Do you think you can cut it?’ ” Woods said. “All I can do is to do my best.”

She applied for the meat slicer job the day before the Fourth of July, and the Fourth was her first day on the line. She fretted both days that the holiday bus schedule would make her late. She prayed, “Lord, I hope the bus is coming, I need this job.”

She signed up for 40 hours each week — 1 p.m. to close Tuesday through Saturday — and sometimes works a bit more. Her male counterparts pitched in to offer advice, but she soon worked out her own speedy way to cut and wrap sandwiches. So she kept up even as one woman ordered five double sandwiches on a Friday night.

“The lady behind her said, ‘You are making the hell out of those sandwiches.’ And I said, ‘You have to when you have a line out the door. You have to keep the line moving and get people fed,’ ” Woods said.

Among her previous jobs was a stint working in a grocery store butcher shop. But her male counterparts on the Arthur Bryant’s line warned her to “watch out for that big old blade.”

“And I had my first bout with it,” she said, holding up her left pinkie finger. “I got clipped but I was so calm. … After it gets you the first time you know to watch him.”

When a pro football team was recently in town to play the Kansas City Chiefs, some of its players dropped by Bryant’s at 1727 Brooklyn Ave.

“I thought maybe if I fed them well, then they will lose. And they lost,” she said with a big laugh and a slap of the knee.

She greets customers with a big smile and typically calls them “baby,” as in, “Do you want fries with that, baby?” She keeps the smile even as one customer keeps changing his order. Burnt ends. No, sliced meat. No bread. Yes, bread but with barbecue sauce.

“I’ve never had a customer want barbecue sauce spread on his bread before,” she tells him with a smile and a shake of the head as the early afternoon crowd starts lining up behind him.

General manager Willis Simpson, who has been with Arthur Bryant’s for 27 years, said female employees have jumped in to help out on the line. But he doesn’t remember any who have been hired just to work the line. He doesn’t know why more women don’t apply.

“It’s hard work. You have to get up and keep up,” he said. “A lot of guys don’t want to do it. But she has a good personality and good work ethic.”

Woods thanks her co-workers by treating them to home-cooked dinners. A recent one featured meat loaf surrounded by spaghetti, along with scalloped potatoes, green beans, ham hocks, cornbread and spice cake with cream cheese icing. It was so good and went so fast, Woods didn’t even get a plate.

“But that’s OK. I made it for them,” she said.

Her favorite Arthur Bryant’s meal is one she created, a wrap of sorts: ham topped with fries and wrapped in a slice of bread. Or the ribs.

Woods said she has broken barriers for women before as one of the first “lady groundskeepers” for an area casino.

“They used to say we couldn’t do a job because we are women,” she said. “But I like doing something that people tell me I can’t do. I try not to let anything keep me down.”

A taste of KC BBQ downtown

Less than two years after opening a lunch-only, limited-menu operation in downtown Kansas City, Plowboys Barbeque has switched corners and expanded in the Town Pavilion.

It opened this month in a 5,700-square-foot space at 1111 Main St., Suite 120, moving from a 2,200-square-foot space in Suite 115.

Partners Todd Johns and Todd Johnson said they wanted to make their barbecue a feature in downtown for visitors, as well as area workers and residents, so they “can get a real taste of Kansas City.”

Its new larger kitchen allows room for fryers for french fries and sweet potato fries. It also can now serve burnt ends and ribs daily (they were each featured two days a week before), and offer combo platters.

For now the new downtown location will be open only for lunch. In November, after the American Royal, it will be open for dinner Thursday through Saturday and during some larger downtown events.

Its barbecue nachos (with tortilla chips fried in-house daily and topped with made-from-scratch cheese sauce, sour cream, jalapenos and barbecue meat) has been a popular lunch item. But overall, its pulled pork (made with a secret process, Johns said), and its burnt ends (cooked separately from the flat of the brisket) are the best-sellers. It also sells baby back ribs instead of spareribs.

“It’s what we were doing in competition, so we wanted to stay with what we knew,” Johns said.

The new location has a bar serving local craft beers, including Boulevard Brewing Co., Cinder Block Brewery, Crane Brewing and Kansas City Bier Co.

The decor features some of its many awards and ribbons, black-and-white photos of famed Kansas City barbecue restaurants and the Kansas City Stockyards, and mini bios of Kansas City barbecue experts such as Ardie Davis and Paul Kirk.

“We wanted to make it about Kansas City and Kansas City barbecue and not just Plowboys,” Johns said.

BBQ and fried chicken

Overland Park’s new Berbiglia’s Roost specializes in two of Kansas City’s favorite menu items: barbecue and fried chicken.

Owner Gary Berbiglia has a background in both, first with fried chicken and barbecue at the popular Joe’s Restaurant and Bar-B-Q at 7907 State Line Road, and then at sister restaurant Joe’s Barn, at 14885 Metcalf Ave., in what is now Overland Park. He combined them in the new 6,500-square-foot restaurant, which opened at 8725 Metcalf Ave. in early September

Other menu items include navy bean soup, fried catfish, open-faced turkey sandwiches, wood-fired burgers, steaks and grilled Pacific salmon.

“From day number one it hasn’t changed — 50 percent order the fried chicken, 25 percent barbecue and 25 percent the rest of the menu,” Berbiglia said.

This story was originally published October 28, 2016 at 10:30 AM with the headline "BBQ breakthrough: Woman line worker makes the cut at KC Arthur Bryant’s."