Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue is bringing a full plate to new Lee’s Summit location

Some Lee’s Summit folks had heard their new Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue would have just a limited menu.

But the company didn’t build its first “from the ground up” restaurant with its largest kitchen and largest dining room just to offer a few items.

The new 11,000-square-foot, freestanding restaurant in SummitWoods Crossing at 1840 N.W. Chipman Road is scheduled to open at 11 a.m. Monday with all the Jack Stack favorites.

That includes baby back ribs, burnt ends, sliced beef brisket, pork spare ribs, steaks and chops, rack of lamb, salmon and trout, wood-fired chicken, vegetable kabobs, cheesy corn bake, carrot cake, craft beers, specialty cocktails and a large wine selection.

Menu items are made in the 4,400-square-foot kitchen except for two items — the bread and the french fries are not cut there.

“It’s a ‘from scratch’ kitchen. All meats come in fresh, side dishes are made in-house, salad dressings made in-house, onion rings breaded in-house,” said owner Case Dorman.

Jack’s Stack selected Lee’s Summit because of its strong base of customers in the area. The location, just off Interstate 470, also is a well-traveled route for folks heading to the Lake of the Ozarks, Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead Stadium.

General manager Nathan Tilton, who lives in Lee’s Summit, started as a server at the Overland Park location in 2000 and worked his way up to kitchen manager before becoming general manager of the Freight House location in 2007.

“It’s neat going around, small places like where I get my haircut, my kids’ teachers, they are all really excited about it, watching the building go up,” Tilton said.

Historic Lee’s Summit photos, as well as a few Fiorella family photos — now blown up to mural size with sepia tones — add to the decor. It also has stone fireplaces on the patio and in the bar area and a large to-go area with glass windows looking into the inner workings of the kitchen. About 30 percent of sales at the suburban Jack Stack restaurants are takeout.

The Fiorellas were Independence farmers who shifted to the grocery business when farming profits started falling. The next generation of eight brothers owned their own grocery stores, including Russell Fiorella. When supermarkets started cutting into profits of the mom-and-pop groceries, Russell went to work as a meat cutter for one of the chains.

Less than a year later, in 1957, Russell and Flora Fiorella opened the first Smokestack Barbeque. The family of seven — including a newborn — moved from a 23-room Brookside house into a six-room apartment above the restaurant. Customers would bang on their apartment door after hours demanding barbecue, but the Fiorellas were trying to build their business so they didn’t mind.

In late 1974, their son Jack Fiorella went out on his own, opening a Smokestack location in Martin City. He changed the name to Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue so he could expand. The company now also has restaurants on the Country Club Plaza, Overland Park and the Freight House District. And the Jack Stacks greatly expanded their menu offering over the years, adding steaks, seafood, salads and wings.

“We never introduced an item with the idea of making instant money. It was, ‘Is it different? Is it outstanding in quality and texture?’” Fiorella said. “You get 10 items that people crave and that brings them in, and we have more than 10 items that people crave. You are always going to make money if you have the traffic.”

Dorman met his wife, Jack’s daughter Jennifer, when he worked at the Martin City restaurant as a 15-year-old “bean boy,” scooping up the hickory pit beans to serve to customers. After they were married in 1987, he came to work for the company and became owner in 2009.

Jack Fiorella said: “When I turned it over to Case in 2009, I said, ‘If you are going to grow, grow real slow and don’t add a store until you have both feet on the ground.’ And he’s done that. He’s gone slow and done all the things to make people happy.”

This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 7:25 PM.