Minsky’s buys Kansas City restaurant known for its tenderloins, pig snoot sandwiches

Herrera’s Tenderloin Grill, a Kansas City mainstay since 1932, has new owners: three men affiliated with Minsky’s Pizza Cafe & Bar.

Minsky’s founder Gregg Johnson, Angel Hernandez, general manager of the Minsky’s on Southwest Boulevard, and Ken Kantner, area director and partner in Minsky’s, have purchased the restaurant and building.

The operation, at 900 Southwest Blvd., is known for its tenderloin sandwiches.

Johnson called the restaurant a Kansas City icon, especially for the West Side.

“Just being part of the history of the place. And we thought it would be a great fit with our other concepts,” he said.

Herrera’s has been closed since the death of its longtime manager in January. The new owners hope to reopen after Labor Day with some of the same employees.

The grill’s roots date to 1932, when a Lebanese family traveled the West Side, peddling their pork tender and pig snoot sandwiches out of a wagon. They later had a stand across the street from the current location.

Ricardo Herrera was such a fan he tried to buy the tenderloin recipe in 1960, after serving five years in the military. He purchased the sandwich shop, with about a dozen stools, in the mid-1970s.

He retired nearly a decade ago and his daughter, Maria Herrera Brown, took over. She had started working there when she was in fourth grade but now lives in Texas.

Javier Arroyo was general manager for five years before dying in January.

After his death, Brown was eating at the nearby Minsky’s on the Boulevard when Hernandez offered his condolences. Then the discussion turned to the future of the restaurant.

As a longtime customer of Herrera’s, Hernandez was interested and asked Kantner, a partner in Minsky’s, Eggtc and Osteria Il Centro with Johnson, if they wanted to take it on as his partners.

“I had offers just for the building but I was hoping I could find someone to take over the restaurant and grow it,” Herrera said. “We had a wonderful week training. I think it is in good hands.”

Hernandez was born and raised on the West Side.

“We ate there all the time. My mother loved the tenderloins, my father liked the pig snoots. He was always trying to get us to try it,” Hernandez said. “I would sell pop bottles and that was my tenderloin money. I’ve always wanted a restaurant. I never dreamed it would be the Tenderloin Grill.”

The tenderloins are still hand-sliced and battered and come with mustard, a secret hot sauce, horseradish, onion and tomato on a hamburger bun. The menu also includes the Tenderger (a tenderloin hamburger combo), pig snoot sandwiches, a battered chicken sandwich, fries cut from fresh potatoes daily, hamburgers, grilled hot dogs, fish sandwiches and beer.

“We plan to upscale a little bit — the finest quality ingredients we can get, the best pork butts, the best beef — like we do at our other restaurants,” Kantner said.

They also plan to upgrade technology, including the addition of online ordering, as well as expand the outdoor seating.

They may expand with a soda fountain and ice cream counter by removing a back wall in 2022, the restaurant’s 90th anniversary.

“Everything is done from scratch and we don’t want to change that,” Johnson said. “We’re just excited about it.”

This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.