![]() ![]() The list was made using a compilation of recommendations from thousands of Yelp users. The company’s Overland Park location was the only restaurant in Kansas to make Yelp’s cut this year. Pictured left - Jack Fiorella.Famous among Kansas city barbecue lovers, Jack Stack is known for its hickory smoked technique. In fact, the location was such a huge success that Jack Fiorella and his wife, Delores, moved to its present day location at 135th and Holmes Road in 1978. Jack's location was next door to the famous Jess & Jim's Steakhouse - a destination restaurant that has garnered international fame over the years (and, as a personal side note, I think is overrated) - and that certainly didn't hurt his initial presence in the area. By the early 70's, three of Russ' children opened their own Smoke Stack locations around Kansas City with Russ' help, with oldest son Jack opening his place in Martin City, a small town on the far south side of Kansas City just inside the Missouri state line with Kansas. But business started going well for the Fiorella's and by the time the seventh child came into the world around 1963, Russ was able to move the family to a larger home.Ī fire destroyed the building in 1966, but the Fiorella's rebuilt and it wasn't long before business started to come back from the devastating fire. The only hitch was that in order to buy The Lucky Inn, Russ Fiorella had to sell the family's seven bedroom, seven bathroom home and move the family - three boys and three girls - into the small apartment above the restaurant. Russ turned The Lucky Inn from a roadhouse tavern into a barbecue place and named it Smoke Stack BBQ. The purchase surprised everyone around Russ, including Flora who had no idea he was even thinking about owning his own restaurant. Instead of hanging around the hospital, Russ went over to a small roadhouse on the south side of Kansas City called The Lucky Inn and bought the place. The story goes that Russ took his wife, Flora, to the hospital to give birth to the couples' sixth child. Photo courtesy Jack Stack Barbecue.Īs larger grocery stores started to take over, Russ knew that his little neighborhood grocery store couldn't survive. Pictured right - Russ Fiorella standing in front of his neighborhood grocery store/butcher shop. Russ loved to barbecue the meats he cut, and nearly every Sunday you'd find him smoking brisket, ribs, or pork shoulders for the Fiorella family. Like many of his brothers, Russ ended up running a small neighborhood grocery store and worked as the butcher. His parents, Italian immigrants, were originally farmers on the far east side of Kansas City until they were forced to find another line of work when farm prices fell in the 1930's. Russ Fiorella was one of 14 children who grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Kansas City. But the constant through the history of the Smoke Stack - and then later on with what became Jack Stack - is the Fiorella family. Years ago before I found a format or a voice for this blog, I had a couple small posts on the Jack Stack location in Martin City, which was actually called the Smoke Stack when I first went there in the mid-80's. I decided to head over there for dinner on a cool and somewhat rainy evening. Staying in downtown Kansas City for a couple days recently, I found that I was walking distance from my hotel to the Jack Stack location in the old Freight House. Over the years, Jack Stack has expanded to five locations around the greater Kansas City area. It was the first of what would be many meals I've had at the original Jack Stack location. On my first trip to Kansas City working for my new company in the mid-80's, my boss and his wife treated me to a meal at the Jack Stack Barbecue in Martin City, MO. But during my trips to see her during our time together, I was too young and culinarily naive to realize that Kansas City had an outstanding barbecue scene. Now, I had been to Kansas City many times previously because I had a girlfriend who lived there for a number of years before distance just made it too hard for us to stay together. I first started traveling on the road in the mid-80's working for a company out of Kansas City. ![]()
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