Habitat for Humanity -- Arthur Bryant's Menu Board

Kansas City is justly famous for its barbecue joints, and in my considerable experience the best is Arthur Bryant's, which has been at the same location since 1930.

AB's is a dive, it's in a crummy neighborhood, and there's almost no parking, but that doesn't stop people from traveling for dozens, even thousands, of miles to go there. U.S. Presidents and all sorts of actors and athletes and other famous people have gone out of their way to get some AB's. Calvin Trillin, the New Yorker writer and social commentator, says Arthur Bryant's is "the best restaurant in the world."

Even though it's a good fifteen miles from where I live, I find myself at AB's fairly often because of some stuff I do for Habitat for Humanity, which is twelve miles in the same direction. One of the U.S. Presidents to eat at AB's is Jimmy Carter (the other is Truman), which makes for two connections to this page.

Food they're good at, making up the menu board they're not.

	Annette, who learned about barbecue in Texas, was convinced she didn't like it. So when she moved to Kansas City I had a hard time talking her into trying AB's, but one day I finally wore her down. Now she understands. Anyway, if she hadn't pointed out this one to me I'd have missed it.
	Apparently they ran out of apostrophes (or G's). And hyphens.
	Here's where they could have swiped a spare apostrophe.
	Is it some sort of ghastly description of an explosion victim? Or is it a torturer's log entry from an early-morning call? This reminds me of a lunch I had at another place in KC famous for its meat, The Hereford House. I ordered an open-face prime rib sandwich, and it arrived without any bread. When I brought this to the waitress's attention, she apologized and took the plate back to the cook. Moments later she returned with the same plate, with the same no bread. She set it back down in front of me and -- I'm not kidding -- said, "The cook says this is how we're serving it today."
	Of all of the oopses on Arthur Bryant's menu board, this dense collection is my favorite. Incidentally, their BBQ sauce (the original, not the other one) really is nearly legendary. They ship it by the case all over the world.

Update of June 2003: It's a good thing I got these photos when I did. AB's has installed a new sign, a series of wooden boards with everything printed in red letters on a white background and, sadly, with almost all the mistakes corrected.

ab6.gif (23,061 bytes) 07202004 400 X 134

Update of July 2004: From this article in The Kansas City Star of July 20, 2004, we learn that two more names can be added to the list of famous people who've visited Arthur Bryant's -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft.