Nice!  Is it going to be traditional BBQ in the sense of KC style pork, ribs, ends, beef, etc., or a Grinder's spin on things?  Whatever it may be, it will be great to have a crossroads BBQ truck that can go anywhere in the district.

So, is this place history or not? My boss loves it (he's from St. Louis, and his idea of "barbecue" is cooking hamburgers on a grill and then dumping them in sauce... I dunno...) and wanted to go there for lunch. When I told him it might be closed, his suggestion was to go to the Legends, which... ugh... if I'm going to have to eat bad chain BBQ, I at least don't want to go to the Legends to have it.

Just head down and if closed you can hit whopper bar.

FDs is gone. Signage is removed.

Not acceptable. Boss wanted FD's. Boss gets what boss wants. Ended up at the Legends. That FD's location is freaky. Are they all like that? It's like a weird faux hunting lodge. The only other one I've ever visited was the P&L location, and it wasn't like that at all iirc.

But more importantly, what's coming next? I can't imagine that storefront will be vacant for long. Given that it's pretty much a guarantee that we won't see a local KC BBQ icon in that spot, what national (non-BBQ) chain would be acceptable?

I wouldn't count out a local. Seems cordish has been better at getting local/regional places lately....so I will hold out hope gates moves in.

Whopper bar was a joke but not well explained....they have a whopper with BBQ sauce so that would be about in line with the trash fd serves.

Give OK Joe's free rent. Biggest 'get' in the history of P+L.

Co-sign, but somehow I don't think Cordish could pull that off. Any ideas on whether the FD franchisee still has the lease on that spot?

It hasn't been removed from the P+L web site and they're usually pretty good about that. If FDs comes back for a round three I'm going to be seriously disappointed.

I have a feeling if they put a 'name' BBQ spot down there it'd do gangbusters most nights and drive traffic to stuff around it. I'd love to see Big T's down there.

The concept is gone but the franchisee could still bring in another concept is what mean is saying....like they already tried to do. If that's the case probably not going to have gates/okjoes franchising out to this guy.

Obviously, a local BBQ place doesn't have to go in the FD's location.  There are plenty of empty storefronts.  Ted's, for instance. 

Wanna make sure the franchisee doesn't bring in another lame BBQ concept?  Put a local place in Ted's.   

That whole block is open except sprint....weird that it is easily the biggest failure of all the p&l blocks

If they were to land an ESPN Zone or equivalent on the corner next to the Sprint Center like they had initially hoped, it would change the pedestrian flow quite a bit.

I'm pretty sure Cordish has the franchisee by the balls. I doubt they'll be able to do much else with the space that isn't 100% approved by Cordish.

Outside of the now-vacated BBQ spot north of Sprint Center which was extremely limited in terms of a restaurant, what was the last BBQ restaurant downtown (other than FD's)?  I can't remember there ever being a Gates, Bryants or any of the other KC greats inside the loop.  Jack Stack's a relatively recent phenomena and it's outside the loop. 

Richard Franz(France?), Arthur Bryant's right hand man, had a place on 9th Street
by the Savoy Grill for not very long in the early 80's. The best.
No business skills however.

danny edwards was downtown before he got pushed to SW Blvd to make way for a P+L district parking garage...

He got pushed out for a cwb "future project" block north of sprint...not in the p&l district footprint at all.

Also winslows is in river market. Some random BBQ places have tried in that horrible city center square food court.

Good call, BBQBoy!  Richard had the best bbq I ever tasted in that little place, which I was told was in the block where Charlie Bryant learned bbq skills back in the 1910's - 20's in a place that was owned by Jewish brothers........folklore?

Richard had the hugest hands!  Which made for massive servings!

Wasn't he down on Blue Pkwy for a bit after  the 9th Street venture?  Somewhere near Niecies? 

I remember Richard used to keep his money in a shoe box. It was Great BBQ