Page 6 - April 2021 Barbecue News Digital

lc tribute
LC Richardson:
Kansas City BBQ Hero
By: Famous Dave Anderson
LC Richardson of LC'S BBQ, Kansas City, Mo., passed away February 18, 2021 and no doubt is in up in Heaven’s Promised Land making his legendary BBQ for our Good Lord and his Angels. Yes, my friends there is BBQ in Heaven.
The most asked question I get all the time, “Dave, I’m going to be visiting Kansas City and we want to find some real tasty barbecue. Do you have any suggestions? And immediately I say there’s a lot of really great barbecue in Kansas City but if you want the real au- thentic old school type of barbecue smoked over a real live fire—you’ve got to go to LC’s BBQ. Make sure you get the Burnt Ends and Rib Tips!”
Famous Dave Anderson and LC Richardson of LC’s BBQ
I got to know LC over the years and whenever I was in Kansas City I would stop in. LC, who seemed to always be in his restaurant, would warmly greet me. There’s a real restaurant business lesson to be learned here because LC took care of all his business at his table right in the dinning room of his restaurant. LC never hid out in some backroom office. LC paid attention to his BBQ that was being served to his guests but more im- portantly he greeted everyone with his huge welcoming smile like everyone was family.
LC's BBQ is the real deal, live fire, pit smoked bar-b-que done right the old school way. Standing at the counter, when you ordered, you got to watch them open a blackened steel door, which has been described as the vault door to a
Anyone who knows me, knows I love
hole-in-the-wall, old school, real pit
BBQ joints. These legendary bastions of American barbecue are the real deal where wood burning pits are still used and the pitmasters sit by their pits all day. You know you’re in a real BBQ joint when you hear the chomp, chomp, chomp of the pitmaster using a big meat cleaver to hack rib tips into bite size morsels. Nothing fancy,
no frills, just smoked meats & a
few sides served on cheap paper
plates or stuffed in brown paper
bags. These hole-in-the-walls are
usually found in parts of town
where only the locals know. A few
of my favorites are—Lem’s,
Hecky’s & Honey 1 in Chicago,
Morris Grocery & Paynes in Mem-
phis, Ted Cook’s in Minneapolis,
Speed Queen in Milwaukee,
Cooper’s in San Diego, Bludso’s in
LA— and LC's BBQ in Kansas City
is one of the best in America.
treasure of slow smoked barbecue. Yes, their pit was like a Holy Altar to Smoke right smack in the middle of LC's restaurant. Ribs, Beef, Turkey, Ham bathed in flavorful smoke smoldering up from the live fire of glowing embers of locally grown Hickory. And probably the most famous
BarbecueNews.com - 6
APRIL 2021
The Tastiest Beans Came From This Bean Pot pictured in LC’s PIT
Bean Pot in the world nestled in the smoker and seasoned black by the decades of smoky magic swirling around in this pit, for sure has been photographed more times than there are beans in the pot.
The picture you see below of a BBQ Beef Sandwich features the blackened thumbprints of a pit- master whose smoked covered blackened hands reveals this is no namby pamby, wanna-be BBQ joint but confirmation you're get- ting real barbecue by real pitmas-