Latest news with #ArthurBryant
Forbes
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
The World's First Museum Dedicated To BBQ Opens In Kansas City Tomorrow
Commenting on the size of the drinks at Arthur Bryant's Barbecue restaurant, President Barrack Obama ... More (middle), prepared to sit down to talk and eat with Victor Fugate (left), Mark Turner, and Becky Forrest (right) during a visit to Kansas City on Tuesday, July 29, 2014, in Kansas City, Mo. (Shane Keyser/Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) When I think of Kansas City, Missouri, several things stand out. The city boasts a vibrant African American heritage and has been a welcoming ground for talented jazz musicians. Additionally, it is home to outstanding professional sports teams and is well-known for its barbecue. While you're here, you'll find more than 100 barbecue restaurants including the famous Arthur Bryant's where President Obama has dined. The city is also home to the world's largest barbecue competition. Incase that's not enough bragging rights, BBQ enthusiasts will be thrilled to hear that Kansas City is launching The Museum of BBQ, the first museum in the world dedicated entirely to barbecue. And it opens this weekend. 'The Museum of BBQ is a feast for your senses,' says founder Jonathan Bender. 'Get ready to immerse yourself in the smoke and sizzle of the world of barbecue.' The museum, set to unveil its grand opening this weekend, is already a highly anticipated attraction. Its recent recognition as one of Time Out's best new things to do in the world has only added to the excitement. It's a moment food fanatics have all been waiting for. The museum is founded by the legendary Jonathan Bender, an Emmy award winning writer (and KC local) with over a decade of experience in the barbecue industry. It's also in partnership with Alex Pope, chef and owner of Kansas City's The Local Pig butcher shop. Get ready for an immersive experience that's truly one-of-a-kind. Your journey begins with a unique entry through an oversized door, inspired by a Southern Pride smoker door, that's sure to pique your curiosity as you wander through 4,000 square feet of barbecue heaven. Baked beans take center stage in the Bean Pit room, where a bean pit with 8,000 ball pit balls ... More awaits kids and the young at heart. Guests will move through a series of installations, with the first five (Meat, Rub, Wood & Fire, Smoke, and Sauce) dedicated to showing them how meat turns into delicious, mouth-watering barbecue. The interactive exhibits and activities throughout these installations are not just informative, but also fun and engaging. They include identifying butcher cuts via a pig puzzle, posing for an Insta-worthy photo ops with a butcher's apron, plush-like meat statue or the 8,000 'baked bean' ball pit. Or, get tips and tricks for your backyard pit from pros known as Prairie Fresh ambassadors in the Meat Room. The Smoke Room even has a fun ring toss game for younger visitors. Another sensory experience offered is a spice guessing game in The Rub Room before heading off to see the types of smokers used in the barbecue cooking process in The Wood and Fire Room. A look at the panels in the Rub & Spice room, where visitors will learn about how different spices ... More contribute to the flavor of barbecue. Contrary to the typical local-centric approach, Kansas City is carving its own path in the barbecue world. Rather than solely showcasing its own barbecue, the city is celebrating the diverse BBQ regions of the United States with its unique installations. Guests can pose with an oversized championship mustard belt – a nod to the mustard-based sauce that ... More is revered in central South Carolina. Each regional room (Carolinas, Memphis, Bean Pit, Texas, and Kansas City) is a testament to the rich barbecue history, culture, and styles of the United States. As a Carolina girl, I may be a bit biased, but I can't help but appreciate the cultural significance of each region's BBQ. And of course, there's no shortage of photo ops. You can even pose with the championship mustard belt, a tribute to the BBQ style of South Carolina. A section of the 22-foot-long mural created by the artist Birdcap to honor Memphis barbecue for the ... More Memphis room. The museum will be showcasing a diverse range of murals and artwork, from contemporary pieces to traditional works, from several artists like Alice Ferns of England, Katie Ford from Cleveland, Ohio and the Carpenter Collective out of Kansas City, Missouri. The Museum of BBQ will stock a curated selection of sauces and rubs from Memphis, Texas, the ... More Carolinas, and Kansas City. One of the most exciting aspects of the museum is the retail space, a haven for barbecue enthusiasts. Here, guests can find a wide array of products, from sauces and meat spritzes to brines and dry ribs, all from the barbecue regions. But that's not all. There's also hickory smoked cheese puffs and BBQ flavored snacks for those who love a good nibble. And for the grillers and pit masters, a selection of tools like burger presses, meat claws, and barbecue mops await, ensuring you have everything you need for the perfect barbecue experience. The museum will officially open its doors on Saturday April 12, 2025. Located in the shops at Crown Center (2450 Grand Boulevard, Suite 231) in Kansas City, Missouri. 'The Museum of BBQ is such a great addition at Crown Center. It's perfect for our wide audience – hotel guests, other tourists to Kansas City and our local visitors and families,' said Stacey Paine, president of Crown Center Redevelopment Corporation, 'and we look forward to welcoming everyone to this authentic Kansas City experience.' They operate on a staggered entry model, so guests are admitted every 30 minutes. The Museum of BBQ will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $10 per person and can be purchased online. 'Kansas City has such a rich history of barbecue,' says Bender. 'This is the perfect place to bring the world's first barbecue museum to life.'
Los Angeles Times
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Column: The TV ad is a dying art. This year's Super Bowl proved it
Has video killed the Super Bowl ad? If ever there were a Super Bowl that needed a bunch of surprising, cool and smartly written commercials, it was Super Bowl LIX. As Philadelphia systematically destroyed Kansas City, Eagles fans were no doubt too… ebullient to pay much attention to the ads, while Chiefs supporters no doubt spent the commercial breaks bargaining with God or dousing themselves with Arthur Bryant BBQ sauce for luck. For the rest of us, well, let's just say it would have been nice to find some distraction from a really funny and/or powerful ad or two. Alas, it was not to be. With a few notable exceptions — Nike's 'So Win' spot, which pushed back against the 'no win' situation in which female athletes are often trapped, was terrific, as was Kieran Culkin's sassy voice work as a beluga whale for Nerdwallet — this year's Super Bowl commercials did not live up to the hype. And that hype may be part of the problem. In the last two decades, Super Bowl commercials have taken on a life of their own, competing for next-day water-cooler/internet anointment as fiercely as the two teams taking the field. Long before Taylor Swift began dating Travis Kelce, these spots became a way of drawing in non-football fans: Get snacks and go to the bathroom during the game, come back to catch the debut of the most expensive, and occasionally most creative, commercials on television. Increasingly, however, it is not their debut. After the phenomenal success of Volkswagen's 2011 'Star Wars' themed spot 'The Force,' advertisers began dropping their Super Bowl ads before the big game. Media outlets, which already offered 'reviews' of the spots, began providing 'sneak peaks' and early best/worst rankings or lists of who/what to watch for. This year, you didn't have to watch Super Bowl LIX to see Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal revisit their famous deli scene from 'When Harry Met Sally' for Hellman's Mayonnaise, or watch Catherine O'Hara and Willem Dafoe emerge as pickle ball champions for Michelob Ultra or even catch the cross-over Matt Damon/Ben Affleck joke between Dunkin' and Stella Artois. But the advertisers, it seems, have begun to believe their own publicity. As if the fact that they had nabbed a Super Bowl spot (or two) and a few famous faces guaranteed success. Trapped by the uncertainties of an election year, many of the ads settled in the safe space of nostalgia. In addition to Ryan and Crystal's throwback for Hellman's, Seal (as an actual and rather frightening seal) sang a modified version of his 1994 hit 'Kiss From a Rose' for Mountain Dew's Baja Blast; Instacart unleashed Mr. Clean, the Jolly Green Giant and the Kool-aid pitcher; and 11 years after they starred in the first season of 'True Detective,' Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson re-united for Agentforce. Watching the ads play out in their intended habitat — the Super Bowl — it was difficult not to wish that the advertisers had taken their own messaging to heart. That, as in the good old days, they had worried less about multi-platform promotion of the commercial and more about making the commercial good and memorable. Surprise certainly would have helped, particularly for the more unusual offerings — Barry Keoghan going full 'Banshees of Inisherin' while pitching laptops at unsuspecting Irish folk for Squarespace, Jeremy Strong 'getting into character' but submerging himself in a barrel full of wet coffee beans for Dunkin' — but in the end most of the spots, which sold for an average of $8 million, relied on famous faces over clever conceits and sharp writing. (Both Seal's Mountain Dew ad and CoffeeMate's Cold Foam spot, which featured a contorting life-sized human tongue, no doubt seemed funnier and less disturbing in the pitch meeting.) There were so many stars — including, in addition to those mentioned above, Walton Goggins, Kevin Costner, Harrison Ford, Chris Pratt, Chris Hemsworth, Issa Rae, Glen Powell, Adam Brody, Greta Gerwig, Nate Bargatze, Aubrey Plaza, Michael Shannon, Bad Bunny, and Bill Murray — that they quickly ceased to make an impact. Martha Stewart showed up twice (for Sketchers and Uber Eats), as did McConaughey (for Uber Eats and Agentforce), though 'Schitt's Creek' was the clear winner of the Super Bowl ad war. In addition to O'Hara for Michelob Ultra, Eugene Levy and Sarah Levy showed up for Little Caesar's and Dan Levy appeared for (Culkin and Strong, both Oscar nominees, made 'Succession' a healthy second.) Perhaps ironically, then, many of the most powerful ads were those without Hollywood A-listers: the NFL's spots celebrating youth organizations and supporting women's flag football; Dove's 'These Legs' campaign for body positivity among girls and women; paean to home and home ownership and, of course, Budweiser's annual Clydesdale-centric spot, this one featuring the little foal that could, all connected on an emotional level. The rest mostly fell flat, at least in Super Bowl terms. Most of them weren't bad, they just weren't all that special. No Jeep 'Groundhog Day' or 'Alexa Loses Her Voice,' never mind Pepsi's iconic 'The Showdown,' in which Larry Bird and Michael Jordan shoot hoops. No doubt those who paid millions for Super Bowl spots will consider it money well-spent. With linear television at an all-time low, the Super Bowl, with its average annual viewership of 100 million, is literally the biggest game in town. And with the steady collapse of broadcast networks, the television commercial is, in many ways, a dying art. (Whether the streamers will revive it in any meaningful way remains to be seen.) So perhaps it is an issue of unrealistic expectations. As the digital multitudes, professional and amateur, turn social media into a never-ending carousel of promotion, advertising, or at least the art form it became in the latter part of the 20th century, has become as splintered as the platforms on which it used to run. It's tough to remember the days in which 'Got Milk,' celebrity-studded American Express ads or the 'Mac vs. PC' campaign were touchstones of the cultural conversation, the viral Tik Toks of days gone by. Still, it's disappointing that, given the rare (and expensive) opportunity of the Super Bowl, no company managed to break through with an ad that people will be talking about for days. Instead we are left only with the game — and it wasn't exactly one for the record books.
