Jack Stack Barbecue - Plaza — Restaurant in Kansas City

Update: Its been two months since I emailed them again and I still havent gotten a response.

They never responded to the following email I sent to apologize so I guess I'll post it here instead.

Wanted to send this to you because I used to be a huge fanboy for Jack Stack but after this experience my family and I will not be back. I became a huge fan of yours about a decade ago when I did a live interview at the Freighthouse location. I was blown away with the high attention to detail of the management staff and the culinary team. Everything was checked and then rechecked throughout the day to ensure high quality and an incredible guest experience. When asked about the best BBQ in KC I always mentioned you all first because your team always held up to those standards no matter what. You would ALWAYS get excellent food, service, and atmosphere at Jack Stack. This is why when we were told it was be a 90 minute wait at the Freighthouse location we decided to drive down to the Plaza instead because all I wanted was Jack Stack as soon as possible! This past Saturday was anything but that. When we were originally seated despite having a car seat they tried to sit us in a booth. It was obviously too small for a car seat even before being sat. We were then sat at a table that was pushed so far up against the wall I could barely sit down. If you look at the pictureattached, next to me you can see how little room there was on that side of the table. My wife's purse barely fit. The host and server also didn't help us move our waters, roll ups, nor our menus to the new table. I had to balance trying to keep my 4 year old and newborn happy while moving all our stuff over. When my wife went to take a sip of water there was a huge piece of caked on lettuce stuck to her glass. It was super obvious so the server was clearly not paying any attention when they filled our water. The server was as bland as could be and did not offer any sort of apology at all. When I received my KC Combo I was extremely disappointed. There was barely any meat on the plate at all. There were only 4 small pieces of burt end and 4 of the smallest ribs off the baby back rack. The ribs and burnt ends were clearly dry and overcooked when they arrived and sure enough when I bit into them they were dry as can be. Not only that, they were completely flavorless. Zero rub and zero smoke flavor. They tasted like they were baked in an oven. This was not even close to the flavor I had experienced in the past. When I tasted my wife's sandwich it was the exact same. Zero flavor and dry as a bone. My ribs were also full of tiny little bones that weren't removed. I included a picture of the pile of them. Not only were my ribs tiny but almost every single bit included one of these pieces of bone. Not only that but they didn't even separate all of the bones. In the picture attached you can see they just didn't cut it for some reason. For the price, cutting the ribs is the least you could do. Extremely disappointing. I was going to mention all of this to the manager but I never saw one. Despite our section being full we never saw a manager come by and talk to any of the tables. I looked for one several times to flag down but we never saw one to even do that. From someone who has been in the industry in high level management for going on 16 years I could not believe how far the standards of Jack Stack had fallen. I wanted to send this to you in the hopes that you would do the same for me in one of my restaurants. While I won't be back hopefully this will bring positive change for someone in the future who is greatly looking forward to their Jack Stack experience and it will live up to what they may have experienced...

UPDATE: The GM from this location reached out to me personally, showing concern, and was exceptionally appreciative of the feedback in order to make adjustments in service where needed. I really appreciated the direct communication and understanding. I've edited my review to show my gratitude toward Jack Stack management's desire to connect with their guests and implement any improvements necessary. Thank you, Tyler!

Original post: My brother and his family are visiting from Texas this weekend and tonight, I suggested Jack Stack for dinner. This is the first time I’ve seen my brother, his wife, and my nephew in 3 years, so we wanted to enjoy a nice dinner. When we got to this location, the hostess said they had no tables open, but that there was seating on the patio (It’s the end of December). We were going to leave and try a different location, but the server came over and he and the hostess both told my brother that it’s really nice out there and that they have gas heaters AND fireplaces to keep us warm. My brother even said, “he was really trying to sell it to us so we would stay.” So, we were sat outside. After about 10 minutes, the server comes back and said that the propane tanks need to be replaced in the gas heaters, so “they” are looking for them. After another 10 minutes, he comes back and says that the propane tanks are on the roof and it will be just a minute. By this time we are all VISIBLY freezing. After another 10-15 minutes, the server comes back and says they’re out of propane. The whole reason we agreed to stay was the promise of heaters. We are FROZEN by this time. My fiancé had to go all the way to our car to get blankets to wrap around the kids and my brother had to go get extra coats. I went inside to the hostess to explain our predicament and to see if there were any other possible option. When I told her that we’re all super cold and we had only stayed because of the promise of the gas heaters, she got a SUPER rude and disrespectful attitude and said “well, we’re out of propane for the heaters and I have absolutely no tables or options for you inside. I was talking about the fireplaces, not heaters.” I didn’t even address the absurdity of what she said, so after that implication that I had just apparently made that all up, I didn’t say anything else and went back outside, rather shocked at how I was just spoken to. I’m not sure I’ve ever been responded to like that by waitstaff, and I’ve worked in the industry for years. I was definitely taken aback by her terrible attitude towards me, and quite frankly, it honestly just hurt my feelings because I wasn’t upset, we were all just really cold. We had already ordered, but after about another 5 more minutes, my brother goes inside to pay for our drinks because we were just going to leave. We also had three children with us who were shivering. As my brother was inside talking to the server, our food came out. So we decided to just stay, eat really quick, and get out of there, ending our evening earlier than we wanted. This whole situation is a shame because the food tasted good, but after about 5 minutes outside, everything was cold. So, shortly after that, we left. I’m just super disappointed and was hoping for a better evening...

I am writing this review on my most recent dining experience here at Jack Stack's Country Club Plaza location. First of all, I have dined here at this location multiple times in the past. I truly love your food, and you have sold me on the BBQ especially for a person who is not a die hard meat eater.

My mom and I had a late lunch at 3pm yesterday on 6/7/25. We unfortunately had Christian as our server. We felt that he was very rude to us and did not even put in any effort into his role as a server. In fact, he did completely opposite of what he should be doing. Not sure if he was having a bad day, but he appeared as if he did not even want to be at work at all. We have never truly had any negative experiences with waiters or waitresses in the past, so this experience was one of a kind.

We barely got the menu and Christian our server seemed annoyed that we did not know what drinks to order. And when we received our drinks, he placed the drinks horizontally in front of us without saying a word. After he stepped away, he came back and stated which drink is which as if we could not tell the difference (one was cranberry and the other was orange/pineapple, so the colors were obvious). Once we got our food, he never once stopped by to check on us if we enjoyed our food. Twenty minutes later, he decided to stop by to give us our check. We then asked for a box and a separate plastic container for leftovers to take home. He came back with those, but then threw them on the table. He never even provided a paper bag for us to hold the box and container. We had to ask one of the gals in the front for a bag.

Before this experience, we would have rated this location with 5 stars, but we had to knock it down to 3 stars. All other servers we observed were very friendly and attentive, so it would be unfair for us to give a 1 star. But the dining experience we had with Christian was very subpar, we would rate this a negative 0 star. Christian never even cracked a smile or took the time to explain the menu. We would rather have a clumsy waiter with a kind heart (or someone with positive intentions) than Christian. We have to say that this will be our last time visiting this location.

EDIT 6/10/25: I decided to adjust the rating to a 1 star since the person who responded to my review never even apologized for this incident. A response of "We hear you" means that your store does not take this seriously and is a slap...