Gates Bar-B-Q is one of the twin pillars of Kansas City's barbecue tradition, and the greeting shouted at its door is one of the most famous in American food culture. George Gates opened the first Gates in 1946, and the restaurant has remained in the family ever since, expanding to multiple locations while keeping an intensely local identity. Gates and Arthur Bryant's have sustained a friendly rivalry for decades that Kansas City residents take seriously.
The Gates BBQ sauce is thicker and spicier than Bryant's — tomato-and-celery-seed based, with a heat that builds — applied to meats smoked low and slow over hickory. Kansas City BBQ is defined by its sauce emphasis, unlike Texas where purists disdain it, and by an extraordinary variety of meats: brisket, ribs, burnt ends, smoked turkey, and more. Gates is living history, served on butcher paper.