KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County, including Independence. Share your story idea with Tod.
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Kansas City’s reputation for world-class barbecue will be judged one smoke ring at a time when FIFA World Cup 26 arrives in three months.
Few things — jazz, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes — bring Kansas City as much national and global renown as the city’s barbecue scene, but that also brings pressure with hundreds of thousands of visitors expected for the World Cup.
“We're ready to have them come and see what Woodyard's all about, for sure,” Pitmaster Dane Nakarato said.
It’s Nakarato’s job to prepare the cuts of meat and tend to the smoker at Woodyard Bar-B-Que in Kansas City, Kansas. He knows there will be extra scrutiny around his work when we welcome the world in June and July.
“A little bit, I’ve got to admit, it is a little bit [nerve-racking],” Nakarato said.
But Woodyard welcomes the challenge.
“We are ready for the judgment,” Woodyard owner Frank Schloegel IV said. “We stand sure in our actions and are proud in our faith that Kansas City barbecue, Woodyard Bar-B-Que, is the best. ... Of course, there's some pressure, but it's the good kind of pressure. It's like the pressure that you feel before the big game.”
And games don’t get bigger than the World Cup.
“International visitors want to try American things, and what's more American than barbecue,” Visit KCK Executive Director Alan Carr said.
After the success of the KCK Taco Trail, which launched in September 2020, Visit KCK launched the KCK BBQ Trail in September 2025.
“The Taco Trail has been phenomenal for us, getting a lot of people to explore our taquerias in Kansas City, Kansas,” Carr said. “We know we have a great barbecue heritage here in the metro, especially in Wyandotte County, and so we wanted to honor that with the KCK BBQ Trail.”
The newest trail features 13 stops, and anyone who downloads the app and completes it by National BBQ Day — May 16, 2026 — will be eligible to win a free grill and at-home barbecue kit from Nebraska Furniture Mart.
The KCK BBQ Trail also serves as a sort of cheat sheet for the best of Wyandotte County barbecue.
There are, of course, plenty of great spots in Johnson County and on the Missouri side as well, but they all face the same challenge as Woodyard, which was featured on Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” and Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations" in 2012.
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“There's a tradition to uphold, and we have to do our part to make sure that we don't mess it up, and to make sure that the barbecue of Kansas City is as good as people think it should be,” Schloegel said.
Nakarato insisted that he’ll be ready.
“Golly, maybe we're gonna have lines out the door for hours on end, which is what we want, so bring it on,” he said. “If I've got to be here the whole damn day, then that's fine.”
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