![]() had a classroom where managers were taught how to run a restaurant. It also became an unofficial incubator for restaurateurs in Kansas City. Jones’ barbecue sauce was featured on the Hickory burger at Smaks.Īllen’s and Smaks sponsored youth baseball and women’s bowling teams, screenings of “The Wizard of Oz” at Glenwood Theater, and the Ice Capades. Jones and Llewellyn also opened a pair of Bobby Bell’s BBQ restaurants, one in North Kansas City and another at 95th and Metcalf in Overland Park. There was a Smaks in the Ward Parkway Center and 6420 Troost (now a parking lot that sits adjacent to a McDonald’s), and 9420 Mission Road in Overland Park, Kansas (where the Mission Road Animal Clinic is today). There were a dozen Allen’s and more than two dozen Smaks across Kansas and Missouri. Over a 20-year span, the family had built a regional burger empire. Built in 1965, Allen’s and Smaks’ commissary was at 4601 Van Brunt, where they baked their own rolls, mixed up the house barbecue sauce, sliced potatoes for French fries, and broke down beef from their ranch in Maple Hill, Kansas.Ī quartet of line cooks work the grill at Smaks. The cow would be brought around to local Smaks and Allen’s before it was butchered at a central commissary. “I looked out the window and there was this big cow.” “I was in grade school at Hickory Grove and I remember my teacher saying that we have a special surprise,” Kilpatrick said. Animals, it turns out, were a big part of Smaks’ identity.įor more than a decade, the family would buy the winner of the American Royal’s market steer contest. There was even a “Smaky Meal,” with a small burger, fries, a soft drink, and toy. In 1964, advertising executive Bill Witcher came in with an unorthodox pitch: Smaky, a seal puppet that would grant his “seal of approval,” to the food at Smaks. In the midst of expansion, Ted Llewelyn wanted to give Smaks a new identity, something to draw in families. The success of the catering operation helped propel him into the restaurant business. But when Kroger asked him to manage the whole store, he quit and decided to launch Caterers, Inc. ![]() In 1942, he moved his family to Kansas City so he could manage the meat department here. Jones was a butcher for Kroger in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s a story that stretches back more than 70 years and begins with a man named Wayne Jones. She wanted to know about the history and ownership of the Smaks restaurant chain. It’s a name that still resonates with local residents as evidenced by reader Amber Davidson’s question for curiousKC. The Johnson County Museum is in the midst of putting together an exhibit with pictures and artifacts from Smaks. Smaks helped shape the burger and fast food landscape in and around Kansas City. It became a staple for families seeking cheap, quick burgers, thick shakes, and hand-dipped onion rings. Over the next 40 years, Smaks would grow into a regional burger chain with locations in seven states. The first Smaks opened in 1956 at 5420 Johnson Drive with that traffic stopping stunt. “You’d watch the cars out front and people would slam on their brakes to try to figure out what was going on.” “My dad had met a zookeeper and he asked him to bring over an elephant for the opening of Smaks,” Wes Fielder said. ![]() The elephant on Johnson Drive stopped traffic.
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