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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A new study suggests that Kansas City is not home to the best barbecue in the country, but the title, instead, belongs to another Missouri city about 250 miles west on I-70.

LawnStarter released its “2022’s Best BBQ Cities in America” study last week, ranking 200 cities based on access, accolades and quality of barbeque. The study gave St. Louis the best overall score (49.41), edging out Kansas City (46.45) as the nation’s top spot for barbeque.

There are lies, damn lies, and outright bulls***. This is the latter.

StL has T-rav, Ted Drewes, and White Castles (still!). We own BBQ.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas

“There are cities that cook barbecue, and there are barbecue cities,” says the study. “The difference is the latter will make you produce ‘meat sweat’ after eating a ridiculous amount of ’cue.”

Missouri actually had three of the top four spots in the study. Kansas City placed second with a score of 46.45. Springfield, Missouri, was named the fourth-best barbeque city in the study. The study also recognized Kansas City, Kansas, as the seventh-best barbeque city and Overland Park, Kansas, one spot higher in sixth.

In the study, Kansas City, Missouri, ranks first in accolades and second in hosting but 18th in quality and 95th in access.

The study credits St. Louis as the top ten cities for access (2), accolades (6) and quality (6) when it comes to barbeque. Jeff Herman, editor in chief of LawnStarter, recently told KMOX that St. Louis’s top rating was helped by the large business involvement in the National Barbecue and Grilling Association and American Royal World Series Of Barbecue.