Filling Station Bar-B-Que brisket sandwich and fries

For visit number 46 I visited Filling Station Bar-B-Que in downtown Lee’s Summit, Missouri.  This one has been mentioned a lot by people during my quest asking if I had been there yet.  Because so many people have asked me about it, I have been looking forward to this one and it didn’t disappoint.  In my naivete, I thought this was a restaurant in a real gas station kind of like Joe’s KC, but it is actually a renovated barbecue restaurant that used to be a gas station.  Here’s some of the history of the location from their website:

Filling Station BBQ is a uniquely nostalgic family oriented and owned business located in historic downtown Lee’s Summit.  The building itself opened  as a Texaco gas station in the 1930’s and later became a garden shop.   In 1999 the gas station was  renovated into  a BBQ restaurant which included an onsite smoker.  The original gas station design was retained outside and is currently acknowledged by the Historical Register.  The nostalgic interior is decorated with vintage signs, pictures and memorabilia from the old gas station days.  Outside you will find colorful seating provided for those spring,summer and fall days when you just don’t want to go inside.

Doug Carnes, the current owner, grew up in Lee’s Summit, where Kansas City Barbeque had a huge impact on his life as a child.  Since returning home to become owner/manager of the Filling Station BBQ, Doug has made it his goal to provide a family atmosphere, flavorful, good-quality barbeque and excellent, friendly service. All meats are smoked fresh on site.  Most sides are homemade. Delivery and Catering services are also available.

I arrived around 4:30 on Monday.  There is no parking lot to speak of, so I had to park on the street, which is no big deal.  I really liked the decor, which made you feel like you were walking back into the 1950’s.  This is a restaurant where you place your order at the counter and they bring it out to you.  They offer both a regular and large brisket sandwich and I ordered the large sandwich with fries.  My bill was around 14 dollars, which is a little more money than you would spend getting the same thing at other barbecue restaurants.  There are eight tables inside for seating and they have about seven picnic tables outside on the patio.

I received my order about five minutes after ordering and decided to sit outside on the patio and enjoy the great weather today.  The sandwich is served with no sauce but they sprinkle their dry rub seasoning on the sandwich.  The meat was tender and flavorful with a very nice smoke ring.  The meat on the sandwich was thinly cut pieces.  I was able to eat the sandwich easily with no sauce needed.  They have three different sauces at each table: a regular sauce, a sweet sauce and a hot sauce.  I tried the sauces with my fries.  The regular sauce is a bit sweet with a molasses flavor.  The sweet sauce was much sweeter than the regular sauce, but it wasn’t really too sweet which was nice.  The hot sauce tasted like the sweet sauce with some added hot spices to it.  I liked them all, but the regular sauce was my favorite off the three.

One of the vintage gas pumps outside the restaurant

View from inside the restaurant

This is a really neat place and if you’re in the Lee’s Summit area and you like barbecue, it’s definitely worth checking out.  I’ll definitely go back.

I had to drop another restaurant from the list this week, so I’ve got 27 visits left to complete my quest.  Unless a new place opens up of course, which is always a possibility!

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Till next time….

My bad selfie!

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