Famed Kansas City barbecue joint tells customers: Don’t buy the brisket or burnt ends

It’s a startling message at first glance.

But the note at the counter at Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue is unambiguous: “order anything besides brisket or burnt ends,” it reads in part.

Those two cuts account for more than two-thirds of sales at the barbecue institution on Kansas City’s East Side. But increasing beef prices have the restaurant urging customers to try another protein like pork, chicken or turkey.

Owner Jerry Rauschelbach says he hates the prices he’s forced to charge customers.

What four months ago was a $10.95 brisket sandwich is now $17.95. (Keep in mind the whopping portions at Bryant’s: each sandwich is loaded with three-quarters of a pound of meat.)

“I’m embarrassed by our brisket pricing,” he said. “But everybody’s doing it. It’s either that or you close your doors.”

The cost of nearly all goods and services has been on the rise in recent months as the nation experiences the highest rate of inflation in 40 years. Rauschelbach says he’s seen the price of most supplies rise by at least 25%.

But nothing has stung as badly as the skyrocketing prices of beef, which is generally a higher-priced protein. Longer gestation periods for cattle mean farmers can raise other meats like pork or poultry much quicker.

Rising prices are so bad that Rauschelbach thinks consumers need to lay off the beef for a while to ease demand — a tall order this time of year when warmer temperatures will see many people firing up their grills and smokers at home.

“We need to send the message that we’re not going to eat brisket, we’re not going to eat beef products,” he said. “And if you don’t eat beef products, prices will plummet immediately. It’s simply a supply and demand issue.

“If everybody went to a barbecue place and ordered pork for a week, beef prices would come down real damn quick.”

Like many other industries, restaurants have faced turbulent supply chains since the onset of the pandemic. Now, packing houses and other suppliers are facing significant labor shortages while product demand stays strong.

The good news is that brisket prices seem to be easing. Ever so slowly.

“Hopefully, we’ve seen the height and it’s starting to back off,” said Ryan Barrows, vice president of operations at Joe’s KC. “We’re easing off the recent highs. But we’re not playing the same game, yet alone in the same ballpark, as before the pandemic.”

Joe’s has faced skyrocketing prices for many items, but soybean oil and beef have topped the charts.

“There’s not one product that comes through our door that hasn’t risen in price in the last year and half,” Barrows said.

Meat prices plummeted in the earliest months of the pandemic as restaurants closed their doors and cities implemented stay-at-home orders. But they began spiking in the summer of 2020. That saw wholesale brisket prices top $7 a pound, a staggering amount given how much volume a barbecue restaurant loses from meat shrinkage and trimming.

Wholesalers are now selling brisket for $3.60 to $4 a pound locally. That’s still high, considering local restaurants saw brisket price of $2.45 per pound two years ago.

“It’s been astronomically high for the last few months and it’s started to come off in the last couple weeks,” said Steve Ingala, director of operations at Mies Family Foods, which supplies meat and other products to local grocery stores and restaurants.

While consumers can be price sensitive with many items, in Kansas City they don’t necessarily shy away from the meat when prices soar.

“Surprisingly, demand stays fairly strong when that price goes up,” Ingala said. “It’s all driven by demand. People are hungry and as long as they’re buying it at the consumer level, it continues.”

And now traditionally lower-priced meats are accelerating in price.

Ingala said the per-pound price of fresh chicken breast is now only 30 or 40 cents below the per-pound price of whole briskets.

“In a normal market, chicken would be a fraction of brisket,” he said.

Already reaching record prices, the costs of eggs and chicken are expected to further spike now that several states have experienced outbreaks of avian flu at chicken farms.

But none of this turbulence is new to those with experience in food businesses.

“Even when things are normal, these proteins tend to fluctuate back and forth,” Ingala said. “When a couple are really high, one is usually more affordable. They kind of move around like that.”