Plowboys Barbecue signs lease for Town Pavilion location, November opening set

Todd Johns, the competitive barbecue pitmaster and the owner of the one-year-old Plowboys Barbecue restaurant in Blue Springs (3111 Missouri 7, to be exact), will open a second location, in downtown Kansas City later this year in the Town Pavilion, at 1111 Main.

“Our focus there,” Johns says, “will be lunch business. The Town Pavilion has 2,300 people each weekday — that’s like a small town. This space will be an opportunity to cater to the lunch crowd, create box lunches and cater business lunches. We don’t expect much business after 2 p.m., but we’re going to stay open until 5:30 p.m., at least at first, to see if downtown workers might like to pick up something for dinner on their way home.”

One thing that those downtown workers won’t be able to get at the Town Pavilion location: french fries. “We don’t have a hood system in the space,” Johns says, “so we can’t do french fries. But we will have three hot side dishes — baked beans, macaroni and cheese and cheesy potatoes — and three cold sides —  potato salad, two kinds of cole slaw and, possibly, a fresh chilled macaroni salad that I’m working on.”

Because Johns won’t be able to have a smoker on the property, he’ll be importing his meat selection from his Blue Springs store every day, and even then, meats that require long smoking times, like ribs and burnt ends, will be offered as specials two days a week.

Johns says the Town Pavilion project has been in negotiations for 10 months. He became interested in opening a downtown outpost of his Blue Springs location when he noticed “lots of catering trucks” from rival barbecue venues parked in and around downtown office buildings.

“There’s business to be had in this neighborhood,” Johns says. “And with so many workers down here, the dining traffic should be very good during the winter months, which is when I’m less busy at my Blue Springs location.”

The downtown Plowboys will feature 54 seats and a Chipoltle-style cafeteria line, for customers to choose the ingredients on their sandwiches or wraps. Yes, there will be barbecue wraps: “I’m working on one now with barbecued chicken and avocado,” Johns says.