It’s officially ‘Joe’s Kansas City’ now, not ‘Oklahoma Joe’s’

Via Twitter this morning, Oklahoma’s Joe’s announced that its name change — an effort to sever ties with the Tulsa barbecue operation it split off from 17 years ago — is now officially in effect at all three of its area locations. It’s now Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que. 

For those of us who get carryout Z-Man-and-fries orders with enough regularity that we already just call it Joe’s for short, this is not a meaningful change. For the rest of you, take note. There will come a day, sooner than you think, when calling it Oklahoma Joe’s will be like when your parents call some 60-year-old woman they grew up with by the maiden name she abandoned upon getting married 35 years ago. “Southwest Missouri State” and “Rockhurst College” are also useful examples. At a certain point, you’ll sound out of touch, is what we’re saying. In this case, there’s incentive to remember the name change because it brings with it the civic pride of having Kansas City’s name on a nationally known barbecue brand. 

The restaurant is in the process of changing the sign in Leawood today, and has outfitted the door at the KCK location with the new logo, pictured above. The full statement from management is below: 

Oklahoma Joe’s was a good name. We’ll always be proud of it.

But for us, as a Kansas City owned and operated company for more than seventeen years, Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que is a better name. It better reflects who we are and where we are.  Kansas City is our home. There’s no place we’d rather be, and we want our name to say that. Kansas City is the Barbecue Capital of the World and we want our name to communicate our pride at being a part of Kansas City’s long and deep barbecue tradition. This is the truth at the heart of our decision to change our name.

And here are the facts. We don’t own the name Oklahoma Joe’s. We never did. We were kind of just renting it. It’s a long story. But imagine for a moment if your name was owned by somebody else, or, worse yet, by some big faraway corporation. You probably wouldn’t like it, and if you could, you’d change it. You’d change your name to something all your own. A name that says something about your character, your personality, your identity. You’d choose a name that you could own, that was yours and yours alone. That’s just what we’ve done. We’ve chosen a name that we can own, and own up to. A name we can be even more proud of. Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que.