Peter King says...

Every year, Peter King of Sports Illustrated visits various NFL training camps and generally has a short report on lunch as well.

His ongoing love-hate affair with Starbucks aside -- In one of his latest reports, he speaks of a smallish bbq chain called Zarda's in the Kansas City area.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/football/nfl/specials/preview/2004/08/02/chiefs.postcard/index.html

Anyone know anything about this place?

As an interesting aside, another SI writer in the 'Postcards from Camp' series kiddingly mentions that he always chooses to cover the Bengals so he can lunch on Cincinnati Chili cheese coneys.

Here is Zarda's website: http://www.zarda.com/

The pictures and description look good. Has anyone eaten at any of their 3 locations?

Any chance we could convince him to join in the forums.
Great scribe of the football world, and awfully good on baseball.
Is on the radio here in Boston at least once a week.
He once ran into issues on the Maine Coast north of Portland trying to find a good latte-was taking his daughter college shopping to Bowdoin and Bates-he would have been fine if he had asked any of us
"Roadfoodies"
DaveM

The Zarda family owned a very tasty dairy in Shawnee, Ks. The BBQ's were started by the sons, I believe. It's very good stuff with a tasty sauce to match. There's about a hundred places in the region that deserve mention, but get somewhat ignored by out of towners. I just saw a Bobby Flay BBQ sauce episode a few days ago where he sits in as the Zarda gang mixes up a new sauce and tries it in one of their eateries.

Although the meats Zarda's serve aren't exactly to everyone's taste, they have some seriously good beans and other side dishes They are really overlooked in this area. They have some very clean tasting bbq, which is not a bad thing.