Arthur Bryant

Transcribed article: Arthur Bryant, the master of barbecue, dies at age 80. Kansas City barbecue king Arthur Bryant died today after he collapsed at the restaurant where he fed presidents, movie stars and common folk. He was 80. Mr. Bryant was pronounced dead at Truman Medical Center about 10 a.m. He collapsed about 9 a.m. at his restaurant at 1727 Brooklyn Ave., Kansas City police reported. He apparently died of a heart attacked, police said. Arthur Bryant Barbeque - a "grease house," Mr. Bryant proudly called it - was the business that gave Kansas City its renown as a barbecue capital. Calvin Trillin, a Kansas City native who is a writer for the New Yorker magazine, championed Mr. Bryant's barbecue to the world. Amount the best restaurants in the world, Mr. Trillin once wrote, Kansas City could claim the first three of four. And the first, he said, is Arthur Bryant's. The list of Mr. Bryant's customers was distinguished. Hollywood stars such as Robert Redford and Jack Nicholson ate in the plain surroundings being the glass-and-brick storefront. Mr. Bryant said President Harry S. Truman was a regular. And when President Jimmy Carter was in Kansas City in October 1979 he brought his entourage to the restaurant for an unannounced lunch. The visit by Mr. Carter apparently came because Mr. Bryant had passed up an opportunity to be in the reception line for the president on a previous visit to Kansas City. His reported retort to the White House staff: "I don't make any more personal appearances." Craig Claiborne, food editor for The New York Times, last year flew 30 pounds of Bryant's ribs to a New York party attended by French chefs. He said he wanted to introduce them to America's best foods. Ollie Gates, president of the Kansas City chain Gates & Sons Bar-B-Q restaurants, said his industry would suffer because of the death of Mr. Bryant. "He was different ... and always stuck to his guns," he said. "To lose a spoke in the wheel of the barbecue industry is a blow." Ironically, Mr. Gates did not know Mr. Bryant personally. "I was probably too busy competing with him," he said. At the restaurant today members of the staff said Mr. Bryant was dedicated to helping them. "He wouldn't be standing over you. He always tried to help people," said Richard France, the man Mr. Bryant's customers know well as the served who slapped brisket between sandwich bread and ribs onto plastic platters. One of Mr. Bryant's nieces, Doretha Bryant, who worked at the restaurant, said Mr. Bryant loved his customers. "He always got a joy out of making sandwiches (and) talking to customers ... They were just like family to him. When Mr. Bryant was young, agriculture - not barbecue - was his recipe for life. He was born and reared on a farm in East Texas. "Lord, that was poor country," he recalled once. "The people was poor, the schools was poor, the land not worth much. I had to run away from home to go to college. It was the only way out. He went to what was then Prairie View A&M College, an all-black school in Texas, and got a degree in agriculture and a job offer at a high school. But in 1931, before he settled down, he decided to travel the country and visit a cousin in California and his brother, Charlie, in Kansas City. He got to Kansas City first. He never left. "I got up here and Charlie was working in a barbecue place over to 19th and Vine," Mr. Bryant said. "Old Man Perry (Henry Perry, the owner of the restaurant) gave me a job and I just stayed." He learned the ropes of the barbecue business and began planning his future. "They were the greatest barbecue men I ever knew," he said. "I disagreed some with the sauce they used and some of their methods, but they wouldn't listen. And I thought about what I would do different when I went into the business. But I never would have thought about opening' a place while they were around and take away some of their business. It wouldn't have been the right thing." So he waited. Henry Perry died and Charlie Bryant took over the business. And when Charlie retired in 1946, it was Arthur Bryant's turn. First, he changed the sauce. "Old Man Perry and my brother used to make it too hot," he said. "You could tell it by the way people frowned. It should be a pleasure. I told them that, but they wouldn't believe me." Mr. Bryant cut down the cayenne pepper and adjusted the ratios of paprika and salt in the tomato puree base. "Now it's a pleasure," he said. "I make it so you can put it on bread and eat it." He also change the decor. A little. Formica and linoleum replaced wood and air conditioning replaced heat prostration. But he never wanted to get rid of the "grease house" image. "That's just not barbecue, bot when you got them plush seats and the dark interior," he said. "That wouldn't be no grease house that way. You can out in an air conditioner and plastic top tables if you want, but you cant's get too fancy or you get away from what the place is all about." Through 36 years and in a new location at 1727 Brooklyn Ave., Mr. Bryant carefully watched over his barbecue business, where every business day more than 2,000 pounds of meat was cooked. Even when he was ailing he wouldn't trust it to another manager. And when he took a vacation every January Arthur Bryant's Barbeque shut down. "This is a personal business," he said. "I have to know what is going on. If I don't it's too bad. I don't hire me a barbecue man to come in here and do it. I'm the barbecue man." So Bryant's never became a chain, with branches spanning the country. Mr. Bryant had been semi-retired but maintained supervision of the restaurant. "I feel like I've done everything like I wanted it," he said. He was happy with his work and once pledged to work until he was 102. "After you go so ling, you get worn out. You try to slow down. But it's your life. You just can't go sit down and quit - you'd go crazy. It's what makes me happy. "There ain't nothing in the world I'd rather be doing." Kansas City Star, December 28, 1982. (Special to the Baltimore Sun - Weyman Swagger) (KX3 - Oct. 18) - Barbecue King - This is a Feb. 15, 1981, file photo of Arthur Bryant inside his Kansas City barbecue restaurant. Bryant died in 1982 at the age of 80. (kz60945fls) 1985.