In the tiny town of Williamsburg, Kansas — just off I-35, between Emporia and Ottawa — there’s a place that draws visitors from just about everywhere.
When you first walk in, Guy and Mae’s Tavern seems like a typical small-town bar, with its pool table, neon beer signs and photos of local sports teams.
But then you notice it: that wonderful aroma coming from the kitchen.
Ribs.
Guy and Mae Kesner opened their business in 1973. Guy was already experimenting with his barbecue method, and his wife, Mae, created the sauce. These days, people come from all over Kansas and even other countries to enjoy slabs of their special-recipe ribs.
“The word spread, and it got to be a big thing,” said Lori Thompson, Guy and Mae’s granddaughter and the current owner of Guy and Mae’s Tavern.
“Some families take their vacations and plan it so they're in this area around mealtime, so they can come and see us, too,” she said. “We've seen … different generations of families come by and see us. We have friends all over the place.”
So, what’s the secret? Thompson walks into the kitchen to show where the magic happens.
It’s a relatively small space for a commercial kitchen. There’s a table in the middle where they wrap the ribs and place them on sheets of newspaper for serving. The star of the kitchen is the “pit” — a giant oven with a firebox at the bottom.
Cooks build the fire with shagbark hickory, which produces a mild smoky flavor. Before slabs of ribs go into the pit, they are trimmed by hand and sprinkled with a family-recipe dry rub that Thompson calls “Grandpa’s hookie-doo.”
The slabs start out close to the fire.
“We turn them all by hand,” Thompson said. “Once they get a nice dark bark on them, we will wrap them in foil and put them back in the top to finish out and get tender. [That’s] how people like to eat them.”
So tender, the meat literally falls off the bones. It’s a meal so special that the Kansas Sampler Foundation named Guy and Mae’s Taverns as one of the Eight Wonders of Kansas Cuisine.
The whole process takes about eight hours. Guy and Mae’s can make 36 slabs at a time — and when they’re gone, they’re gone. Customers learn to place their rib orders ahead of time.
So what’s in that “Grandpa’s hookie-poo” rub that flavors the ribs so wonderfully?
Thompson isn’t telling.
“I’m very convinced that my grandmother would haunt me if I ever gave the recipe out to anybody other than family,” she said.
