Zarda Bar-B-Q

“Blue Springs institution since 1977”

Zarda has been an east-metro staple since 1977, the Blue Springs pit that generations of families have grown up eating. Its footprint reaches well past the dining room—the catering operation ranks among the largest in the metro, feeding graduations, offices, and backyards across the east side week in and week out. The everyday orders are the pork ribs and pulled pork, well-priced and squarely in the Kansas City tradition, with burnt ends, a house sausage, and baked beans rounding out the tray under a sweet, tomato-based sauce. This is barbecue built for the family meal and the big group order rather than the pilgrimage—nearly five decades of feeding the east metro at a scale few pits attempt or would even want. Come for the ribs; the beans travel well to whatever backyard you're headed to next, which is rather the point of the place.