KANSAS CITY — Bengals fans arriving in Kansas City made an obvious choice and made one of their first pregame stops a stop for some barbecue.
What You Need To Know
- Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que is one of the most well-known barbecue spots in the city
- Many Bengals fans waited in a line out the door to get a taste of the ribs, brisket and more
- One of those fans is Mat Sorenson who lives in Copenhagen and traveled for the game
- Sorenson has never had the chance to see the Bengals in person and can't wait to cheer them on for the first time
It takes a lot of steps to perfect a rack of ribs, and in Kansas City, it’s taken pretty seriously. So seriously, in fact, that people wait in long lines to get it at places like Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que.
Mat Sorenson was one of the many Bengals fans who waited for a taste of the real Kansas City BBQ.
“Obviously it’s the Chiefs' town," Sorenson said. "But it’s also a barbecue town and I heard of this place and thought I had to get here and get some of the awesome barbecue.”
But Sorenson traveled a little further than Cincinnati to get to KC. He lives in Copenhagen
“Kansas City is not the easiest place to go to from Denmark," he said.
He said he’s been a Bengals fan for the last 15 years and knew that when the Bengals won last week, he had to make the trip.
“I was sitting there looking at my work schedule, and saw that I was off this weekend and then I thought 'well what the heck, why not?'" he said.
While he’s never even been to Cincinnati, he wanted to be part of history. And just a day after he arrived in KC, he was making the most of his time, meeting Bengals fans along the way.
Management at Joe’s said the Chiefs season makes a huge difference in their business.
“It makes a difference in probably 30-50% of our business when we have a weekend like this, because this will go on all day until we close," said Eric Tadda director of marketing at Joe's. "About every fifth person in here is provably a Bengals fan.”
After about a 40 minute wait, Sorenson finally got his chance to try some of the famous barbecue and dove right in.
“It’s great," Sorenson said. "I mean I'm probably not going to be able to eat all of it, but I had to get little bit of everything.”
After, he felt ready to watch the Bengals in person for the first time.
“It’s going to be completely unreal," he said. "I’m probably going to be pretty overwhelmed but I’m just going to soak everything in and stay in the moment.”