photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

The Barbwire Barbecue menu features traditional items, like the brisket sandwich above, but also features more creative dishes, such as grilled cheese sandwiches with smoked meats, funnel cake fries, and fried deviled eggs, among other offerings.

When I’m at the Douglas County 4-H Fair watching my children’s badly behaved 4-H hogs, I take a special type of comfort in ordering a pulled pork sandwich from one of the food trailers along the midway. Now, I can report one of those longstanding food trailers has opened its own full-time restaurant.

The owners of the Barbwire Barbecue food trailer have opened a full-service restaurant in Eudora in recent months. You may remember I briefly mentioned the new establishment a few weeks ago and promised to check in for a full report.

The report is that a pair of Eudora brothers have teamed up to do barbecue, sometimes in traditional ways and sometimes with a “gourmet twist” to it. Either way, though, they are aiming for the same result.

“It is just supposed to be something that makes you feel good,” said Jason Musick, who owns the Barbwire Barbecue restaurant with his brother Jay Musick.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Barbwire Barbecue has opened at 601 E. 10th Street in Eudora.

The menu at Barbwire includes a lot of the traditional barbecue favorites, including pulled pork, chunked brisket and smoked sausage sandwiches. St. Louis-style spare ribs also are on the menu.

But the menu takes a nontraditional turn with dishes like Out of the Chute. That’s a brisket grilled cheese that features Gouda and a caramelized balsamic onion jam. There’s also a Squealer sandwich that is pulled pork with chipotle mayo and queso sauce.

The appetizers also might draw a second look by some. The restaurant’s fried deviled eggs made my list of fun and funky food finds of 2020, which I published last week. The appetizer menu, though, also includes garlic cheese curds and something called fried, spicy green beans that come with their own dipping sauce. (I knew there was a way to convince my doctor that green beans aren’t healthy for me.)

There is even a little bit of fair flavor on the menu. Jason said he and his brother love the fair and spent a large amount of their childhood raising and selling livestock. The restaurant’s largest sampler plate is called the Fair Feast Platter, but the one that caught my eye is on the dessert menu. It features a dish called Funnel Cake Fries, which the menu bills as “just like your traditional fair food, but a lot less messy.”

Google Maps

The food trailer got its start at the fair and elsewhere in 2016, when Jay’s hobby of barbecuing began to attract a following of fans. Around that time, Jason decided to leave his career as a manager in the hospitality industry, helping companies open different concept restaurants all over the country. He returned back to his hometown, and eventually the food trailer became popular enough that they quit their other jobs to expand the idea of a food trailer into a full-blown restaurant.

“You get to that point in life where you decide to either get after it or you don’t,” Jason said of the decision to open the restaurant.

Plans do call for the food trailer business to also resume. Currently, though, the food trailer is serving as the kitchen for the restaurant, while a remodel is underway at its location just outside of downtown Eudora at 601 E. 10th St.

The kitchen remodel comes after the pair already has done much work to the dining room area and a large outdoor eating area that they expect to be busy this spring and summer. That area hosts a variety of yard games — a giant Jenga game was going on when I was there, at one point — and also will be the site of some family-friendly live music, Jason said.

As for the return of the food trailer to area events, Jason is hoping for August, at the latest.

“That is fair time, and we love the fair,” he said.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

The Barbwire Barbecue restaurant features a large outdoor area that the owners expect will host live music, yard games and other such activities as the weather warms up.