Jack Stack Barbeque (Freight House Location)

Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue in the renovated Freight House is a Kansas City barbecue establishment over sixty years in the making. Set in the Crossroads Arts District, with impressive architectural features such as twenty-five-foot ceilings and a fireplace bar, Jack Stack Freight House captures the spirit of its founder, Russ Fiorella, who loved barbecue and hospitality. Three generations later, the Fiorella family is still serving phenomenal food and has become a Kansas City barbecue staple.

Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue began with a surprise purchase. In 1957 Russ Fiorella bought a roadhouse called The Lucky Inn at 8129 Hickman Mills Drive in Kansas City while his wife, Flora, was in labor at the hospital with their sixth child. That restaurant, originally named Smoke Stack BBQ, was the beginnings of the Jack Stack brand which now includes six separate restaurants and a catering arm, including the largest full-service wood cookery in the industry.

Russ was one of fourteen children in a Kansas City Italian family, and went into the grocery business like many of his brothers, doubling as his store’s butcher. When larger chains began to force out smaller Kansas City grocers in the late 1950s, Russ pivoted to a favorite obsession: barbecue. He moved his family out of their seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom home in Kansas City and into the second-floor apartment above The Lucky Inn to help pay for his purchase of the building. Changing the name to Smoke Stack BBQ, Russ did not allow phones or alcohol in his new establishment, which resulted in long lines of hungry customers forming outside the restaurant.

In the late 60s, a fire in the barbecue pit destroyed the restaurant. But Russ rebuilt, and his daughter Diane says this is when business really took off. Several of Russ’s children opened their own restaurants, and Russ, along with his eldest son Jack, launched the first Fiorella’s Jack Stack BBQ in Martin City, MO in 1974. Jack and his wife, Delores, expanded the restaurant to accommodate full-service dining, adding menu items and two dining rooms. Now headed by CEO Case Dorman, who is married to Jennifer Fiorella, Jack’s daughter and Russ’s granddaughter, Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue continues to grow, burnishing its reputation as a beloved part of Kansas City’s barbecue community.

Feist, Kathy. From Smoke Stack to Jack Stack – The Fiorella Story, January 27th, 2017. Accessed July 16th, 2024. https://martincitytelegraph.com/2017/01/27/from-smoke-stack-to-jack-stack-the-fiorella-story/.

Jack Stack Barbecue - About Us, Accessed July 16th, 2024. https://ship.jackstackbbq.com/about-us.