BBQ business finds permanent home

By Jazmine Knight

A local food business has made the leap from wheels to walls.

Murphy’s Smokin’ Meats has been operating as a food truck since 2015, and now the restaurant has moved into a permanent location at 1930 Commercial St. The business features three signature sauces that also are bottled and sold in Kansas City stores.

“We bought our building in 2020, and we thought we would just kind of start slow,” Annette Murphy, who co-owns the business with her husband, Dale, said. “COVID hit and so we went ahead and set our food truck here every Saturday. So we really built our business here in South Park with all of the locals.”

It soon became clear the business needed to be more than just a truck.

“Food truck is a lot of work. It’s a lot of loading and unloading,” Murphy said. “We had pretty much outgrown our truck with the amount of people we are serving and so it was way too much work with the catering orders. And so, it was time to get bigger.”

Murphy’s had a soft opening at the restaurant location in September, and until January waitresses and cooks got adjusted to the job while they sold only to family and friends.

“With the soft openings, we saw a lot of our regular customers, people that we’ve catered to for weddings, and it’s our place for family to come in and sit down,” Murphy said. “So then we ventured with our ribbon cutting … to kind of get the word out to St. Joe that we’re here.”

One of the biggest challenges of transitioning from food truck to restaurant has been the legal process.

“Some of the struggles were just finding the right people in the right order to process your loan. It wasn’t really clearly drawn out. We kind of had a search,” Murphy said. “We did actually find a good contractor and from start to finish it took six months and we were up and running after that.”

After months of preparation, the restaurant now is open to the public and Murphy said they hope to continue adding new features.

“We did add a patio. We’ll have patio seating this summer,” she said. “We will do some special events.”

Murphy’s is currently open Friday through Sunday. Hours and the menu can be found on the business’ website at www.murphyssmokinmeats.com or on its Facebook page.