Bite Me

Last summer I stumbled across Mike Frislie at the Bugling Bull Trading Post, where he was working the drum grill and smoker out on Highway 67 (1668 North Highway 67 in Sedalia, to be precise) and cooking up burgers, brats and some of the best damn barbecue I'd ever tasted in my life. It was one of those rare epiphanic moments of pure gastronaut pleasure.

Only now I hear that after my Bugling Bull account ran in the July 29, 2004, Bite Me, Douglas County put the barbecue operation out of business. Sure, you're probably not supposed to just start up a restaurant in your front yard, garage, parking lot, whatever. Something like that is going to break a few rules no matter how good your barbecue is, but Frislie says he'd checked with the county health inspectors before he started serving, and they'd told him that he'd be fine so long as he cooked outside, used disposable utensils, did everything up just like it was a backyard picnic where he, the host, just happened to be accepting money for his services. He thought he was in the clear. He thought he was doing everything right. And he was just starting to attract a decent crowd when the county came in and told Frislie -- after a year in the barbecue biz and two weeks after I wrote about the place -- that he was doing too much business and had to douse the fires immediately.

Well, not exactly immediately. According to Brett Lebo, a friend of Frislie's, when the health inspector came in, she first ate a plate of barbecue, told Frislie how good it was, waited out by her truck for a while and, once the crowds had thinned out a bit, then served him with papers saying he had to shut down. That was over a year ago, and since then, Frislie had been negotiating with the town, the county, the state -- with everyone from contractors to inspectors -- to figure out how to set up a proper food-service operation. It cost him thousands of dollars, more time than he can calculate, required the construction of an entire inside prep kitchen (including stainless work surfaces, three-bay wash sink, hand sink, vegetable sink, mop sink and two fifty-gallon water heaters), and very nearly broke him.

Then, two weeks ago, Lebo and his wife, Abigail, came up from Dallas on an extended vacation. They were staying at the Devil's Head campground and, just like me, wandered into the Bugling Bull one day while out exploring. They met Frislie, started talking about his troubles, got to taste a little of his barbecue. "Look, we own our own business back in Texas, Abigail and me," Lebo explained. "We saw Mike jumping through all these hoops with the city, and I know that when you're inundated in a project, just buried, you can get so depressed. You can't see any way out, you get depressed, you don't want to work anymore. So I talked to Abigail about it, and she just said, 'Well, let's help him if we can.'"

Which is what the Lebos did, pitching in right alongside Frislie to get a legit barbecue joint up and running. And they aren't the only ones. Jake Viano, a carpenter who lives in an apartment above the Bull, loaned tools and lent a hand between paying jobs. Two local rangers (Erin Seward and Mike Shifendecker) have been coming in on their days off to help, as have friends and neighbors from around the community. After Brett and Abigail were in a car accident last week (they were hit by a drunk driver, and Brett was left with a broken collarbone), Frislie returned the favor by putting them both up in his home.

But a shattered bone or two wasn't going to slow Lebo down. When it became obvious that he couldn't swing a hammer or carry supplies, he got on the phone. And who did he call? Me. Not only did he confirm my opinion that Frislie makes great food (as a Texas boy, he knows his barbecue), but he also gave me the good news that, as of this past weekend, the Bull's barbecue operation is back open and completely legal.

So head on down to Sedalia and check the fellas out. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Leftovers: Openings, reopenings and rebirths -- there's plenty of action this week. For starters, Japon's long-awaited changeover from its narrow hallway of a space at 1028 South Gaylord Street into a larger spot next door in the Guild Theatre building is finally complete. After months of delays and an estimated price tag in the six-figure range, owner Miki Hashimoto finally got to show off his new-and-improved place on September 1, following that up with a private grand-opening party benefiting Children's Hospital on September 6.