Kansas City is home to many famous barbecue sandwiches.
There’s the Z-Man. The Poor Russ. The Ol’ Smoky.
Those are appetizers compared to the Ultimate Destroyer, a 6-pound barbecue behemoth served by Papa Bob’s Bar-B-Que in Bonner Springs.
The absurdly large sandwich was recently included in USA Today’s roundup of “10 ginormous restaurant dishes ready for Instagram.” Also on the list: An 11-pound pizza, a 50-pound burger and an ice cream sundae served in a kitchen sink.
The Ultimate Destroyer is definitely Instagram-worthy, but you’re gonna need a wide angle to get a good shot, because it’s got more than four pounds of smoked meat.
Picture a footlong hoagie bun piled sky-high with a half pound each of pulled pork, smoked pork, turkey breast, smoked ham, brisket and sausage. The stack of smoked meat is shored up with six slabs of white bread. Then add a generous slather of barbecue sauce and three half-pound smoked hamburger patties. Two toothpick flags keep the hefty sandwich from falling over. Just barely.
Do you want fries with that? You’d better, because the Destroyer comes with one and a half pounds of fried crinkle-cut potatoes, plus four pickle spears.
Customers who can finish the $62 behemoth in under 45 minutes — and keep it down for another five — get it free.
Owner Bob Caviar invented the Ultimate Destroyer in 2009. Originally, it was intended for families to share, but customers insisted that Caviar to make it a one-man (or woman) challenge.
In 2010, TV foodie Adam Richman, host of the Travel Channel’s “Man v. Food,” took the Ultimate Destroyer Challenge on the show.
“I honestly don’t know how this can fit inside a human being,” Richman said.
Richman started out strong, but started to slow down when he hit the burger patties. After 45 minutes, he had eaten only four pounds of the Ultimate Destroyer. What a lightweight.
“I’ve been sunk,” he said.
Since then, more than 300 people have attempted to sink the Ultimate Destroyer, but only five landed on the Wall of Fame. Among them: bodybuilder Randy Santel, who tried four times before succeeding, and competitive eater Molly Schuyler.
Winners also get a T-shirt, a button and a lifetime of bragging rights. Losers are immortalized on Papa Bob’s Wall of Shame.
Caviar says he’s never attempted the challenge: “I’m not that stupid.”
If you can’t handle a 6-pound sandwich, Papa Bob’s also serves a one-pound Destroyer sandwich that features the customer’s choice of three meats. It costs $13, or $15 with all beef. And many families or groups order Ultimate Destroyers to share.
On Tuesday, we unwrapped an Ultimate Destroyer in the newsroom. It took a couple dozen people to polish it off.
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