Barbecue Joints Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque in Kansas City, Missouri, is celebrated for its spicy meat sauce. Calvin Trillin wrote in Playboy that Arthur Bryant's was "...possibly the single best restaurant in the world." This legendary food is dished out on shabby Formica tables underneath bare light bulbs in a low-ceilinged room that is about as appealing as a church basement. Why are barbecue joints so drab? I’ve eaten barbecue in restaurants from eastern North Carolina (vinegar based) to West Texas (cooked over mesquite ) and just about every restaurant is as plain as dirt. The better the barbecue, it seems, the plainer the joint. Is there a Protestant ethic about barbecue? Is the barbecue so good it’s close to being sinful, and if the interiors were even just a teeny bit nice -- Watch Out! -- it could be as dangerous as slow dancing at a Baptist teachers’ college. Maybe it’s a sullen refusal to enjoy ourselves more than one inch beyond the taste buds. Last Wednesday afternoon business was brisk at Arthur Bryant’s. Four dozen high school students showed up in yellow busses then stood in line to order their “meat tray,” pickles optional, just as Presidents Clinton and Obama had some years earlier. I’d get the burnt ends if I were you, with two slices of white bread.