Jeff Stehney

Jeff Stehney and his wife, Joy, attended their first barbecue contest in 1990, then bought a smoker and formed the competition team Slaughterhouse Five with friends. The team won titles including Grand Champion of the American Royal Open (1993) and the American Royal Invitational (1995). In 1996 the Stehneys went into business with smoker maker Joe Davidson, opening Oklahoma Joe's in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and then a Kansas City location inside a gas station at 47th Avenue and Mission Road in Kansas City, Kansas. The Stehneys later took full control of the Kansas City restaurants, which were renamed Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que in 2014.