080626Barbecuefire2San Diego, city of gas explosions and grease fires. The landmark Kansas City Barbeque, a locale well known to convention attendees and viewers of TOP GUN, was gutted in a fire last week:

A fire that started in an open cooking pit Thursday at Kansas City Barbeque gutted the landmark Marina area eatery, known for being in the 1986 Tom Cruise movie “Top Gun.”

The fire broke out about 2:15 p.m. in the restaurant on West Market Street, located across the street from the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel towers and near Seaport Village. It initially created so much smoke that clouds of it could be seen billowing behind Petco Park, where the Padres were playing an afternoon baseball game.


Arrevederci. barbecue. Back to Ralphs yet again.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Its a shame, but they can rebuild…and maybe the fire killed the hundreds of giant size roaches that were all over the place. at one point a few years back we all just got up and left it was so bad.

    when i say big, i mean earth vs the roaches big.
    and if you ate outside you had to order double orders to share with them.

    am i kidding? not really.

    but yeah, its sad and I hope they get it fixed and working again.

    JIMMY

  2. Might I suggest Bali Hai, over on Shelter Island? A bit of a trek, but interesting. Closer to the ConCen is the Mister Tiki Mai Tai Lounge, located on Fifth and F, near Horton.

    And as a midwesterner, why eat BBQ in a city on an ocean? Don’t make no sense…

  3. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    *deep breath*

    OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    Their onion rings were to die for. Here’s hoping that they’ll be up and around by ’09.

    And Torsten, us Californians have to take the BBQ where we can find it. But when in SD, I recommend any of the fine Persian restaurants we have downtown. Not to mention the SD outlet of LA’s finest, Tommy’s Burgers.

  4. The good news is that the ballpark is finally having some restaurants go up around it, so you aren’t so confined to the 4th, 5th, 6th corrdior for dining. Hopefully they will be added to the Con Guide restaurant list, or if not the insiders will have a place for lunch where we won’t have to wait for a table. I can recommend the Fleetwood at 7th and J and Basic Pizza at 10th and J. We also have a Tilted Kilt just outside the right field foul pole, and the East Village Tavern and Bowl at 9th and Market if you want to eat a burger and roll a couple games.

    And I’ll second the recommendations for Mr. Tiki (awesome Trader Vics style Mai Tais) and Tommy’s!

  5. What Torsten said makes a lot of sense – who in their right mind would chow down on BBQ in a coastal city?

    You go to San Diego to eat fish tacos and drink Coronas !

    There are plenty of Rubio’s to go around.

    ~

    Coat

  6. The place, alas, was BAD.

    But I do have a fond memory of the joint; sitting with my girlfriend there, late one Comic-Con Friday, I saw her look over at the window and become alarmed. I turned to the window only to be instantly face to face with Mr. Doug Tenapel, doing his best impression of the Mummy. I yelped. He managed to scare me even worse than the place’s food.

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