Ingram's June 2022

At the Top of the Food Chain Best of Business Kansas City is back, spotlighting what’s hot, what’s hip, and what’s happening.

The restaurants and bars are filling up again; the stores are open, in most cases, without restrictions. Thanks to the economic drag of a global pandem ic, Kansas City, alas, started saying goodbye in 2020 to some long-standing enterprises that had become reader favorites over the years. One of those, in fact, was our tradi tional reader voting for Best of Business Kansas City in 2020, where Ingram’s opted instead to walk down more than three decades of memories and spot light the companies that have lived in readers’ minds rent-free for so long. This year, we continue to build momentum with balloting for ev erything from Wining & Dining venues to Best Entertainment & Cultural settings, Best Business Products, and Best Business Ser vices. To the surprise of precisely no one, some long-time Gold-medal winners have again asserted their dominance of reader preferences. But there are some new corporate faces in the crowd with upstart com

panies making their first splash into these waters. Hundreds of reader ballots, with thousands of individual-category votes, made for some interesting races this year, and none more so than our sig nature award for Best Barbecue, where the voting was heavy, and the competi tion was ferocious, with but a handful of votes determining the difference be tween Gold, Silver, and Bronze. So whether you’re new to Kansas City and still trying to figure out where to be and be seen, or you’re among the long-time residents who know this ros ter almost by heart, sit back and enjoy the pages that follow. You’ll see which companies are setting standards of ex cellence, whether with a plate, a wine glass or stein, with non-profit vents or family outings, with relevant business services of all types, or with products from clothing to jewelry to fine wines. A toast, then, to our Best of Business Kansas City winners for 2022. To one and all: Cheers!

by Dennis Boone

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I n g r a m ’ s

Ingrams.com

June 2022