By Rob Roberts

March 18, 2015

Business has been so smokin’ hot during Q39’s first year that the proprietors of the trendy barbecue establishment are already looking for two new locations.

Steve Gasperi of Gasperi Group Commercial Real Estate LLC said he is helping Q39’s owners, national barbecue champ Rob Magee and his wife, Kelly Magee, find two new locations — one in south Johnson County and one in the Northland. They hope to open the first new location by the first quarter of next year and the second within a year after that, Gasperi said.

In April 2014, the Magees opened their first restaurant at 1000 W. 39th St. in an eclectic Kansas City neighborhood.

A hybrid of two Kansas City culinary traditions: barbecue and wood-fire grilling, Q39’s fare quickly attracted local and national attention. In July, Q39 earned a spot on Zagat’s list of the 15 “hottest BBQ joints” in the United States, and its lunch and dinner crowds continued to swell after that.

“They have people coming from all over the city,” Gasperi said, “and they are on a wait almost every day for lunch and dinner. They’ve had people come back four or five times and haven’t been able to get in because the waits were an hour or two hours.”

The solution, the Magees decided, was to expand.

Gasperi, whose firm specializes in retail brokerage and development, said he had been looking for existing properties for Q39 to buy or lease.

“But we’re also looking at land for a freestanding building or a little development that Q39 would anchor,” said Gasperi, who has agreed to participate as a co-developer.