Peter May’s House of Kielbasa

The first time I encountered Peter May’s was last year while I was hunting for good kielbasa. Well, they have the best. I’m originally from the Buffalo, NY area where there is a large population of Polish folk, and so it was a delight to be able to have quality kielbasa for Easter last year.
This year, I had to come back. I brought a friend with me and we got Polish Sausage sandwiches and they were perfect. The service was friendly and laid back. Nothing fancy here; It felt like home.
The prices are unbeatable, the food is solid, the service amazing, the location is wonderfully residential. What a gem!

Visiting KC area? Want great sausage? This is the place. Totally not what I was expecting, out of the way old school «deli» but worth the trip. After a grilled sandwich, we took home a ring and cooked it simply with potatoes and cabbage. Out standing real interesting

The menu is surprisingly large for what I thought was basically a simple sausage shack. I didn’t even realize it was also a restaurant until I stepped inside and saw tables. Decent burger, decent fries, but man… the sausage! It’s pretty darn good when they put it on a sandwich for you (FOR LESS THAN THREE DOLLARS!), but don’t let it stop there. Take some home. Fry it up. Grill it. Put it in a soup. Or hell, just slice it up and put it on a cracker. Or to hell with the cracker, and slicing it up for that matter. Just bite into the damn thing as though it were a large cylindrical apple! Uncouth, sure. Best to do it when nobody’s looking.
I’ve had kielbasa before. Who hasn’t? Usually comes in a pound link in shrinkwrap, the various kinds differentiated primarily by which critters went into it – beef only, beef and pork, turkey, whatever. Never really liked it much. But this is an entirely different thing. It’s a festival of smoke and salt and spice, with a notable presence of garlic and a crisp casing that snaps and crackles in a most delightful way. It is, I mentioned to some online buddies while enjoying my second meal today composed primarily of Peter May’s product, the bacon of sausage.
The service is extremely friendly, they’ll get you whatever you want. Eating lunch in the place was fascinating, as my coworker and I were quite literally the only people who I saw walk into the place who were not called by name. And there was no shortage of people walking in, asking about where Mike was today or having someone behind the counter ask them if they were having their usual reuben. Sometimes this kind of vibe can feel exclusionary if you’re not one of the regular crowd, but in this case it was rather warm and homey. One regular customer in particular took great pleasure in playfully harassing us and an employee for making *him* pay first, but letting us eat first. It could have easily been uncomfortable with a different atmosphere, but it wasn’t. At all. It was actually kind of fun. Lunchtime entertainment.
After eating lunch at a table in the «restaurant» (ok, it’s more like eating in your weird aunt’s living room) this afternoon, I wanted to at long last take home some of their porky manna so I could start messing around with it myself. I’d eaten here a few times but was unsure how to order one of the five-​foot-​long ropes of sausage to take home. So I said, «I’ll take a rope,» (is that what they’re called?) which was good enough, I guess. I was asked how much, at which point I realized it was sold by the pound. I looked in my pocket. I had a ten dollar bill. «I have ten bucks,» I said. The lady behind the counter smiled congenially and said she would find me one, throwing massive rope after massive rope on the scale until she found one that fit the bill.
«This one is nine dollars and (something something) cents, it will be around ten bucks after tax.» Good enough for me. She said, «It’ll be…» as she began ringing it into the register, which figured the tax. She smiled again. «Ten dollars!» I protested that if it was more than ten dollars, I would happily borrow the difference from my coworker. «Nah, I don’t care about three cents,» she said. But I did, so I got the change, paid up, and left, thinking to myself how nice it was that she was so darn accommodating and friendly. «See you next time!» she hollered as we walked out the door. And she’s damn right.

This place sure is a hidden gem. I live very close by and never even knew it was here, so one fine day a few weeks ago, my wife and I decided to walk down and grab some lunch.
Their prices are about as inexpensive as it gets anymore, with many sandwiches and burgers priced between $ 2 and $ 4. I had a polish sausage sandwich with onions that ran me $ 3.25 and was just that: a bunch of really delicious sliced polish sausage with some fresh white onions on a hoagie roll. It was a lot of food, too. I took home a ring as well at a cost of $ 8 which was well worth it. It served me well in hash browns and scrambled eggs for the next few days as part of my breakfast menu.
The sausage is made and smoked on the premises.
I’ll definitely be hitting this joint up at least every few weeks for more!

I’ve been purchasing May’s homemade Kielbasa and other meats they carry for more than three decades now. It is truly a one of a kind type of neighborhood store that’s fast disappearing from the US landscape. You will not find a better product anywhere close to Kansas City. This is a handed-​down family recipe that is made on-​site and it is truly unmatched. I hope you’ll give it try… I’m sure you’ll agree.
PS I love to slice it about ¹⁄₈ inch or so wide just get hot with the microwave and serve up on soda crackers. Wow makes my mouth water just to write about it.

Oh my god, this smoked kielbasa is so good! I bought 2 rings (about 10 feet?) yesterday, I just finished cooking it and took a bite, there is no way this is going to be enough! If only they were open Saturday so I could go get more!

Sausage is one of the greatest things ever. The price is right for the freshness & amount you get. I’ve not eaten the restaurant food, but everyone seems to enjoy it.

awesome smoked sausage! They have a booth every year at the Sugar Creek Slavic Festival and you can purchase the smoked sausage and T-​shirts. If you go to the store directly you can also purchase «fresh» style too– (unsmoked) we love this kielbasa and my family is very picky about kielbasa!

This is one of my all time favorite places to get kielbasa from and this is coming from someone that is not a huge fan of kielbasa. It has fantastic flavor and it’s so addicting. This place also has a special place in my heart because my dad would take me here and would buy me the povitica bread (if it was available) he passed away a year and a half ago, so it definitely holds some memories for me.
If you like kielbasa (or want to try it for the first time) go here, you will not be disappointed!

So I was browsing through random reviews and the word «kielbasa» pops up on my screen. That’s about all you need to get my attention; for 4 whole days I had kielbasa on my mind and yesterday had to talk myself out of driving 30 miles one way just to get my hands on some smoked sausage. It’s not surprising that I’ve never heard of this place before — it’s in the middle of a neighborhood and you have to be looking for it in order to find it. The sign says «since 1929» and inside it looks like they haven’t thrown anything away since then — toys, tchotchkes, photos, golf clubs — for the lovers of places with atmosphere it doesn’t get any more unique. Breakfast and lunch menus (see photos) list some super cheap items. I haven’t tried any since I had to run back to work, but I knew what I was there for, so I asked for kielbasa. I paid $ 8.25 for about 1.5 lbs. which ended up to be about 3 kielbasa-feet.I have to say this was easily the best kielbasa outside of the farmers market in my hometown of Odessa, Ukraine. It was smoky, slightly spicy, a little sweet, overall delicious, addictive kielbasa. I ate probably a third of it on the way to work.
If you are looking for a quirky place, with cheap food and awesome kielbasa, find this place and try it out.
P. S. I’ve tried Krizman’s but it was a long time ago and now I think this one is better.

Killer smoked kielbasa. Made and smoked on the premises since before WWII.
A neighborhood diner serving breakfast and lunch.
Worth the effort to get of the beaten track for their kielbasa.