Ernestine's Bar-B-Q Sauce

By Madinah Hazim, Public Information Officer

Angela Bates wants to keep her late Aunt Ernestine VanDuvall’s legacy alive. Bates is doing just that with her From the Land of Kansas product, Ernestine’s Bar-B-Q Sauce.

“When Ernestine died, she said ‘Don’t forget me,’” Bates said. “With this sauce, she won’t be forgotten. I want to have her name and sauce in every household.

Ernestine grew up cooking in a café in Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a tiny town in northwest Kansas that was established in 1877. It is known for being the first town west of the Mississippi to be settled by former slaves.

After being raised in Nicodemus, Ernestine moved to southern California where she had a restaurant and a catering business and her clients included such celebrities as Walt Disney. Eventually, Ernestine’s path led her back to Nicodemus, where she opened Ernestine’s Bar-B-Q in 1972.

Bates also came back to Nicodemus after living in California.

“I always knew that I wanted to come back home to Kansas,” Bates said.

When Bates came back to Kansas she found Ernestine’s Bar-B-Q closed. She thought it would be a wonderful idea if she was to reopen it. Bates reopened the restaurant in 2002 using Ernestine’s name and recipes.

During the time the restaurant was open, Bates added her own twist to Ernestine’s original barbecue sauce and the customers loved it.

Business was good, but Ernestine died last year, along with Bates’ brother. Since Bates had just lost two family members, she decided not to reopen the restaurant, but she continued to market the sauce.

“Right before we closed, I decided to start selling our barbecue sauce,” Bates said. “People would come into the restaurant and they wanted to buy barbecue sauce to take home.”

There was such a high demand for the barbecue sauce that Bates needed help bottling and distributing it.

"At first, I was bottling the sauce myself, but more and more people wanted it and I didn’t have enough time to do it all myself,” Bates said.

Bates first became aware of the From the Land of Kansas program a few years ago, when she needed to find a company to bottle her sauce.

“I needed to meet all the manufacturing and labeling requirements, so I called the Kansas Department of Commerce and they referred me to Original Juan’s, the company that now bottles my barbecue sauce,” Bates said.

Bates enjoys having her barbecue sauce bear the From the Land of Kansas label. “When people go to the grocery store and see the From the Land of Kansas sticker, it authenticates the sauce and let’s them know that it’s made in Kansas,” Bates said. “The program is also good for the state of Kansas, because it showcases many of the great products that are made here.”

Bates said that Ernestine had a chance to approve the final packaging of the sauce before she died.

“Ernestine was a culinary genius, so we put her history on the bottle’s label,” Bates said. “When Ernestine saw the bottle, she thought that it was wonderful. She told me that I could take the barbecue sauce places she couldn’t.”

For more information on Ernestine’s Bar-B-Q Sauce, or to order Ernestine’s Bar-B-Q Sauce, contact Angela Bates at (785) 421-3311.

If you have a small business and are interested in the From the Land of Kansas program, contact the Kansas Department of Commerce at www.kansascommerce.com or (785) 296-3034.

For information regarding Kansas Lottery money distribution visit the where the money goes page.