Why Jason Sudeikis Featured His ‘Go-to’ Kansas City Barbecue Restaurant in the New Season of Ted Lasso (Exclusive)
Why Jason Sudeikis Featured His ‘Go-to’ Kansas City Barbecue Restaurant in the New Season of Ted Lasso (Exclusive)
Sabienna BowmanTue, August 4, 2026 at 4:46 PM UTC
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Jason Sudeikis at the ‘Ted Lasso’ season 4 premiere on July 27, 2026Credit: Stewart Cook/Apple TV/Getty -
Jason Sudeikis filmed the Ted Lasso season 4 premiere in his hometown of Kansas City, showcasing its culture and barbecue
Cast members Juno Temple, Jeremy Swift, and Hannah Waddingham shared their love for Kansas City’s food, jazz history, and warm residents
Sudeikis’ go-to Gates Bar-B-Q order is pulled pork or burnt ends with spicy sauce, which he highly recommends
As a Kansas City native, Jason Sudeikis is a barbecue connoisseur.
Ahead of the Ted Lasso season 4 premiere, Sudeikis, 50, opened up to PEOPLE about filming the first episode in Kansas City, showing his castmates around his hometown and, most importantly, what his go-to order is at the city’s famed Gates Bar-B-Q locations.
Gates has been a Kansas City staple since 1946, and the barbecue joint is featured in a memorable scene in the season premiere as Ted introduces his British friends Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), Keeley (Juno Temple) and Higgins (Jeremy Swift) to the famed sauce.
However, for Sudeikis, when it comes to ordering at Gates, he keeps things simple. “Pulled pork or the burnt-ends,” he tells PEOPLE. “You can’t go wrong with burnt-ends at any of the establishments. And you could put that sauce on just about anything.”
Gates and Sons Bar-B-Q in Kansas CityCredit: by Mark Taylor/Chicago Tribune via ZUMA Wire/Shutterstock
For those who can handle the heat, the actor recommends trying the spicy version. “I prefer the spicy one and it increases things tenfold,” he says, adding that he “used to eat it with DiGiorno Pizza.”
“This coincided with right around the time I discovered marijuana,” he jokes.
In the premiere, which picks up three years after the season 3 finale, Rebecca, Keeley and Higgins head to Kansas City to convince Ted to return to England and coach Richmond’s new Lady Greyhounds. While they’re pitching Ted on a new adventure, the trio get to explore Kansas City for the first time.
For Sudeikis, kicking off Ted Lasso‘s new era in Kansas City gave him a chance to show the world why his hometown is so special.
“I love getting to go back home,” he shares. “I get to go back home a couple times a year for charity events. And when we do those events, we invite a lot of folks from out of town to participate in there. So I’ve had the luxury of getting to re-learn and re-love, if that’s a phrase, my hometown over and over again through other people’s eyes. And so this was just another opportunity to do that.”
He continues, “Hannah had been there before, Brendan [Hunt] had been there before, but it was Juno and Jeremy’s first time.”
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From left: Jeremy Swift, Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple and Jason Sudeikis on ‘Ted Lasso’Credit: Apple TV
In a separate interview, Temple, 37, Swift, 66, and Waddingham, 52, shared their impression of Kansas City, as well as their misconceptions before they visited.
Waddingham praises the city’s residents, calling them, “Dreamy, gloriously warm, and everything that I hoped they’d be.”
Temple adds that visiting Sudeikis’ home gave her a whole new appreciation for Ted the character. “It was a little bit of an insight as to where Ted Lasso comes from, because Jason is from there, so being taken there by Jason ... it’s a place that means a lot to him,” she says. “And just the Ted Lasso-isms made sense. You could see where they were birthed, but also getting to be there together was something I really enjoyed.”
As for Swift, the veteran actor admits he had a very different idea of Kansas City in his head before he visited for himself. “I thought, ‘oh, Kansas is going to be like a... I don’t know why. I thought it’s going to be like a desert or something,’ ” he says.
Jason Sudeikis and Hannah Waddingham in ‘Ted Lasso’Credit: Apple TV
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Instead he found himself blown away by the scenery, as well as the food and culture the city had to offer. Swift continues, “I found it very evocative and seeing the enormous Mississippi meandering through the center ... I always tried to imagine when I was a kid, when I discovered Charlie Parker, what the clubs were like then in the 1940s and this incredible bebop developing this incredible art form. And so I went to the American Jazz Museum and done all that. So I loved all that.”
Sudeikis knew his town wouldn’t disappoint. “Much like the characters, by the end of our time shooting there, which was about 10 days, they loved it,” he says of his castmates. “And it’s just an incredible, really neat place to be from. Kansas City shows up and shows out whenever out-of-towners appear.”
As for their thoughts on the barbecue, Waddingham admits that much like her character, she quickly fell in love with the Gates Bar-B-Q sauce.
“I find this often with Rebecca,” Waddingham says of life imitating art. “I mean, I was just obsessed, obsessed with the barbecue sauce there. It’s just a whole different league. I mean, it was just so good. I went at it like a truffle hound.”
Ted Lasso season 4 premieres Wednesday, Aug. 5 on Apple TV. New episodes will premiere weekly through Oct. 7.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
