What we Believe in

Detailed Story

Kobe Club was founded in 2017 in Seymour, Mo by Will and Julia Neal. But the story truly does not begin there. 

Will had spent his early days working with cattle on a century ranch in Texas with his father and grandfather. Will won his county fair 5 times showing steers which is a record that still stands today in his hometown in Texas. By chance, Neal’s met the president of the American Wagyu Association in 2008. He introduced Neal’s to the Wagyu breed. Will and Julia were able to try the steaks for the first time and knew this was the future of the beef industry in America. 



Their first cow was called simply J84. This young heifer was able to produce over 60 embryos in her first year to propel the Neal’s operation into the Wagyu breed, leading to Neal’s growing their herd to be one of the premium herds of Fullblood Wagyu in the United States today. Shortly after in 2012, Julia discovered curly wooly pigs while searching for heritage sheep for their ranch online. These wooly curly pig’s pictures were mixed up with sheep photos on the google search! Neal’s realized that the breed had been just imported to the USA. Mangalitsa pigs known as the “Kobe of Pork”. These pigs were the perfect match for Wagyu beef as like Wagyu, they possessed high monounsaturated fats that are known as the healthy fats yet were amazing pork. To this day, this is the go to pork for Gordan Ramsey restaurants in Las Vegas and New York. In the next 2 years Neal’s drove to Napa Valley, Michigan, Oklahoma, and New Jersey to collect all of the Mangalitsa genetics available in the country at the time.

Trial and Error:

Wagyu are fed 2.5 years prior to harvest and thus the expense involved was hard to introduce the meat at an affordable price. Yet this was always Will and Julia’s idea to make these exclusive meats affordable to the public. Average fat cattle are fed about 8 months in comparison.

After 9 years of breeding Wagyu in 2017, they had the idea to advertise nationwide in hopes they could reach a larger audience with their beef and pork. At the time, national marketing of Wagyu beef had not ever been done. Wagyu had never been properly promoted and most people simply had no idea what it was. 

Will and Julia began advertising on SiriusXM radio shows such as Fox News, Fox Business, and ESPN. The first line in the original commercial began by saying: “Did you know that one breed of cattle is the undisputed King of Beef?”. These commercials reached over 8 million people. Will and Julia wrote the commercials themselves and Will voiced them. Kobe Club now had life.

It was not easy. Will and Julia had to sacrifice their family Christmas’ each year to ship their beef to all 50 states at that time with no employees. All the while keeping animals alive during some of our harsh winters. When someone would hear the commercials on national radio and call to place an order, they would be surprised to be speaking to the same person they had just heard on the radio. If the website got overloaded with traffic due to hundreds of people hitting the website after commercials and would crash, Julia would be staying up all night to fix it as she was the one who built the website. One of those nights was December 24, 2018 in which she did not sleep till 6:45 am. Will stayed by her side that night the entire time making coffee simply to support her. None of this has been easy.

Will and Julia have been married since 1999. They have built several successful businesses together. They have always supported each other during both good and hard times.

As Kobe Club grew, it became clear there was a growing problem. Hamburger. People wanted the steaks to send to family and friends for Christmas, but sending hamburger was like sending scissors to a wedding. But personally, we knew the burger was one of our best products. 

But as you know, out of a 500 lb of beef per animal, 300 lbs will be hamburger. Thus, we knew we had to solve it. As we began to design a burger shop in 2019, 2020 came and we got hit with a pandemic called Covid. Large processing plants began closing overwhelming smaller USDA plants. Getting our beef processed became a huge problem. Traveling to 3 states to find a processor of meats became a huge load on our family. Thus, we decided to build Neal Meats USDA plant in Seymour in September 2020.

Neal Meats took 2 years to build. A 10,000 sf USDA processing plant. Once we completed this project at the beginning of 2023, we turned our attention back to Kobe Club Burgers.

What you are standing in today is the only one of its kind in America. A double drive thru fast food hamburger place that offers some of the finest beef in the world at affordable prices. How did we do it? We will be bluntly honest with you. Because we own the processing plant, the processing savings are passed along to you. We finally accomplished our original goal to deliver this great beef to you at the price everyone can afford!

Planning the Restaurant

While Julia continued to manage Neal Meats processing plant, Will began to study the restaurant industry. With no previous experience in the restaurant industry, he looked at the business from the outside looking in. Simply, what would make a great restaurant to him. He looked back at his childhood experiences at Whataburger and Burger Chef adding travels Julia and he had made overseas. Will then ventured from state to state testing and buying burger shop equipment. Driving to famous burger shops to see what made them special. Speaking to chefs and testing on how to cook a perfect Wagyu burger in itself was an adventure. Will tested equipment with Kobe Club beef in St Louis, Kansas City and Oklahoma. In the end, the best is what we are using today. Our burgers are healthy and can be eaten daily for a healthy lifestyle. Zero fillers such as soy to increase profits and hurt people’s health. We do not use any chemicals, or artificial liquid smoke in our burgers. Nothing but the finest ingredients going to our burgers. We do Not serve frozen french-fries! All of our french-fries are cut in house and made fresh daily. The burger bread you are eating today is rated number one in America and comes from Pennsylvania. 

Why Pizza? 

Will and Julia have imported tiles from Italy since 2008. They spent months in Italy training on how to properly work on terra-cotta tiles. Will had to find a way to pay for his Wagyu obsession. Their favorite food while in Italy became true Italian Pizza. There is a big difference. Our crust is made out of imported Italian flour called Caputo OO. This flour is the same as you would have sitting in a pizzeria in Italy. It is all made fresh here. Secret Italian recipe San Marzano tomato (from Italy!) sauce and olive oil. Crispy crust and Mozzarella cheese. Then we add the Wagyu and Mangalitsa toppings. We believe this is the best pizza in North America. But it had to be cooked on a true stone fired oven. Our pizza oven is made by Marsal in New York. The same pizza oven used by competition chefs. Yet All of That at a very competitive price comparing to any other pizza in the country. Simply none will have our toppings. Right here in Seymour, Mo.

Dessert:

If you are going to serve this incredible food, we needed a dessert to match. There is no better ice cream than Frozen Custard. Thus, we added it to make the experience here complete. Our custard is made in house in a state of the art true custard machine.

Design:

Being in the design industry selling imported reclaimed tiles for 18 years from Italy, France and Spain, we could not build a restaurant without these elements! 

The Hawaiian/Beach theme came from Will’s childhood growing up near Corpus Christi, Texas going to beach weekly and dining in the original Whataburger on Ocean Drive. Thus, we also have palm trees. We created an atmosphere where you can feel like you are on a beach somewhere, forget about life’s troubles, and enjoy great food. You are on vacation when you enter Kobe Club Burgers! We’ve built a piece of paradise for you.

The Neal’s waited 8 months for the handmade custom pasta flooring tiles to be made for this project over 2022 and taking delivery in 2023. Many of the tables you will sit at today come from France. One is from a French vineyard and was used to taste wines in French country vineyards. The railings you see outside are from Wales and were hand forged in the late 1800’s. The butcher block table you see at the checkout is circa 1890 made in Paris, France - true antique butcher block table. The pastry table you see at pizza station was imported as well from France and is circa 1940. The windows you see in the front are late 1800’s from France. The antique iron flower planters you see in the front outside are from Wales. Antique clay chimneys are from London, England. The hexagon tiles you see on our stage are 150 years old handmade terra-cotta tiles from France. You can see the fingerprints from the craftsmen that made them. These are all things we have collected over the years. We decided to share them with you.

We greatly appreciate everyone who have helped make Kobe Club Burgers a reality. We want to Thank everyone for the great support we received from our amazing Seymour community! We are proud to be a part of this great community. We appreciate you being here. 

Some people asked why did you build your first restaurant in Seymour?

The answer is quite simple. It is our home.

Life is truly a journey and our journey has led us here. We hope you enjoy this part of your journey too!

Will and Julia Neal