Food truck to take over BB’s Pub space
April 24, 2023
A food truck specializing in smoked meat sandwiches that “taste as good as they look” is expanding into a restaurant with more food offerings.
Ryan Gaede and Jess Jones are opening The Smoked Culture BBQ & Brews in the former BB’s Pub N Grill space at 49th Street and Westport Avenue.
“Our goal was always to do brick-and-mortar,” Jones said. “The trailer gave us the opportunity to learn.”
They opened The Smoked Culture Barbeque Kitchen in August 2022. Four years before that, Gaede bought their first smoker, and they began experimenting with recipes. They’re both graphic designers, so they created an Instagram account and began posting photos of their food.
Encouraged by a follower to start selling their food, they did, eventually buying a trailer and starting the business. They built their brand on food that tastes as good as it looks, Gaede said in an interview last year.
The Smoked Culture was busy even with its late start last season. It did pop-ups at places like the Billion Auto parking lot at 41st and Minnesota and served food at breweries like Buffalo Ridge Brewing in Hartford and at events like the 605 Made Night Market.
“The menu for the restaurant will be a lot like the trailer menu, but we’re going to be adding some other things,” Jones said.
That means fans of the food truck will still find “sammiches” like The Big Spin Brisket, The Poser with pork belly and The Trilogy with brisket, pulled pork and sausage.
The names of the menu items are linked to the skateboard community, which is where Gaede discovered the joy that comes from making and sharing food with others. Growing up, he and his friends would skateboard and then grab a few steaks and grill out.
In the restaurant, Gaede and Jones will continue to make loaded nachos, pork belly “popsicles,” smoked cheesy hash browns and smoked baked beans.
New offerings will include ribs, sausages and meat platters.
They might offer smoked chicken wings, and eventually they’ll do half and whole smoked chickens, Jones said. Other additions will be cornbread, a cheesy green bean casserole, street corn with a Flamin’ Hot Cheetos dust and crema drizzle. For a dessert option, they’re considering banana pudding.
They’ll add a kids menu with sliders, pulled pork sandwiches, sloppy joes and quesadillas.
All the meat for the restaurant will be smoked on-site. “That’s really important to us,” Jones said of offering freshly prepared food. That means sometimes they might sell out of certain meats for the day, she noted.
While BB’s had a full liquor license, “we’re just doing beer and wine,” Jones said. “We want it to be very family-friendly, not so much a bar. We’ll have 10 taps for beer, and we’ll try to source that locally.”
They’re envisioning hours of 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.
The food truck’s skateboard theme will carry over into the new restaurant with skateboard-inspired art and skateboard videos and music. Other TVs will be set up for sports viewing, Jones said.
Gaede and Jones will do some of the remodeling work themselves, with “lots of do-it-yourself, repurposed stuff,” she said.
Some of the tables will be made out of wood from old bowling alley lanes. They’re also planning to have a few picnic tables inside, along with five big ones on the patio. “We want people to sit down and to know each other,” she said.
The space is ready for a fresh update, Jones said.
“We’re going to change quite a few things. We’re going to offer more of an indoor/outdoor space.”
On the south side of the building, they’ll add a garage door. “The space needs that natural light to come inside,” she said. “We’re going to bring in a lot of fresh natural light, so it’s not so dark.”
Their goal is to open in June, but it might be sometime in July before everything is ready, she said.
They’ve been working toward a brick-and-mortar location for the past five months, so they haven’t been taking many bookings for the trailer. They’ll use it for a few larger events this summer and for a few weddings and other catering jobs they’ve booked.
The space at 3400 W. 49th St., which was Nutty’s Pub before BB’s, holds a special place in the now-married couple’s hearts.
“That’s where Ryan and I met, 16-plus years ago,” Jones said.
Follow the restaurant’s progress on Instagram at @thesmokedculture or on Facebook.
