The long-lasting venue that after hosted performances by music legends equivalent to Kendrick Lamar and the Foo Fighters at Velvet Jones is now dwelling to Soul Bites, Santa Barbara’s solely Black-owned café and music lounge. Soul Bites invitations locals and guests alike to expertise the center and soul of Black American–type soul meals and hosts occasions that transcend the traditional eating expertise, merging Southern cookout flavors of fried hen and collard greens with the rhythms of jazz, blues, and extra.
Proprietor Stirling Nix-Bradley, who reduce his tooth working in hospitality positions in eating places below cooks equivalent to Wolfgang Puck and Michael Voltaggio, attributes his love for Southern soul meals to his adoptive dad and mom. Settling in Oxnard, Nix-Bradley’s dad and mom turned very concerned within the Trinity Baptist Church, the place his adoptive father was a deacon, and that’s the place Nix-Bradley says he developed his love for neighborhood cooking.
“Everybody would potluck after Sunday service, and the menu was at all times the identical: fried hen, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and potato salad,” he stated, reminiscing on his childhood. Summers spent in Taylor, Texas, emphasised his love for the consolation classics. “I spent all my summers as a child consuming soul meals whereas driving to and from southern Texas, the place my dad and mom are from. They discovered by means of their experiences rising up Black within the ‘50s and ‘60s that you simply didn’t pull over to eat simply wherever —as racism alongside that route performed an imminent risk to security. We at all times packed our meals, so what I do know is consuming chilly fried hen and biscuits on the highway.”
The Soul Bites menu is actually a illustration of Nix-Bradley’s childhood. Some dishes are a direct copy of his childhood household recipes, whereas others are elevated with the steerage of Chef John Cleveland from Put up & Beam in Baldwin Hills, in addition to from Nix-Bradley’s spouse, Rose. “Chef Cleveland helped design the menu and gave us construction on a few of our staple substances like our hen brine. There are practically 50 substances in there, a few of them I’d have by no means thought to make use of. The black-eyed peas, collard greens, and the banana pudding are household recipes with little twists — for instance, we selected making the collard greens vegan, opting to not use pork within the recipe.”
Vegan menu gadgets should not restricted to facet dishes; their Soul Sandwich with portobello, black-eyed pea hummus, and greens or their vegan crab desserts with remoulade turns into an ideal companion for his or her POC-centered record of beers and wines.
Soul Bites is not only a spot to search out and revel in genuine Southern soul meals as Nix-Bradley initially meant. A number of months after their opening, The Music Alley, a venue that labored alongside Soul Bites, abruptly departed, leaving the house behind the café empty, and prompting Nix-Bradley to start making a community of Santa Barbara small companies, musicians, and performers. During the last 12 months, Soul Bites went from a small soul meals café to a vibrant hub for fostering connections, celebrating range, and embracing the enjoyment of communal gatherings. Really embodying the spirit of the Black household cookouts he grew up with, Nix-Bradley’s intention shortly advanced as the chance arose to create a neighborhood by means of culinary fusion with substances which might be each edible and experiential, together with components like music and dance.
The constructing blocks of his mission are a sequence of numerous neighborhood occasions that add life to the café’s informal eating environment. Swing classes take heart stage on Monday nights at 6:45 p.m., led by skilled dancer Jay Byam, who alternates weekly between instructing East and West Coast swing types.
Comedy aficionados will discover their dwelling at Soul Bites as properly. Don’t Inform Comedy collaborates with the café for normal comedic performances on the third Saturday of every month and has featured standout performers equivalent to Kimmie Dee and Alonzo Bodden (grand prize winner of NBC’s hit comedy sequence Final Comedian Standing in 2004).
Artwork fanatics, too, have a spot at Soul Bites. The month-to-month Paint and Sip occasion, guided by the gifted tattoo artist Marylee Guerrero, is an deliberately inexpensive artwork class ($20) occurring month-to-month, the place attendees can specific their creativity whereas having fun with wine and beer from the bar.
However the festivities don’t cease there. Soul Bites takes satisfaction in providing a big selection of occasion nights to actually cater to the various neighborhood it serves. Sober Love Tuesdays is a weekly occasion in collaboration with Sport Seeker in Santa Barbara that stands out as a beacon for these searching for a secure and inclusive house to socialize with out the affect of alcohol. And the night is not only restricted to conventional board video games; current actions included Sober Love drag bingo.
Past the meals, the core of Soul Bites’ identification is the music, and the calendar is brimming with acts that cater to all musical tastes. The upcoming efficiency by The Busboys, an all-Black rock band, guarantees a night that encapsulates the fusion of tradition, expertise, and fervour that Soul Bites embodies. One other instance is a current partnership with Andy Gálvez, winner of one in all this 12 months’s Latino Enterprise Awards, which introduced norteño, banda, and mariachi to the venue with a promise of month-to-month performances to proceed.
Soul Bites is a testomony to the ability meals, artwork, and neighborhood have in bringing folks collectively. With its welcoming environment, soulful consolation meals, and occasions calendar reflecting a wealthy and savory melting pot of human experiences, whether or not you’re indulging in scrumptious soul meals or dancing the evening away, yow will discover a heat welcome and a way of belonging at Soul Bites. As Nix-Bradley says, “If you end up right here, you might be dwelling.”
423 State St.; (805) 869-2198; soulbitesrestaurants.com.
