Plant-Based Pop-Up SRYBB Moving into XBar

Any win right now for the queer community feels monumental, and one of the most important things we can do is celebrate anywhere and everywhere that we can. OFM is excited to help announce the arrival of  plant-based food pop-up SRYBB into the kitchen of renowned X Bar! I got to speak with Spencer (SRY, they/them) and Brandon (BB, they/them) of SRYBB and find out more about the plans for their kitchen and how its going to change, but still remain a familiar facet of the community.

You guys started out in the pandemic, and the dream was to have a restaurant. It must feel kind of insane to actually get to open a kitchen!

BB: Moving into a bar’s kitchen was something that became an idea for us when we were first starting out. We officially opened in September 2023, and then having X Bar just, like, magically time up exactly with us now felt like perfect timing. We reached out to them; they posted on Instagram, and we were just like, ‘You know, this seems like the perfect fit for us.’ The clientele with X Bar fits so well with who we work with and who we serve. It just seems like we have to do this.

How are you both feeling about it?

SRY: Definitely all the emotions are coming into play. Also knowing how fun it’ll be, but you know, just like any big transition and undertaking, its also coming with stress and just terror and anxiety. It feels great!

BB: I think it was especially post the public announcement. We were both really stressed leading into the announcement, of just, “Oh my gosh, we have to tell people??” which we were excited to do, but we’re putting ourselves out there in a way bigger way. We were just pumped, and seeing the amazing reception we had and how many people were excited and supportive, I think thats just given us the energy to really push forward. Anything worth doing is gonna be hard and a little scary.

So will the pop-ups still be around, or are you fully pivoting to just the kitchen?

BB: Yeah, so we have no intention of going and doing other pop-ups at the moment; we really wanna focus on operating at X Bar, doing the best we can and being SRYBB in that space first and foremost. We wanna give them everything we have and really perfect that. In the future, if we notice like, “Oh, OK, we have staff; we have time; we have energy to do this,'” maybe we will, but right now we’re telling people, “If you want us, come to X Bar.”

Also, you know, us not showing up at a market gives another food vendor the opportunity to be there. We are very thankful for all of the market organizers in the city who have supported us, like, we’re so thankful for the opportunity we got. And their support is what led us to X Bar, and so, in our minds we just thought, like, why would we take that opportunity away from someone else? We’re hoping that another amazing food vendor can—you know, they can be the ones to be at those markets that we were always at, and maybe they, like, in a year or so, move into another bar space.

That’s awesome. I imagine you guys don’t necessarily have a huge staff to be running what would be two locations.

BB: Its just the two of us, but we’ll be hiring two or three more people. But right now, we want to take care of our house before we start moving around.

BB: We’ve been working on this so far for five or six weeks, and we’ve done a lot but it feels like its only been a few days.

Are you hoping this will be a long term thing, or more of a stepping stone?

BB: Yeah, I mean right now we’re hoping to be in there for a while; I think this helps us really make our vision come to life and be the SRYBB that we’ve always wanted to be. Doing pop-ups and markets has been amazing. We love doing them, and that we’ve been able to test out different menu items has been fantastic, but its harder for us to do a more in-depth menu with multiple offerings at the same time, and so we’re really excited to be in X Bar. Like, all our favorites get to be on the menu, and we get to make them every single day. Every iteration of what we’ve done, we just grow and get better, and we improve our business in so many different ways, and thats what we’re hoping for here, you know?

Are you going to bring new things to the menu or expand it?

BB: Yeah, we’re doing a couple things! It’s going to be the menu we’ve always wanted to do. Our food is Mexican Americana, where it is really a blend of my family’s Mexican roots and Spencer’s Texas Southern roots, and combining them and doing some really amazing things. So some people’s favorites are gonna still be on the menu, we’re still gonna have our plant-based chorizo tacos, the taco bowls, the mac and cheese, our chili oil focaccia bread sticks, and our mochi brownies. Those are items we’ve had for a long time, and we’re excited to bring them to a bigger audience.

We’re also in the depths of recipe testing and expanding our Taco menu, so we’re hoping to have three new types of tacos. We are playing around with like, loaded fries, and what does a Srybb loaded fry basket look like? If people have had us at markets before, they’ll still be able to get some of their favorites. They’ll be able to see a lot of this framing of what we’ve always done, but they’re gonna get some new ideas, get some new flavors, and even, like, some of our regular occurrences are gonna have a new twist to it.

In your Westworld article, you guys also talk about how people, especially men, are averse to trying plant-based meat. Has that changed over time, and is that something you worry less about with queer people?

BB: That aversion is still there. There’s always been an aversion, and, like, that’s normal. The grocery store plant-based proteins are not the best, and that’s what people usually interact with. Its like they had some bad plant-based protein patty that’s supposed to be a hamburger, but it doesn’t taste like a hamburger, and so people always have that aversion. I think for us, we can change minds pretty easily. We give samples of our plant-based chorizo; we’re coming up with really creative ways to make fantastic tacos with plant-based proteins and so we feel really confident. There is a good overlap between people who are dairy free, vegan, vegetarian, plant-based, with, like, the queer and trans community, and so we do feel more comfortable moving into a queer space like X Bar.

I think queer people are always down for new things and are always willing to try something new, and support another queer owned business. And so even if they love chicken wings and they love burgers, and they want like steak tacos, even though we might not be providing those exactly the same, we can still give them something delicious and we feel pretty confident that they will at least try it one time. That’s all we need. You just gotta try it one time and you’re coming back.

How do you guys feel with the way that America is right now, and food being such a way to bring people together, does it feel like more of a weight? Or sort of serendipitous, like, now is really the time to use food to bring our community closer together?

SRY: To be honest, when we talk about the current state of things, I mean, today (January 2o) being a prime example, there’s more of a general anxiety. I definitely fall into the second part there where we’re just pumped to get in this space more permanently to showcase our food, and then also like, being queer ourselves, and then especially being able to do that out of a gay bar, just having this opportunity with everything right now, just to be a part of our community so much deeper … I view it as very serendipitous timing and just knowing that we get to part of our community so much more. They’ve taken care of us, and we want to take care of them.

BB: I think we oscillate between fear, anger … Its hard to find that space for like hope, but I think being able to go into X Bar and be in a space where we know that we can be received well is really great. You’ve seen our branding; its bright green and pink and magenta. We’re unabashedly who we are, and so, like, sometimes at (certain) markets, we’re not well-received. Being in a space like X Bar is amazing, and being able to give back to our community, cause it’s like, you know, this isn’t the first shitty president that the queer and trans community has had to fight and survive through. He’s one of many. Being able to be part of that community and, you know, give people food to have a respite. Eating because you’re sad is totally normal; eating because you’re scared is totally normal.

Yes!

BB: Having those moments to celebrate, like, we’re excited to be there. We have some ideas up our sleeves of how we’re gonna support our community and how we’re going to continue supporting it. We’re gonna do it our way and make sure that we take care of the people who want us. People gotta be fed to fight! So hopefully they come get our food.

“People gotta be fed to fight,” I love that.

BB: It’s true! It’s important!

I was super excited to take on this project; it sounded way more fun than writing about all of the sad things happening to the queer community right now.

BB: In the current landscape, there’s a lot of places that are closing and changing because in this economy its hard for a business to survive and thrive right now. And the political landscape is, like, extremely tough for people and really, really scary, and so, you know, I’ve had a few people just be like, “This is the good news we’ve needed in this time,” and I really appreciate people saying that. Being able to have this opportunity, especially when it’s so hard, means a lot to us, and we don’t take the responsibility lightly, and so we’re excited to be here and also hoping that maybe we can operate in not historical times!

SRY: Yeah, just a small ask!

BB: We’re gonna keep doing it, we love it, and we love being queer.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

BB: We’re super thankful for the support that people have given us, and we’re really just excited to be expanding and moving into X Bar, and they’re amazing partners! We’re just excited to be a part of their fabric, and we’re ready to do this thing.

Srybb at X Bar will officially open on March 1.