Saddleback Garden, Scratch Kitchen & Our Meat

Did you know that we have our own garden? We have a garden plot down the street that we planted tomatoes, jalapenos, habaneros, pickling cucumbers and fresh herbs to use at the restaurant. Through the REO Town Garden Program we have a double plot lined up for next year. To take advantage of all of the new space, we are going to add collard greens, asparagus, tomatillos and potatoes. Also, we buy some of our produce from a local urban farmer to put the best and freshest produce on our menu. You can’t get better produce that you grow yourself or hyper local and let ripen on the vine instead of on a truck shipped in from outside of our great state.

Ever heard the term Scratch Kitchen? For us that means we start with basic ingredients and transform them into something special (No pre-made items here). Everything from our rubs, bbq sauces and sides are all made from scratch. Some items are a labor of love, like collard greens that take hours to perfect. Or in other cases we just feel that we can make something better than what’s offered commercially. For example, the spice rubs that we use on our meats.

We only source the best cuts of meat for our bbq. For example, we only use Certified Angus Beef or CAB for our briskets. Only the top 10% of Choice Beef makes the grade for CAB. These animals have room to graze, eat a diverse diet, and are better treated animals. You can really tell the difference in the quality of fat on CAB briskets. Fat on a commodity brisket is hard as a rock. Fat on a CAB brisket is nice and soft and is able to render down after 12+ hours in our smokers. Sure, we have tried different grades like Prime, Wagyu and Kobe briskets, but for us the comparison did not justify the price we would have to pay. By using CAB briskets, we feel that we are offering the best quality at a more reasonable price.

We don’t have microwaves or use freezers in our daily operations. Sure it would be easier to heat up things in a microwave or freeze something to use it later. Except this does not keep with our ethics about producing the best, freshest, quality food for you. Just like how we smoke our meats, low and slow with real wood fires, we make all of our food from scratch with the ingredients that we even grow ourselves.

If it was easy, everyone would do it. Sure we could do it the easy way and sleep more and have cheaper prices, but we want to deliver only the best possible bbq for you: Craft BBQ.