Page 44 - BusinessWest May 29, 2023
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Brow
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 where else. “I grew up, I’d spent all my time here, I didn’t go to college ... I got out of a long-term relationship, and I was like, ‘why am I still where I was born?’ I wanted to go see something different and new.”
Food for Thought
Brow stayed in North Carolina for two years, learning butchery, charcuterie, French techniques, French sauces, and much more, before returning to Western Mass. to tend to his ailing grandmother.
He first took a job at Springfield Smoked Fish Company, and soon took on some part-time work at the recently opened Center Square Grill. Even- tually, he became executive chef there and stayed in that position for four years before he fulfilled that lifelong dream to own a restaurant, buying
a wood-fired pizza restaurant from Guerra and renaming it HighBrow.
Pizza wasn’t exactly his passion, he admit-
ted, but this was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. And, as things turned out, it was a godsend because, as noted earlier, Brow became a restau- rant owner just a few months before the pandemic reached Western Mass.
Pizza was a model that lent itself to delivery and pickup more easily than other types of res- taurants, he explained, adding that he was able to pivot in many different ways, including by partner- ing with other businesses to bring meals to front- line workers, including those at hospitals and the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke.
“I started off with just myself — I laid everyone off,” he recalled. “I told them to be on standby
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until we knew what the world was going to look like. Later, it was me and one of my cooks, Carlos. We would come in every day, and we’d go to Res- taurant Depot every morning. We would have a limited menu; he would cook pizzas, and I would cook sauté and salads and appetizers. Eventually,
I slowly introduced more staff as we were getting busier and I could justify putting more people back on payroll.”
Brow said he wasn’t exactly looking to open a second restaurant when Lumpkin implored him to take a hard look at the Adolfo’s site, but eventually he warmed to the idea of being part of the scene — and part of a comeback — in the central business district.
Over the course of his first year, there has been some change — and pivoting — there as well, he said, adding that he started off focusing primar- ily on fine dining, but has shifted and evolved, as he put it, and is now offering “more approachable things — but done with the detail we would use if we were plating a filet Oscar or something with delicate construction.”
For instance, with the mac & cheese, he offers a unique pasta with a cheese sauce made with many different types of cheeses, topped with crushed Goldfish crackers instead of the usual breadcrumbs.
“I try to be unique — I don’t like to do anything the same as anybody else around me is doing,” he explained. “I try to be different.”
And, like the name over the door, he is.
Unlike the jackalope — or Claudia Guerra, for that matter — Brow is not the stuff of legend. Yet. But he is getting there — one sticky rib at a time. BW
settled on the location of the old Rinaldi’s.
“When I walked in here, this place was completely
gutted,” he said, adding that a restaurant was plan- ning to move into the site, but those aspirations were derailed by COVID. “I’m completely independent — I don’t have any backing, so I was really concerned about the dollars going into it and whether I could actually pull it off.”
Eventually, the numbers worked, even if the proj- ect went 25% over budget, by his estimate, and the restaurant opened more than two years after the first negotiations on a lease began.
Before the opening, Fletcher handled a few pop-up events, including the town’s annual Fall Festival, that provided a taste of what he was getting into — literally and figuratively — as well as some encouraging signs.
“The community was so supportive,” he recalled. “I was selling out in two hours, when it’s supposed to last six. Those events were really encouraging, and I was super excited to be part of all that.”
As noted earlier, Fletcher said he’s still learning what people like most — the ‘cadence,’ as he called it. There’s a note on the restaurant’s website that states hours and then a notation: “please come early, we sell out daily.”
“Trying to figure out what the demand is going to be is part of the trick,” he explained. “And that will take us a little bit of time to figure it all out.”
The menu includes the staples of barbecue — beef brisket, pork (pulled pork and hot links), spare ribs, and chicken, as well as platters with two or three different meats — but also steaks (New York strip, ribeye, and filet mignon) and other choices such
Andrew Brow recalls thinking downtown Springfield had seen its day, but a few visits to the area convinced him he wanted to be part of the scene there.
as catfish and grits, barbecue ramen, Cajun pasta, pulled pork sandwich, and brisket cheesesteak. Bar snacks and starters include barbecue wings, barbecue nachos, barbecue fries (the menu describes them as
a “cult favorite”), hot links with pimento cheese, and spicy shrimp hush puppies.
As for those steaks, Fletcher says they’re unlike anything he believes is offered in the region.
“We’re cold-smoking them 10 to 15 minutes,” he explained. “So they come out raw — they’re just tak- ing in some of our smoke flavor. And then, we’re sear- ing them to order. It is a really complex flavor; it’s really unique. It might not be everyone’s liking, it’s a little smoky, but I think it’s outstanding.
“We’re a little weird,” he went on. “It’s kind of a fancy place — marble tabletops and brass everything — but you can get some sticky ribs and nachos next to a filet mignon and a glass of champagne.”
Looking ahead, Fletcher said he will continue the process of easing his way toward that schedule he originally put on the drawing board.
That means eventually adding lunch, maybe another night or two of dinner, takeout, and catering. He said he will not take the Fletcher’s act to the Big E this year, but will explore making that part of the equation moving forward.
For now, he’s settling in while also keeping the fires stoked — he’s going through two cords of wood a month.
As he noted, barbecue isn’t just food, it’s commu- nity, and that’s what he’s bringing to Longmeadow — and the region. BW
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Fletcher
things to say about us; that was fun.
“And we won all kinds of awards there — it was a
really great run. I was there for a decade ... so many great people and great food,” he went on, adding that one key to the restaurant’s success was its operating model, whereby it served as a hub (he called it the ‘hive’), supplying barbecue to other pop-up or market locations.
“We would cook everything in one central loca- tion and then send it out to a number of satellites,” he explained, adding that the model worked well, espe- cially in that metropolitan area. “You’re not building five restaurants; you essentially have a commissary, and you’re just sending food out. It was a great model for us.”
Meaty Issues
Eventually, though, Fletcher closed the location. First, he decided he had enough of Gotham and moved upstate. He kept the restaurant going, manag- ing from afar. He then “started dating,” as he put it, and upon “not finding anyone in Upstate New York to my liking,” expanded the search to 100 miles (far for a dating app), which included Longmeadow, where he found what — and who — he was looking for.
“I met my future wife through Tinder,” he explained, gesturing with his hand to indicate that she lived just a few minutes from where he was sitting. When the relationship reached a degree of serious- ness, he started looking at where he could open a res- taurant in the area.
And after some hard searching and then some “feasibility studies,” as he called them, he eventually
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