It’s early Tuesday morning, and Rashad Armstead is loading the back of his truck with hefty packages of pork ribs, five-pound bags of cheddar cheese, and a box of jumbo yams.
Saints Smokehouse
218 13th St., Oakland; www.saintssmokehouse.com
Hours: Wednesday to Friday, noon to 5 p.m., Saturday, 2-6 p.m.
After stopping at three local restaurant supply stores to gather all the ingredients, Armstead meets his mom, Cecilia Armstead, who helps him prep at his new restaurant in downtown Oakland. He starts the slow cooking process of marinating and smoking the brisket, and marinating the chicken and ribs.
The next morning, he is up at 5:30 to start the smoker again and make the side dishes – mac and cheese, collard greens with smoked turkey, purple cornbread, and honey buttered yams.
Armstead is not new to barbecue – he started as a vendor at the Ashby Flea Market in Berkeley in 2015 and opened Crave BBQ in Richmond’s Hilltop Mall as well as Grammie’s Down-Home Chicken & Seafood in Oakland. He later competed on Chopped, winning his episode in 2019.
In November, Armstead quietly opened Saints Smokehouse to the public as a weekend pop-up. He is currently operating Wednesdays through Saturdays. Soon, he hopes to officially open his restaurant, a project that has been in the works for four and a half years.
Armstead is also running things mostly solo – self-financing the restaurant, planning inventory, shopping for ingredients several times a week, and using the two custom-built Southern Pride smokers. Doing a lot of the work himself helps keep costs down – his plates cost$18-$25 ($18 for pork ribs that come with a chunk of blue corn bread and a side dish, and $25 for half a smoked chicken). In addition to his mom, he has the help of three staff members.
When he started in November, some people close to him advised him to invite social media influencers to attract business. Armstead refused, instead opting for a slow and steady build-up. He also noted that he started as a restaurateur before social media was a thing. Pay-for-play was a no-no. “I’m not concerned about the grandiose or going viral,” he said. “I just want to bring good food to Oakland.”
“And all of it is too much pressure,” he added.
So far, his strategy is working.
Just before noon on Wednesday, there’s a small group of people waiting outside the doors. One woman playfully pretends to pound on the window. One of Armstead’s staff members rolls up all of the shades covering the tall windows to reveal seats and tables on one side and an open kitchen on the other. Armstead unlocks the door, and the group streams in. Soon, there’s a line.
“A lot of people are finding out through friends and co-workers. That’s the kind of momentum I prefer over social media and having content creators coming in,” Armstead said about the word-of-mouth growth. In late April, Visit Oakland released a short Instagram video showing his restaurant and dishes. Since then, the lines have grown longer.
The edges of the brisket and ribs are seasoned, with smoky flavors infused by hickory and mesquite wood (he also uses apple, cherry, or pecan wood for smoking the chicken). The meat is tender and stands on its own; the addition of the slow-cooked housemade barbecue sauce is the icing on the cake. The sauce, a secret recipe he won’t share, pairs well with almost everything on the menu – cornbread, mac and cheese, wings (wings are $1 each on Wednesdays).
And lately, he has been selling out before 3 p.m. He’s finding himself back at the restaurant supply store and Jack London markets several times a week now.
He finds inspiration from his great-grandmother, an Oakland culinary pioneer, and other family members.
Armstead’s great-grandmother is Sarah Rawls, who opened her first restaurant in West Oakland and eventually produced and hosted a popular talk show in the 70s and 80s called Down Home Cooking.
“I feel like I have to revive her legacy,” Armstead says. Rawls passed away in 1993, when Armstead was six years old. And even though no one else in his family is in the food business, he was also influenced by his “dad, all my uncles, and people that taught me over the past years. My family’s thing is food. Everyone is a good cook. If you can taste my food and taste my mom or grandma’s potato salad through mine, I’m telling you where I come from.”
When he’s fully up and running, he hopes to add more menu items, like desserts, additional appetizers, and burnt ends. He’ll extend the hours and hopes to open earlier to serve coffee and breakfast. He may add smoked lamb shank and housemade hot links. He plans to get a liquor license to open up the bar area and have live music. He will add more staff as well.
Currently, he’s trying to catch up with the demand. Some days, he sells desserts like slices of lemon pound cake or banana pudding. (One of his winning dishes on Chopped was a dessert dish.)
He’s open to having the public see, and be a part of, this journey.
“I’m not trying to paint a picture of perfection,” he said. “In the world we live in, people want things fast, but that’s not the business I’m building. Food is my art. I’ve been doing it most of my life. I’m really trying to create something special here. Not everybody is going to love it, but the right people will love your food. Those are the customers you gotta show up for.”
