We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bryan Lee Weaver. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bryan Lee below.
Alright, Bryan Lee thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I’ve moved around a lot in my life, but the majority of my formative years were spent in Texas and Colorado. I wound up in Portland, Oregon…and while the food scene there is incredible I just could find some of the food I grew up with…mostly hatch chiles and anything related to them. Nobody really knew what I was talking about.
I thought about opening a food cart there, but I wasn’t really ready professionally or financially. I then moved to Los Angeles and it felt kind of silly to want to open a taco shop there. So, once I get to Nashville and developed a reputation for my food at Butcher & Bee I presented the idea for Redheaded Stranger to my business partner. While we aren’t doing traditional tex-mex food it’s in the ballpark…and that term has a bad reputation for a lot of people. For me though I thought it was an opportunity to serve our community and make delicious food.
The name comes from my favorite Willie Nelson album. He also spent time in my hometown of Ft Worth, so I thought on top of being a great/memorable name, it had connections to Texas and then obviously through Nashville as well. I wasn’t even sure I could legally use the name, so I emailed his website and his granddaughter emailed me back like an hour later and gave her blessings for us to use the name.
I wanted to focus on handmade flour tortillas, I wanted a great burger, and I wanted it to feel like a neighborhood diner. We’ve definitely accomplished a lot, survived and even thrived through the pandemic, so I’m excited to see what’s next. East Nashville is very vibrant and supportive of independent businesses and I can’t really imaging Stranger being anywhere else. I’m constantly being asked when we are going to open another one, but I feel like it’s unique, it’s one of one and I want it to stand alone and be a destination in Nashville.
Bryan Lee, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’ve only ever worked in restaurants. I got a job washing dishes at a New Mexican inspired restaurant in Lousiville, Colorado when I was 14, and that was that. I’ve always been an extremely competitive person, so working my way up just seemed like a fun challenge. I really didn’t look at it as a career so to speak until I moved to Portland. I really had no idea about fine dining or the history of restaurants or how to act like a professional cook. My chef at the time, Sarah Schafer really got me into shape and taught me how to do things the right way.
Creativity has always been very important to me, I’ve dabbled in writing and music my whole life, so once I got the bug for creating dishes it was kind of a no-brainer. I sort of approach food the way I look at sampling records in hip hop. I’m decently aware of the history, and know I’m never going to be reinventing the wheel, but I can take things from different places and put my own spin on them.
The main tenant of everything we do is just to support local farms and producers, try to make everything in house from scratch and give people a memorable experience. I think we’ve done a good job of supporting our staff and being an important part of our community. We do a lot of charitable work and have a lot of regulars that live around the corner or in our neighborhood in addition to having a place for people traveling or passing through.
One of the most important things for me is that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Sure, we want to make an amazing product, but we want to have fun doing it. We have hand-drawn signs that staff make for specials. Since we focus on flour tortillas, I opted not to serve chips, which is a minor controversy for some people haha. But we have a cheeky slogan around the restaurant that started as a joke among the staff and now we have shirts and pins with it printed on it (i doubt you’ll print it, but it’s “no f*ck*ng chips”) We put stuffed animals at the bar during covid instead of just taping off the whole section or something lame…I have dreams of a Redheaded Stranger coloring book that would sort of act as a cookbook because most cookbooks are boring and the same.
It’s a very busy restaurant, and can be very hard day to day, but I like to think that we have a good time doing what we do. A lot of our staff has been around since day one, and I’m very proud of that.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I was working in Venice Beach at a spot called Superba Snack Bar. One of our server’s there was from Charleston, SC and said I should meet his friend Michael Shemtov. He owned a place called Butcher & Bee and like to host chef’s from out of town and do pop ups.
We had talked on the phone and I was hoping to plan a trip down there to cook, but my sous chef at the time bought a motorcycle and crashed it. He broke both his arms and I couldn’t leave the restaurant.
Not too long after, Michael was taking a trip with his wife shortly before having his first child. He called me one morning and said “we’d like to come in for dinner tonight, do you have space?” I made it happen and I think they had a really great time/meal. I talked to them for a bit after and he casually mentioned opening a place in Nashville. I had been looking for an opportunity to leave the spot I was at, so everything just kind of lined up.
Six weeks later my wife and I loaded our cats in the car and drove from LA to Nashville and I was chef at Butcher & Bee.
How did you build your audience on social media?
My advice on social media maybe isn’t for everyone, but I’ve really found how much it means to people to be authentic and true to yourself.
Particularly during the pandemic and during some of the social unrest I was very vocal about where we stood as a company and have continued to do so. Sure, we may have lost a few people along the way, but I think we have gained way more people by sticking to what we believe in and not pandering to anything just because that’s what you’re supposed to do. There’s a whole myth that business and politics don’t mix. It’s ridiculous. Policy and political change affect what I do every day and I think it’s just as important that our guests know where we stand.
Our guests and regulars know that we are inclusive and support anyone that comes through the door and our social media presence reflects that. We’ve turned a little taco shop into almost 25K followers on instagram and I believe that a big portion of our following isn’t just because we make delicious food, but because we are genuine people who aren’t afraid to stand up for what they believe in.
Contact Info:
- Website: redheadedstrangertacos.com butcherandbee.com
- Instagram: @bryanleeweaver @redheadedstrngr @bandbnashville