BAM!!

Three years ago today we held our grand opening at Gruff Brewing. We were nervous and giddy at the same time, having planned and dreamed and built our little food truck over the previous six or seven months.

Last week we signed the lease and made the deal to buy Jekyll and Hyde on Orchard Street, two years ahead of our goal to be in a Brick and Mortar, and we are beyond excited! We’d planned to wait until today to announce our news, on our third anniversary, but we were too excited to keep it to ourselves and announced on instagram and facebook. The response from our friends and family, and from our regulars, who have become friends, has been fun and exciting and worth leaking the announcement early!

The dream was never the foodtruck. The dream was to serve up the best BBQ in Bellingham, so we started with what we could afford at the time, an empty little Navy step van that we drove up from Oregon and turned into a BBQ foodtruck.

Our families and close friends were wringing their hands three years ago when we were planning to leave our places of employment. “It’s such a risk!” “Are you sure this is what you want to do?” “So many restaurants don’t make it, maybe you should still work partime.”

For us, it was all or nothing, jump in with both feet, don’t look back, do or die!

We’ve worked harder and longer hours than ever before in our lives. We’re exhausted much of the time, and we rarely get to socialize with our family and friends. We’ve also had the most fun, the most fights, and best nights of sleep than ever before!. We’ve made a ton of new friends, built camaraderie with amazing owners and staffs at the local breweries, and have cheered for their successes as they have cheered for ours.

In the late 90’s this space was home to Orchard Street Brewery, one of our favorite places to meet up with friends at the time. We loved their beer, and the food was fantastic. Who could have known then that 30 years or so later, we would be the keepers of that spot and get to practice hospitality there by cooking for you all? The end of next week we will have keys in hand and start the next step of making that space our own.

We would not trade the last three years for anything, and we are extremely proud of our product and our name. We can’t wait to welcome you all to our new place, our BAM, our Brick and Mortar restaurant where we hope you’ll feel right at home and continue to enjoy the best BBQ in Bellingham, our little City of Subdued Excitement!