Local chefs and restaurateurs Brian Rainey, left, and Gavin St. Denis opened the YS Smokehouse on Friday, Nov. 1, in the building that previously housed Calypso Grill. Rainey closed Calypso last month after six years of serving Caribbean cuisine. Now, with a scaled-back menu, the pair will offer pick-up barbecue and southern fare. The smokehouse is open 4–8 p.m. every Friday and Saturday, with expanded hours of operations on the horizon. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
YS Smokehouse takes it low and slow
- Published: November 7, 2024
The south side of Yellow Springs is about to get a little more southern — in its cuisine, anyway.
The YS Smokehouse, longtime local restaurateur Brian Rainey’s newest brainchild, had its first day Friday, Nov. 1, 4–8 p.m., for drive thru and pick-up orders only.
Located in the former Calypso Grill space at 1535 Xenia Ave. — which closed after six years in October — the YS Smokehouse’s menu is slathered in classic southern Americana fare such as brisket, pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, boiled peanuts and more.
In an interview with the News last week, Rainey said the initial timeline for his new restaurant is going to be “low and slow” — mirroring the tried and true approach to decent southern cooking.
For the foreseeable future, the smokehouse will be open only twice a week — Friday and Saturday evenings — with no dine-in option. Once renovations and improvements on the dining room are complete, and after the new menu has been tested and refined, the smokehouse’s dining room will open for counter service only.
“We’re easing into this instead of going full bore,” Rainey said. “We want to grow and build the business organically, so by spring, we can really rock and roll. Being open two days a week gives us five more to talk about what we can do better.”
With a significantly smaller staff and reduced menu from Calypso, Rainey is opening the barbecue joint with another Yellow Springs local and lifelong chef, Gavin St. Denis. He comes to the YS Smokehouse with decades of experience in the kitchen and a penchant for homestyle, southern cooking. Most recently, St. Denis was the executive chef for Corner Kitchen in Dayton.
“Barbecue is a big thing for me,” St. Denis said. “I grew up around the south as a military kid — Mississippi, North Carolina — and I really got attached to all that kind of food down there.”
As he and Rainey explained, the shift from Calypso’s Caribbean fare to southern-style barbecue ought to be seamless; both share geographical and gastronomic origins, but the latter — the “barbecue umbrella,” as St. Denis put it — is more recognizable to the general Midwest public, and doesn’t box the kitchen into such a culinary niche.
“For me, as a chef coming in, it’s always more fun to work under a broader umbrella,” St. Denis said. “The menu will always be a kind of chalkboard — something that can grow, shrink, evolve, depending on what works and what doesn’t. We’re not pinned down at all.”
For the time being, the pair agreed that the brisket will be the pièce de résistance of the initial menu. They’ve been obsessing over it, trying to get it just right. Its preparation takes around 14 hours — “Texas style with a Yellow Springs twist,” St. Denis said. Once it’s sold out each day, it’s sold out.
“In that way, we’re kind of like a food truck, just in a building,” St. Denis elaborated.
The sides are also something the duo take pride in. Rainey said he’s most excited for the chimichurri potato salad — a dish “familiar, but still different and unique,” he said.
Appealing to the less-than-carnivorous customer, the menu will also feature several vegetarian and vegan options. The collards, for example, will be boiled in vegetable stock with its umami flavors coming from a miso reduction. Gluten-free options will include the boiled peanuts, fries, potato salad, cole slaw and more.
Those looking for an additional kick to their meal can choose from six sauces — ranging from Midwest traditional and Carolina spiced vinegar to smoked habanero and the well-remembered Calypso jerk.
“So, there will still be elements of Calypso’s Caribbean cuisine in our new menu,” St. Denis said. “It didn’t go away entirely. Now, we just have more culinary freedom than they did.”
Rainey said that while he’s thrilled to open a new restaurant — one that can appeal to more hungry visitors and villagers — he laments the loss of Calypso. As the News reported in 2018, when Rainey first opened the grill, Rainey was inspired by the Cayman and Jamaican fare he fell in love with on a trip to the tropics.
“Ultimately, I feel it ran its course,” Rainey said. “I think it wasn’t appealing to enough people for this location. Our menu was too big and the concept was too niche for the area.”
He continued, tears welling: “I’m still pretty emotional about the loss of Calypso. I’ll miss the food and, more than anything, the idea of it. It was a crazy, ridiculous idea from the start.”
Despite Calypso’s closure, Rainey’s other longtime Yellow Springs staple in the local restaurant scene, Sunrise Cafe, is doing well — it’s still slinging omelets every morning and sirloin steaks every night, just as its done since Rainey took the reins in 2004.
“This is, yet again, another big financial leap of faith,” Rainey said of his new smokehouse. “But I’m really blessed with a great team over there [at Sunrise Cafe]. They’re holding things down, and they’re the reason I’m able to do this and spend so much time setting this up down here.”
While operations at the YS Smokehouse will remain low and slow for the months to come, both St. Denis and Rainey see an imminent future of longer hours and broadened service. If all goes well, they hope to begin catering, hosting private dinners and holiday celebrations. They even have plans to offer smoked turkey in time for Thanksgiving.
“But for now, we’re taking it one bite at a time,” St. Denis said.
For more information on the YS Smokehouse, the full menu, contact information and online ordering options, go to http://www.yssmokehouse.com. The restaurant is open every Friday and Saturday, 4–8 p.m. YS Smokehouse is located at 1535 Xenia Ave.
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