Some people might shy away from honoring the legacy of a building whose history had a few unsavory hiccups.
But it was those hiccups, the rough-hewn history handed down by the last tenant bar, the popular biker hangout Bashful Bandit, that Toby Kyte wanted to celebrate.
That’s why Kyte and his sibling partners — brothers Terry and Trevor and sister Leslie Frost — named their barbecue restaurant at 3686 E. Speedway Blvd. Bashful Bandit Barbecue.
“I think the history of the building and where it’s at and, specifically, the roughness of the Bandit, or the perceived roughness, kind of fits with the old school barbecue we do,” said Kyte, who estimated the project’s total cost at a couple million dollars.
The restaurant’s backyard barbecue style “is not trying to be anything it’s not. It’s kind of authentic. I think the Bashful Bandit was an authentic place,” he added.
The bar from the old Bashful Bandit is still in place, graffiti carvings and all, in the newly remodeled building and home of the soon-to-open Bashful Bandit Barbecue.
Roughly 2½ years after buying the 76-year-old building in June 2021, the partners will officially open the restaurant on Wednesday, Dec. 27.
Kyte had initially hoped to have the restaurant open in fall 2021, but delay after delay pushed the timetable back at every turn. Plans to redo the Bandit parking lot and the adjacent lot of their neighbor was then expanded to include the lot on the other side. Each building permit seemed to require a prerequisite permit, and once they had the permits, they faced COVID-related supply chain holdups.
The renovation work included installing a new electrical system with an expanded capacity to accommodate a restaurant. They also added patio dining and an outdoor cooking area centralized in a converted 50-foot semi-trailer.
Inside, they retained the old bar that likely dated back to 1947, when Bertha Lester built the 2,875-square-foot building to house Rio Rita Bar. But they got rid of the old bathrooms and built new ones and they stripped old and stained drywall from the interior walls and added double doors to improve the traffic flow.
When they removed the drywall on one side of the dining room, they unearthed part of the original aqua-colored wall from Rio Rita. They also found “some super cool wallpaper from the ‘60s” that Kyte preserved.
“That’s what I liked about the building; I didn’t want to cover it up with subway tile,” he said.
Instead, he decorated one wall with old Bashful Bandit bar memorabilia and another with reminders of Rio Rita.
A small ragged piece of wallpaper from the building’s days as the Rio Rita are exposed at the new Bashful Bandit Barbecue. Memories of the structure’s past, like the piece of wall paper, neon signs and the bar, are being incorporated into the remodel, including items from the Rio Rita and more recently the Bashful Bandit bar.
During the renovations, workers also found old posters from the 1960s bands that played the bar and a Super Bowl squares betting poster from Super Bowl 2 in 1968 with the Green Bay Packers and Oakland Raiders. The poster had names written into the squares.
Nostalgia for the old building, though, will not be the focus once diners get out of their cars and walk toward the building.
“You walk by the pits, you see the pits, you see us wrapping the brisket, you can talk to the pitmaster. He might give you a little taste of our sausage,” Kyte said, adding that the view from the patio seating offers a window into the action. “That whole experience before you even walk in the door kind of primes you for what … you are about to eat and order. … I think that’s kind of missing in some places.”
Kyte, whose family owns Bisbee Breakfast Club and whose father operated Pizza Hut restaurants in Tucson for 65 years, grew to love barbecue during his eight years in Texas studying industrial organizational psychology at Texas A&M. The campus in College Station is about an hour outside of Austin, which back in the early 2000s was at the epicenter of the central Texas craft barbecue scene.
Black’s Barbecue, dating back to 1932, and Smitty’s Market, which followed in 1948, put Lockhart, Texas, on the barbecue map, which was soon populated by a handful of noteworthy understudies in Austin with Terry Black’s Barbecue and Franklin’s Barbecue leading the march.
Kyte, who lived in Austin while he finished his Ph.D. dissertation, and his buddies would take barbecue tours to the region’s best known joints, as well as the holes in the wall.
“There’s not a lot of indoor seating in Texas. You’re sitting at a picnic table and you’re getting a huge tray of food and couple of beers and you’re sitting outside with your friends on a Saturday,” he recalled. “You’re outside, smelling the smoke, talking to the pitmaster. It’s almost more about the experience than the barbecue itself. Obviously, the barbecue has to be good, but the experience is what does it for me.”
Bashful Bandit Barbecue will operate with a Texas foundation that includes using offset smokers fueled exclusively with wood. But when it comes to flavors, Kyte is looking homeward.
Pitmaster Jesse Aguirre slices a beef brisket for a catering order at the new Bashful Bandit Barbecue.
“Anyone can open a Texas (style) barbecue restaurant, but being from Tucson I kind of like those flavors of Tucson,” he said, which includes green chile pulled pork, chile relleno sausage made with poblano peppers, chicken basted in a housemade molé barbecue sauce and chicken grilled like they do it at Tucson area carnicerias.
“It’s kind of Texas methodology with Arizona flavors so I’m calling it Arizona barbecue,” he said.
Beginning Wednesday, Bashful Bandit Barbecue will be open from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Learn more at instagram.com/bashfulbanditbbq.
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