Hub City Grub Provides Fresh Take on Food

Hub City Grub operates mostly for patrons of Centralia’s Northwest Sports Hub, providing food for whoever rents the complex out. With a fresh style of cooking, chef Jay Ryan also serves 200 preschoolers attending the Lewis County Head Start program.

He provides food in a “real way,” and has modified his recipes to ensure there are no hydrogenated oils or refined white sugar, and he steers clear of anything in a can.

“I think the way our food system is today, it really makes it difficult to do a lot of cooking,” Ryan, owner of Hub City Grub, said. “Companies make it very convenient these days to open something, heat it up and serve it, instead of going through the actual steps of cooking something and knowing the technical steps of cooking in general.” 

With a formal cooking background and fine cooking experience, Ryan’s goal is to bring good food to those he serves in a healthy way. 

For the preschoolers, he makes 15 or more gallons of vegetable stock a week, which is used as the base for sauces, soups and a variety of other items. Instead of opening a can of cream of mushroom like some recipes call for, he instead uses real butter, and flour, along with other ingredients, to get the same taste from scratch. 

His kitchen is free of teflon, and he makes sure that aluminum does not come into contact with the food he serves. 

Working with the preschoolers’ food restrictions, Ryan has to cater to gluten-free diets, as well as those with allergies, and those who can only eat kosher. 

With a fascination of dietary restrictions, Ryan opened a mobile unit named Quinoa King in 2009. It sparked an interest in quinoa, millets, legumes and grains that can be used in a variety of ways to provide healthy alternatives.

“If you are really allergic to gluten, let’s steer away from pastas; let’s not try to make things look like pasta even. Let’s do something different,” Ryan explained.

That’s what he does with the Head Start program, something he said was one of his “fondest stories.”

“It’s something everyday I get to have a hands-on approach to making a difference in these kids’ lives,” he said.

Along with the work done inside the kitchen, Ryan has a working herb garden stationed just outside the doors of the business. He uses it to add to his dishes. 

His kitchen was permitted by the health department in December to open for business, and he recently just completed a full cycle with Head Start. 

His goal for the building continues to change as he determines the best direction to take the business.

“The vision is always evolving because there are kids here 9 months out of the year and this building is unknown,” Ryan said. 

With high temperatures and summer officially here, the sports hub has been rented out less frequently because people want to be outside, Ryan said. 

Even with a slow time upon him, he said his heart lies in the stainless steel kitchen in the back of the business.

“My heart is always cooking,” he said.