Hub City Grub owner, Jay Ryan is seen in the bar area of his restaurant Tuesday, January 29, in Centralia.
Hub City Grub owner, Jay Ryan talks about his menu Tuesday, January 29, in Centralia.
Hub City Grub employee, Eric Bostic talks about food he prepares Tuesday, January 29, in Centralia.
Hub City Grub owner, Jay Ryan is seen in the kitchen area of his restaurant Tuesday, January 29, in Centralia.
A Hub City Grub employee cuts vegetables to be used in food prep Tuesday, January 29, in Centralia.
Hub City Grub owner, Jay Ryan is seen in the lobby area of his restaurant Tuesday, January 29, in Centralia.
Hub City Grub looks like a concession stand — it’s inside a sports complex and the menu lists french fries, tater tots and chicken strips. Ask chef and owner Jay Ryan about his ingredients, though, and he will tell you that he will never be part of the “dollar-menu culture.”
“There is no microwave in the kitchen,” said Ryan, as he discussed his menu. “... There is no aluminum in that kitchen that touches food. We have some principles in there that just set us aside from the rest.”
Ryan opened up Hub City Grub in the Northwest Sports Hub just before 2015. Now, he is expanding to include to-go lunches, with an entirely new menu.
The Hub City Grub To Go menu offers soups, hot paninis, sandwiches and artisan pizzas. Ryan and his staff began serving lunch a few weeks ago, and have been working out the kinks of this new setup since.
The point, Ryan said, is for customers to order from the Hub City Grub To Go website, then pick up the food when it’s ready. He also plans to put tables inside Hub City Grub.
Ryan offers classic pizzas, as well as a few off-the-wall types, such as the “Godfather Pizza,” with salami, sausage, Kalamata olives, fresh onions, cheese blend and red sauce.
He uses Kalama Sourdough for the breads and pizza crust from Kalama Sourdough Bakery, and Hub City Grub makes all the pizza sauces — red and white — from scratch.
“We take a whole case of tomatoes that are from Italy, actually,” said Eric Bostic, one of the cooks. “Then we sauté a bunch of onions and garlic — hand-peeled garlic last time — and then deglaze with a bunch of wine.”
The cooks reduce that concoction, add tomatoes and cook the sauce for a couple hours, Bostic said.
“Then we make something called a gastrique, which is reduced vinegar and a little bit of sugar,” Bostic said. “That’s a big flavoring that goes into the sauce. It’s pretty unique. And, yeah, tons of herbs and rosemary. We will make almost like rosemary tea, blend it together and throw it into the sauce itself. It becomes a really strong component of flavor.”
Ryan did his original training in 1988, with Thierry Rautureau, the Chef in the Hat out of Seattle. He said that fine dining is “near and dear to his heart” and that he maintains principles in his kitchen.
“All the ingredients are thought about,” Ryan said. “I have made conscious decisions on everything on the menu. I made a conscious decision to use a higher-quality everything. I will never be part of the dollar-menu culture.”
The example Ryan repeatedly used was his oil. He uses rice bran oil in the deep fryers, instead of cheaper, hydrogenated oil. Hydrogenated oil would cost him approximately $12, but he pays almost $52 for a unit that is the same size.
He referred to the cheaper oil as the “silent killer” and said restaurant owners often don’t discuss how unhealthy it is, because they don’t want to pay more money for the better oil.
“I choose a higher quality of everything that I buy,” Ryan said. “... We strive to have a higher quality. So I will never be able to offer a really cheap pizza, or a really cheap anything — I just can’t do it.”
Opening up business in the Northwest Sports Hub, Ryan said, has allowed him to explore different ways the service industry could work.
“The idea of being in a restaurant and waiting for people to come in has always been scary to me,” Ryan said. “... My MO has always been to put myself, my food service business, in the middle of a lot of people such as fairs and festivals and now this place, because there are people coming to this building organically. So, to me, that feels a little better than to open up a restaurant and wait for people to come in.”
In 2014, Ryan received keys to the Northwest Sports Hub and began building Hub City Grub. He built virtually everything himself and opened for his first event in December 2014. Since then, he has cooked for Pre-K students in the Lewis County Head Start and people who book the complex.
Ryan said doesn’t see a problem with a decent wine list inside a sports complex.
“I find that one of my biggest challenges is convincing people that it’s okay to come in here and see a decent wine list and drink wine at a sports complex — or see a decent menu and expect or take advantage of eating higher-quality food in a sports complex,” Ryan said. “... This is a concession stand that does have a nice wine list, and it does have higher-quality food.”
