Rusty's Southern in the Tenderloin
What do you do when you can’t find any good Carolina-style barbecue in San Francisco?
If you’re Rusty Olson, you open up your very own barbecue joint. At Olson’s just-over-a-week-old Tenderloin restaurant, Rusty’s Southern, in addition to Lexington-style barbecue, you’ll also find a well-rounded selection of homey, yet deftly-crafted, Southern dishes.
A bit of background on Olson: Both of Olson’s parents hail from the South (his father from South Carolina; his mother from North Carolina). While Olson, whose father was a career officer in the military, grew up moving around a lot, he spent every summer with his grandparents in the Carolinas. It’s there that he developed a deep connection to his Southern roots.
About 13 years ago, Olson moved to California on a whim. He worked a variety of service industry gigs over the years — the past seven of which were as the bar manager at Hayes Valley’s German eatery, Suppenkuche.
When the opportunity to open his own restaurant presented itself, Olson couldn’t pass it up. The minister at City Church, where Olson and his family are members, reached out. It just so happened that a portion of the Tenderloin space where the church, which specializes in prison ministry and addiction help, was looking to build community center, also happened to house a restaurant with an owner looking to sell.
Exterior of Rusty’s Southern in the Tenderloin
Photo: Sarah Fritsche/The Chronicle
Olson toured the space in August 2014, setting a goal to open the restaurant by April 2015. Surprisingly — considering the glacial pace of opening restaurants in San Francisco — he made his goal, with a soft opening on March 27. “We definitely got very lucky,” says Olson.
Olson and his wife, Cody, handle front of house, while executive chef Francis Rubio oversees the kitchen. While working at Suppenkuche, Olson struck up a friendship with Rubio, who, at the time, was the chef at sister restaurant, Biergarten.
Prior to the restaurant’s opening, the Olsons and Rubio did restaurant recon by visiting various barbecue joints in the Carolinas, including Wayne Monk’s famous, Beard Award-winning Lexington Barbecue in Lexington, NC. They were so impressed with Monk’s barbecue that this is the style they decided to emulate.
Lexington-style barbecue plate at Rusty’s Southern
Photo: Sarah Fritsche/The Chronicle
For the uninitiated, Lexington-style barbecue is made using only pork shoulder, with a barbecue sauce that’s tangy and vinegar based. Another hallmark of Lexington-style ‘cue is red slaw, which is tomato-based rather than the more familiar mayonnaise version.
(Author’s confession: My husband’s family hails from just outside of Charlotte, NC; and every time we go back for a visit, Lexington Barbecue is a must-stop. I often claim that it has ruined all other barbecue for me. Their crispy pork skin sandwich is also on my list of deathbed meals. Really. It’s THAT good.)
Due to permitting, Rubio uses an electric smoker rather than open flame, but he slow-smokes the meat for roughly 13-14 hours with hickory, and like Lexington, the finished pork shoulder is finely chopped rather than pulled, and served with red slaw and hush puppies (see photo).
While Rusty’s serves up solid Southern-inspired fare, community and a sense of fellowship are at the heart of the restaurant. Though Rusty’s Southern is separate from City Hope Community Center, they have partnership of sorts with the center.
In addition to providing food for special events, Olson eventually hopes to set-up a charitable component at the restaurant, which will allow diners to purchase vouchers that will provide meals to those in need who come to the center. Olson has another longer-term goal of establishing a vocational program to teach basic knife and kitchen skills to small groups at the center in order to help them find work in local kitchens.
For now, the restaurant will spend the next month or so settling into daily operations and refining the menu, but later this spring, Olson is aiming for an official grand opening of the restaurant to coincide with the launch of a barbecue-friendly beer that Fort Point Brewing Company is collaborating on with him.
Here’s a look at the full menu:
Rusty’s Southern, 750 Ellis St. (near Polk), S.F. (415) 638-6974. rustyssf.com. To start, hours are: Tues.-Sat. from 5-10:30 p.m., with brunch from 9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. on weekends.