The owners/operators of The Burrowing Owl – Cody Rilo & Tyler Schiedel – wanted to take the best of hangout bars that they loved, integrating the vegan lifestyle while offering great food and cocktails (and hopefully converting some of their patrons in the process).
“My husband Tyler and I really love dive bars,” explains Rilo. “So that’s kind of what we were trying for when we built The Burrowing Owl.” She says it was just supposed to be a little tiny dive bar that served good, cheap drinks. “And then, we just sneak in some vegan food in there.”
The vibe they were going for was “your father’s basement from like the ‘70s with beer signs and amber lighting.” And there are no TVs there. “Plus, we try to keep the music quiet enough that we can have a conversation.” Rilo laughs that there was a time when cell phones wouldn’t really work at the Owl “because it was kind of a dead zone.” She says it was a blessing in the beginning because people had to interact with each other as well as with the bartenders.
Any good dive bar must have simple standards for drinks without getting too complicated. Rilo says what has always been the drive of their cocktail menu is vinegar and tea. She says probably her most popular and most featured cocktail is The Mother, which uses apple cider vinegar and Bragg whiskey along with agave syrup on a big ice cube. “It’s got this weird tartness along with the sweet. And then it’s got booze. So, it’s almost like a health drink.”
Creating Simple and Yet Inventive Libations at The Burrowing Owl
Rilo says they also have the coconut sap which is coconut vinegar (which she says is rarely heard about but has gotten bigger in the last couple of years).
“It has pineapple and this kind of creamy feel, but it’s still 100% vegan.” They also don’t really mix cocktails. Silo laughs that they’re not muddlers or shakers. “We’re not flair bartenders. We just want to get to know you.” At the Owl, they batch all their cocktails in 64-ounce jars so everything goes into one jar. “We shake it up and we pour it while we’re getting to know your name. That’s our bartending skill set right there.”
Rilo said it is hard to create everything from local, especially vegan since sourcing can be difficult. She says a lot of people don’t know that quite a few beers have lactose in them and even honey. All the beers they serve at The Burrowing Owl are canned. They also always have a rotating koozie that has different sayings or graphics including owls peeking out of a tree.
The bar opened in June 2015. When they started, Rilo says, they were only two of the other seven vegans in town, but they said they managed to build a community by getting to know our guests “and then we’ll just sneak in some vegan food so they won’t even know it.”
Finding the right venue was also a balance in understanding both their needs and the needs of their customers. Rilo told Rob Rawley, their realtor, that they wanted something under 2,000 square feet. Rilo and Schiedel are both from downtown, but they didn’t know if they wanted to be located downtown to make sure all of their friends came in or if they wanted to be outside that direct area so that we could build a different clientele.
Finding the Right Corner of Town
After looking at a bunch of places, they saw what used to be the location of Canyon Cafe. For them, it already had a bar outline. It had a small kitchen (though without a hood). And it already had bathrooms built out. “It was kind of just a no-brainer even though it was in a strip mall, which we were concerned about. It had a failed business in it, which we were concerned about. It was too far away from our townie clientele, which we were worried about. But somehow it worked and it’s turned into a kind of a destination for people to go.”
As far as their food approach, it is about great taste but also sticking to their vegan mission. “I think that our queso (which is cashew-based) is pretty stinkin’ good. I say put that on everything and you should be happy, especially as a vegan. It’s fatty and it’s coating and hopefully, it takes you back to that time that you remember before you became vegan.”
Rilo says they use it on their nachos and they make their mac and cheese with it. A lot of these dishes are also spiced with organic jalapenos. “Since our whole menu is organic or non-GMO, these jalapenos come at you real fast. So, if someone says, ‘How spicy is it?’ We tell them, ‘If you have to ask, it’s too spicy.’”
Rilo adds that when she is training people to make nachos she says, “Only put four jalapeno slices on there because they’re going to have the first one and the other three are going to come back. They’re just so freaking spicy!”
Unique Approach to Dive Culture
Because of their approach, the layout of the place and initially with only the two of them as employees/bartenders, they had planned to just scoop the food themselves and then be back bartending. “Everything back there is set up Chipotle-style like most Mexican restaurants. Mexican restaurants have seven ingredients and then they mix them up and put them in different dishes, right? That was our idea like, ‘Let’s just put a bunch of stuff out there that’s super easy and that we can cross utilize and it’s still going to have good flavor.” Whether it is burritos, tacos, or sloppy joes, textured vegetable protein is what they use.
Rilo mentions that they have an item on their menu called Naysayer Nachos to help convert some non-vegans. “When people come in and they’re like, ‘Oh. I don’t like vegan food.’ We give them a tiny little portion of our serious nachos. So, it has the queso on there, it has that taco meat on it, lettuce, tomatoes … it’s just a free little thing. But people eat it and their minds are blown.”
Rilo and Schiedel don’t see themselves expanding too far though. They just opened a small diner called Fern’s in Cascade. But Rilo says, in order to keep The Burrowing Owl what it is and “to keep our dream of it alive is just to keep it the way it is. Our whole thing is we just want to get vegan food into everybody’s bodies. That’s also why we opened the diner because we’re like, ‘OK. It’s definitely a 100% flip of what the Burrowing Owl is. Fern’s is bright and cheery and breakfast in the morning and all that stuff.”
Rilo says they hope that they’re now building a bit of a legacy with the Burrowing Owl. “I mean it really can’t get any bigger than it is. That space is as big as it’s going to get. I mean we can build a little bit more patio, but it is what it is.”
