Fans of the Bantam Kitchen & Cooler’s Southern-style menu will soon have another location where they can find their favorite meals.
The Hartnell Avenue restaurant in east Redding will launch a second downtown location for take-out customers this summer at the soon-to-open public market that will be located the ground floor of the Redding Market Center.
It’s all part of Bantam owners and married couple Kate and Joe Wood’s concept: Offer original takes on classic Southern menu items with homemade spice mixes and sauces.
As the name suggests, many of the restaurants most popular dishes are chicken based. “We sell a ton of fried chicken here,” chicken “sandwiches ($15) and wraps,” Kate Wood said.
But Bantam’s most popular dish isn’t chicken. It’s the shrimp and grits dinner ($18). “It’s something people come back and say they were craving,” Wood said. Also on their menu — macaroni and cheese, collard greens, fried green tomatoes, jambalaya and biscuits with gravy.
While it’s trendy for restaurants to integrate a Southern food dish or two into their menu, Kate Wood said she doesn’t see anyone else in Redding specializing in the region’s cooking. “I think that Southern food is growing in popularity” here, she said.
The couple opened Bantam in August 2020, five months into the COVID-19 pandemic and seven months after Kate Wood gave birth to twins. They spent their early years persevering during the pandemic and experimenting with different menus until they decided they had the right combination, Kate Wood said.
Chef Joe Wood creates most of the recipes and smokes the meat ― including pork and brisket ― on site. He also makes the restaurant’s original spice mixes, sauces and chicken and pork rubs, Kate Wood said.
While they have a smoker, Bantam doesn’t sell just barbecued meat for take-out. “We tried doing that. It wasn’t received like we thought it would be, Kate Wood said. Instead, they integrate their smoked meats into creative menu items: Brisket burgers, nachos and other dishes, she said.
While her husband is creating, Kate Wood acts as the face of the restaurant, greeting customers and doing “a little bit of everything,” she said. “I call myself the chaos queen. I control the madness of the space. If we need help on the floor, I serve that day.”
While they’re the first restaurateurs in their clan, the Bantam owners come from business-savvy families.
Joe Wood’s father, Ken Wood, owns UpState Hearing Instruments in Redding. Kate Wood’s parents, Dan and Gail Batdorf, own Bat Electric, makers of hydroelectric switchgear. Their parents mentored them and have helped the couple with business advice, Kate Wood said.
Since she was a child, Kate Wood, now 36, seemed destined to own a restaurant. When she was 12 years old, “I used to put on a wig and pretend to serve my family food,” she said, laughing.
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At age 18, the Foothill graduate announced to her mother she wanted to own a bar someday. Her mother supported her when her daughter moved temporarily to Colorado, a state that allows workers to serve alcohol at age 18, Wood said: “Not drink, just serve.”
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She met Joe Wood, now 40, in 2010 while they were both working at Redding restaurants Moonstone Bistro and Tapas Downtown (now Woody’s Brewing Co.) Born in Paradise, Joe Wood graduated from Chico State University with a bachelor’s degree in English.
Both shared a dream of owning their own restaurant, Kate Wood said.
They married in October 2013, the same year Kate Wood graduated from Humboldt State University with a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
During the past three-and-a-half years, the couple found their own recipe for managing the restaurant and its 12 employees while balancing family life. Her husband does “a lot” of the childcare, Kate Wood said.
Being sensitive to other dads isn’t why the couple opted to put the restaurant’s only changing table in the men’s room, a source of conversation among her customers. “It didn’t fit in the women’s bathroom,” said Kate Wood.
Since the Bantam opened, the couple say they have developed good “long-term working relationships” with employees. “We wouldn’t be able to do this if we didn’t have great staff,” Kate Wood said.
Looking ahead, the couple sculpted a menu plan for the retaurant’s downtown kitchen and counter that is set to opens at the public market this summer. While the downtown menu will be smaller than the sit-down restaurant’s, it will still feature customer favorites: Fried chicken, po-boy sandwiches like shrimp ($18) and catfish ($19) ― and, of course, shrimp and grits.
More: Downtown Redding ‘public market’ set to open summer 2024. Here’s what to expect.
Meanwhile, they’re busy planning Mardi Gras and Valentine’s Day specials. Later this year, the couple plan to sell their Cajun spice on Redding store shelves and at the restaurant, Kate Wood said.
“We’ve had some major growing pains, but…I couldn’t be more grateful for how well” the restaurant’s concept “has been received” by the public, she said.
What to know if you go
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Cost: Entrees range from $15 to $19. The fried green tomatoes appetizer costs $7.
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Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekends.
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Where: Bantam Kitchen and Cooler, 2704 Hartnell Ave Suite J, Redding.
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Phone: 530-338-2219
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Website: www.thebantamkitchen.com.
Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Bantam Kitchen brings Southern-style comfort food to Redding
