Just smokin’

It’s tough not to investigate the juicy, meaty scent that’s now wafting from the Phoenix Building at 300 Broadway in downtown Chico. As of Feb. 27, the area formerly occupied by Sultan’s Bistro has transformed into barbecue joint Uncle Skinny’s, open Tuesday through Sunday. The restaurant is a family venture, owned by Maren Wise, her father, Kirk Kennedy, and brother Jaemen Kennedy—its namesake is Wise’s great, great Uncle Skinny (who watches over the dining area from a family photo). The siblings are joined in running the eatery by long-time family employee Logan Martin (Wise also occasionally ropes in her husband, Max, a data analyst). The place has no oven or stove in sight: just an electric smoker. Wise, originally from Salinas, became a Paradisian about a year ago, and shared the restaurant’s origins with the CN&R. For more info, visit uncleskinnys.com or call 570-4313.

How’d Uncle Skinny’s come about?

This is just a business venture that my dad kind of had percolating in the back of his mind for the last 25 years. It’s kind of a family hobby; we just really enjoy smoking and barbecuing tri-tip. It was like, how can we … have this restaurant where it’s good food, a limited menu, just, we’re making a few things really, really well? We jumped off a cliff with this one [laughs]. [Dad] had a spray and fertilizer equipment business and he has a manufacturing business right now, and he’s a landscape photographer and has his own printing business. It’s a fun project, really. We’re not wanting it to be crazy. Barbecue’s fun! It’s supposed to be fun. So we’re all just doing our passion.

What do you offer?

We really have a limited menu because we really want to focus on making really good food that tastes delicious. We smoke our tri-tip, which is kind of unusual, so it stays super tender and super moist. It cooks for like 2 1/2 to 3 hours. It’s a lot of TLC that goes into that tri-tip! It’s the same with chicken; we do pulled chicken every day, sandwiches and salads [and] all of the produce is fresh. We do pulled pork on Fridays, and then we’re going to have some other things here and there as specials.

What are your hopes for the business?

Ideally, in my perfect world, I see us sourcing locally, free-range, the whole shebang, and really going for it. Every day when somebody comes, I’m like, “Shoot, we sold a sandwich to somebody today. Score!” Every sandwich sold is a victory. I’m humbled, honestly. I can’t believe somebody wanted to buy my food. That’s crazy pants. We have kind of been tweaking things to meet what people have said [so far]: Some people wanted [dishes] to be bigger … we kind of upgraded our bread a little bit. All feedback is good feedback. The goal is to make good food: What do people want to eat? We want to give it to you.