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Running Rooster has been a Hollister fixture since 2004, when it opened as a prepared food-to-go and delivery service. It evolved into a counter-service diner and then a full-service restaurant. Starting last week, newly hired Executive Chef Ryan Solien is taking the place a step further with an improved menu focusing on locally sourced ingredients and several vegetarian and vegan options.
“It is always a challenge to get talent to a little town like Hollister,” said owner Jim Chapman. “We interview a lot of experienced and talented chefs from different parts of the country, and Ryan seemed like the right guy for us.”
Chapman and partner Brenda Black came to Hollister in 2002 with a background in tech. Chapman said that in the post-9/11 environment, he felt the community needed a service for people who were “kind of hunkering down at home and gathering their families in close.”
“People were coming back from long commutes,” he said, “and we felt that there was an opportunity to provide a freshly-made home-cooked style meal without somebody having to go to the grocery and cook at home.”
Using a commercial kitchen in Hollister, the couple created a business model similar to that which currently fuels ghost kitchens and Uber Eats, an idea far ahead of its time.
The signature dish was rotisserie chicken, which is still on the menu. Brined, seasoned, and cooked over a wood fire, it was packaged with side dishes and meant to feed a family of four. Business was good, but the couple felt it lacked a large enough customer base.
“We were looking to expand our distribution,” Chapman said. “We made friends with Dorothy McNett. She wanted to shrink the footprint of her kitchenware and gourmet foods store and asked us if we wanted to sublet a little piece of it.”
Using the storefront as a distribution center, they discovered that some people wanted to eat there rather than take the food home. So, in 2005, Running Rooster became a counter-serve restaurant.
“We had cobbled together some equipment,” Chapman said, “but we didn’t have the kind of real cooking equipment we needed indoors. But we had an outdoor grill…”
Expanding into burgers, which consistently won “Best of” awards, they survived the 2008 recession and, busier than ever, started looking for the next move forward.
“We saw that as a positive sign for us regarding what the town could support,” Chapman said. “We thought, ‘This place could use another real sit-down restaurant.’ So, we bit the bullet and decided to go for it.”
In 2011, the couple took over the entire building. After considerable planning, they started by designing and installing a new kitchen while the business was still open, minimizing the time they needed to shut down.
“We found a grill from a Spanish company that we could reproduce what we were getting with our burgers outside,” Chapman said. “We moved the rotisserie from the old kitchen and installed it. And a wood-burning pizza oven seems like a natural kind of addition.”
Closing in late 2012, they only needed three months for a complete remodel and were able to reopen in March 2013. Chapman said the process required a tremendous amount of work, both exciting and challenging, but once again, the customer response was overwhelmingly positive.
“People in this town have always been very eager to try something new,” he said. “The response was greater than we expected, and has always stayed quite good.”
A new era
Hiring a new executive chef has allowed the restaurant to expand its palette beyond the traditional staples on its menu. Solien began learning to cook by helping his Sicilian-born grandmother at a very young age.
“I’d get dropped off at grandma’s on Friday night and spend all day cooking with her,” he said, “and then Sunday we’d feed my mother and father. Making the pasta with her is some of my best memories.”
Solien has traveled the world, working in kitchens in Italy, including Rome, Sicily, and Tuscany, as well as in the Caribbean, Bermuda, Jamaica and New York. He has also traveled as a chef with A-list rock bands and spent a year and a half touring with Cirque du Soleil.
“It has been enlightening,” he said. “I learn a lot about a culture by looking at what’s in the supermarkets that average people can access daily. It can be very seasonal, and I want to bring that here as much as possible.”
Solien has been scouting vendors at the farmers’ market to source the area’s freshest produce. He has also switched to market favorite BR Beef, which he said provides superior-quality meats.
“It’s sustainably harvested, grass-fed and grain finished,” he said. “No antibiotics, no hormones. And working with them cuts out the middleman, so we’re giving a better quality burger for a lower price. We’re really excited about that.”
Solien said that, while he is making a few menu changes, he thinks that, at Running Rooster, he is already starting with a “home run.”
“We’re not buying anything out of the box,” he said. “We have the best pizzas, chicken, and burgers, and we are handcrafting things here. We are focusing on the quality—I’d rather sell one awesome thing than 20 things that are just okay.”
Chapman said finding the delicate balance between maintaining that quality and finding the right price point to sell it is “black magic,” but he still enjoys the challenges of running a restaurant.
“There are times when it doesn’t pay to be in this business,” he said. “You have to find the good sides of it, the joy in creating new dishes, having them executed, and seeing the customers’ satisfaction. That’s what makes it worthwhile.”
Chef Solien debuted a few new things for this article and presented his take on some favorites as well.
Eggplant Fries – Solien prepares this killer vegan and gluten-free dish by dredging large spears of eggplant in rice flour and battering them using an egg substitute. They’re dredged again in gluten-free panko and fried to a deep brown. The eggplant takes on a melted cheese consistency, and the thick crust gives it a nice crunch. As with the mozzarella sticks it emulates, it is served with a sweet and tangy marinara with a richness that matches the dish perfectly. As I was tasting the other dishes, I kept returning for another bite of this one, which underlines how good it is. Not crazy about eggplant? Give this a try anyway.
Gourmet Chicken Noodle Soup – Using house-made stock, Solien has added a novel twist to the standard recipe by using large Israeli couscous instead of the usual noodles. It’s a nice change that makes the dish a little easier to eat and allows the pasta to integrate better with the various fresh ingredients. It’s topped with a sprinkling of fennel, which the chef said he uses judiciously. “I don’t just throw microgreens around on plates like some people,” he said. “They actually have to be a part of the dish. And that’s a part of the dish because there’s quite a lot of fennel in the soup itself, so it supports that flavor.”
Fig and Bacon Pizza – “This is a fantastic pizza,” Solien said. “I look at it and think, ‘that’s my type of pizza.’ We sell quite a few of those, and it makes me happy because it’s a really good pie.” It is a nice diversion from the more standard pizzas on the menu, with nicely chewy crust topped with bacon, house-made fig jam and blue cheese, then finished with arugula and a little balsamic glaze. Blue cheese acts as an emulsifier between the savory bacon and the sweet glaze. It is ideal as a shared appetizer or even an after-dinner finisher, like a cheese course at the end of a meal.
Harvest Croquette – This quinoa, chickpea and roasted sweet potato croquette is a vegan option served with roasted steamed brown rice and a red pepper cream sauce. Olive oil is used to prepare the rice, and coconut milk is substituted in the sauce to make it creamy. “A lot of vegans feel left out of the game,” Solien said. “If they tell the server they are vegan, they’ll get handed pasta with tomato sauce. I’m a very healthy eater, so making dishes like this comes easily for me.” I am not big on vegan, but I loved this dish. The croquette has a great flavor, texture and density; the pepper sauce provides a nice counterpoint; and the sopping of tomatoes, calamata olives and capers offers a cool contrast to the otherwise warm dish. Very satisfying and a must-try.
Blue Zone Salad – Named after the “Blue Zone,” areas around the world with a higher-than-average number of people living over 100 years, Solien said, he tried to give the salad a Mediterranean vibe while still packing it with flavor and keeping it vegan. “It’s a big salad that is definitely going to fill you up,” he said. It’s got a lot of variety, a nice crunch texture, and lots of superfoods, so you can feel virtuous while you’re eating it.” It does have a little bit of pretty much everything: besides the greens, there are roasted beets, pickled beets, quinoa, chickpeas, radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, fennel, garbanzo beans, artichoke, olives, crispy parsnip chips, and a triangle of crisp polenta. It is an absolute kaleidoscope of colors and flavors, a feast for the eyes as much as for the taste buds.
Chorizo Meatloaf Special – This special—made with a mix of BR Farms beef and chorizo, served with mashed potatoes and veggies, and topped with a sweet barbecue sauce—really should be a regular item on the menu. It’s classic meatloaf, but with a much lighter density than the one your great aunt used to make. It’s fall-apart tender, and the chorizo gives it a slight kick of spiciness. The burgers are my go-to at Running Rooster, but this was tasty enough to be a worthy dinnertime choice. “I run this every couple of weeks,” Solien said, “and people seem to like it. We can give it to them for a good price and, you know, it’s a nice filling stick-to-your-bones meal.” This was my favorite dish after the burger, which I have had many times before, and I highly recommend it.
Farmhouse Burger – Ah, the burgers… I have been a fan of Running Rooster’s burgers ever since I started going there around 15 years ago, when they still had the grill outside. I always order this burger, though on my most recent trip there before working on this story, I had the Sourdough Club, a grilled chicken sandwich with B&R Farms apricot mustard–excellent. The switch to BR Farms beef is a noticeable improvement on an already great item, giving the meat an extra dimension of flavor from the grain finishing. Solien said the meat was also fresher. “They have developed a system where they slaughter a few cows at a time,” he said, “so they can provide beef on a steady basis. It’s a distribution chain that really works for us.”
The burger has variations, including one topped with whiskey-glazed pork belly and coleslaw, a version made with spam, and one that combines elk, ostrich, wagyu beef, and wild boar, served with red onion marmalade. But I like the purity of the basic burger, ordering it with just their “secret sauce” and some onion. I also insist on the seasoned Outlaw Fries, which Chapman said was his biggest seller. “Good fries have always been kind of an obsession of ours,” he said. “Having a good crispy fry, I think, is integral to enjoying a good burger.”
Running Rooster
800 San Benito St, Hollister
(831) 634-0135
Recommendations for future Eat, Drink, Savor articles can be emailed to roberteliason@benitolink.com.
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