BABE #330: SARA BRADLEY - Owner + Chef, freight house
Sara is the owner and chef at freight house, a Kentucky-based restaurant serving traditional southern flavors with a modern twist through locally sourced meats and garden fare. Sara believes in the power of food—not only in its ability to nourish our bodies, but in its ability to tell our stories and build our communities. Her commitment to her small but mighty city, her humble nature despite some pretty badass accolades (including runner-up of Season 16 of “Top Chef”) and her kind demeanor made for a fun, insightful interview with this chef, biz owner and new mama!
The Basics:
Hometown: Paducah, Kentucky
Current city: Paducah, Kentucky
Alma mater: University of Kentucky; Johnson & Wales University
Degree: B.A., Psychology; A.A., Culinary Arts
Very first job: I worked at a pizza place where I was supposed to dress up as the koala bear for kids' birthday parties—but I would always convince somebody else to dress up as the koala bear, and I would stay and hang out in the kitchen and cook.
Hustle: Owner + Chef, freight house
The Interests:
Babe you admire and why?
I'll tell you what, on this season of “Top Chef,” Nilou Motamed was amazing. She was with Food & Wine Magazine for a while. She knows so much about food and she always had positive, inspiring things to say to all the women on her season.
What would you eat for your very last meal?
Fried chicken, but I would need the whole chicken. I would also need chopped liver, done good-old Jewish grandma style. Probably chicken soup with it, too. I’d just want a whole chicken prepared all the ways.
The Hustle:
Tell us about your hustle.
I own a restaurant in Paducah, Kentucky. It's called Freight House, and it’s an old vegetable depot. We've been open four years and we source as much as we can within a day's drive. The hustle is managing all of my employees and managing my family. I opened it with my mother, who was a social worker for 40 years; she left that profession and now does all the pastries. She always wanted to own a pie shop, so it worked out perfectly. I [get to] work with my mom now. She started a whole new profession at 60 years old, and now blossoms. I really am always concerned with the happiness of my employees, because I'm always trying to do little extra things to make sure they feel good.
What does your typical workday look like?
I wake up about 7:30. It’s changed a lot to have the baby. I take her to daycare around 9:00, then I drive around to all the different farm stands around our area, shop for the day, and go to work. I have a lady who's worked with me since we hired her; she's my first hire. She's been there since day one, and she manages the kitchen now. We shoot the shit, hang out, prep stuff, and service starts around 5:00 p.m. My husband picks Lula up from daycare and brings her over. I feed her, and then I go to service, and then we go home after that. Nowadays I clock out around 8:00-ish during the week. I try to get home for bath time—during the weekends [it takes] a little longer. But it used to be you, got to work at 9:00 in the morning and came home at 11:00 or 12:00.
Tell us about your culinary training.
I actually graduated from the University of Kentucky. I have a degree in statistical psychology and I did not like that job at all. I went back to culinary school and I was in Charlotte, North Carolina, Birmingham, Alabama, kind of all over the South in little towns. Then I was in New York for about five years, Chicago for about three, and then I decided to move home and open a restaurant. I was tired of running everyone else's restaurants. I wanted some of the rewards.
What’s one of your favorite dishes to create at Freight House?
My favorite dish to prepare are our local fish. We work really hard to utilize a lot of things that maybe sometimes would be left unused. We have and invasive species of fish right where we are called Asian Carp. We serve and use that species in everything, and try to educate our community about it, too.
Can you tell us about your experience on “Top Chef”?
Oh man, it was great. It was really interesting to see how kind and supportive everyone was in such a competitive environment. Everyone was really nice and kind to each other. I was the only contestant from Kentucky this season. It was pretty great, but it was also an added pressure of representing this state, and not letting anyone down. It's one of the best experiences I've ever had, and I did OK. Placed well.
How have your past professional and academic experiences prepared you for the work you do today?
There's so much I learned in college, even though it didn't apply directly from my degree. I carried it over—business classes, accounting, learning how to use Excel, all of those simple things. I also think the longer I went to school, the more I became associated with education, and part of being a great chef is educating other people. You can't just have the skill sets and expect everyone to know how to do it. You have to teach them. I think continuing to further my education, probably at that level, carried over in being able to transfer things later on.
What’s been your biggest career milestone?
“Top Chef” was pretty great. It's done really great things for the restaurant. A deciding factor in going on “Top Chef” was that I knew it would affect the livelihood of all the other people around me. Now, all my servers make extra tips. The cooks always get these guaranteed hours. Even the people in our little community, they get to benefit from it—gas stations, hotels, towns, shop owners. When I decided to compete on the show, my mom told me, “It is your civic duty to this small town.” People know all about Lexington and all about Louisville, all of the northern cities. Western Kentucky is kind of different; it's a little quieter. We don't get as much love. It was great when they asked us to be the representative. That, and I think opening my own restaurant. Every chef dreams about that—every cook dreams about that. To finally do it was nice.
How has being a woman affected your professional experience?
I read somewhere that only 1 percent of female entrepreneurs make over $1 million in sales. I think you have to dream big, and I think that women’s capacity to do that is just exponential. We are made to multitask—that has been bred into us for generations and generations; how to multitask and how to get shit done. I think we need to support each other. Female entrepreneurs need to support each other. We need to make more room for larger businesses, for people to make more money. There is a glass ceiling; we’ve got to bust through it.
What are some common misconceptions about your job?
I almost feel like everyone should be required to work for two months in the food industry, because I think people just think that it's always a great time and that everybody's always laughing. There's good music, we're having fun, but that's what you can see. I think another misconception is that it's hard for women to do it. People say a woman's place is in the kitchen. It is. If you go to a restaurant run by a lady, it’s going to have really good food. We have that maternal instinct where we know how to approach our staff, because it's our responsibility to take care of them. I think that really carries over. I feel like, in a professional way, you can ride the line of being the boss and being the friend, because you know what they need.
Who are some women in your field you look to for inspiration?
Vivian Howard is someone I really look to. A lot of what drives me are these old church cookbooks, old regional recipes. They've been written down by women for generations, and I'm really inspired by those getting-it-done, stay-at-home-moms, whatever they were. They were going to church and writing these cookbooks, and now hundreds of years later, the recipes are written down for us. Those are the kind of ladies who inspire me. They were cooking well for their families and they were concerned about the bottom line (the checkbook), and so we try not to waste anything in our restaurant. We're always concerned with how to utilize those things we find—that's what people used to do back in the day.
Career and/or life advice for other babes?
One time I said to one of my bosses, "I really think I want to go to this other job." And he said: "Sara, no one will ever care about your career as much as you. You have to make decisions that are best for you. There's no reason to stay here and work for me. Yes, I want you to stay and work for me. I want you to do that, but if you think this is best, you have to do it." I have employees now who come in and want to talk to me about what they should do next, and I say: "I love to have you here. I think you're great. You're a part of this team, but I'm never going to care about your career as much as I care about mine. You should care about yours. You have to get it for yourself." Loyalty is an amazing thing, [...] but there is a time to move on. You have to be concerned about yourself. Make it good for you.
In partnership with: Bourbon and Beyond
Bourbon and Beyond is a Louisville, KY-based festival featuring a perfect blend of bourbon, food, and music. Learn more about the fest here and keep an eye out for 2020 dates soon!
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