‘Super Good’ fried chicken and beer: This Little River spot is an instant local favorite
Steve Santana knows about making some of the best tacos in Miami and Adam Darnell about running one of its best bars. But on a recent afternoon, both were still figuring out the finer points of flawlessly stuffing a hot dog.
“There’s still a lot of trial and error,” said Santana, founder of Miami Beach’s Taquiza taqueria, as he slowly turned the crank of a meat grinder.
Darnell, co-owner of the bar that made Wynwood a cool-kid destination, Boxelder, carefully fed a house-made top-round beef filling into a natural hot dog casing, trying to keep it from bursting, twisting off links.
Meanwhile, their new Little River brewpub, Off Site, was just hours away from opening for its second week. Soon-to-be regulars would be coming through the doors with Santana and Darnell the only ones in the kitchen. That’s exactly how they like it — for now.
“This is where both of us want to be,” Darnell said.
Santana and Darnell have combined to open what they hope will become the Boxelder of Little River with one major difference: a full kitchen. And soon they’ll start brewing from a 3-barrel brewing system to make small-batch lagers and ales to pair with their carefully created menu.
This isn’t thoughtless bar food. Picture some of the best versions of your Friday night favorites. They’re making everything from scratch, from the mustard for the fresh-baked, golf ball-sized pretzel balls to the sauce for the thunderously crispy Super Good Chicken sandwiches that Santana perfected at a weekly pop-up behind Boxelder for more than a year.
The two have been planning this move together for more than two years, since Darnell’s landlords sold a swath of property that included Boxelder for apartments. The bar closed for good, after seven years, on Oct. 31.
Boxelder became a fixture in Wynwood, focused on selling craft beer brewed locally on tap with a selection of the best small brewers from around the country. And though it didn’t have a kitchen, the bar became a sort of incubator for several of Miami’s most popular restaurants with a cooktop and grill out back. USBS Burgers turned a one-day-a-week residence into a permanent spot at The Citadel food hall. El Bagel went from food truck out back to a stand-alone MiMo District shop. Even James Beard award nominee Niven Patel ran a pop-up there years before he opened the successful Ghee Indian Kitchen.
Santana, 38, offered to make fried chicken sandwiches for one of Boxelder’s anniversary parties and it became a weekly event, as people lined the block for Santana’s Super Good Chicken. The sandwich, in fact, lived up to its name — and became the cornerstone of the menu at Off Site.
For the rest of the menu, they wanted other kinds of bar food they love. Darnell, 42, who grew up hunting with his father in Wyoming (near Box Elder Canyon, for which the bar was named), was used to making venison sausages. And Santana, who started off as a web designer for a boutique Miami ad agency, was a self-taught chef, who took two semesters of cooking classes at Miami Dade College just so he could learn from the chef in residence, Mango Gang member Norman Van Aken. He taught himself to make some of the best tortillas in Miami and he now wholesales to restaurants around South Florida.
At Off Site they mix and grind a special beef blend for the hot dogs, smoking them before finishing them on the grill and tucking them into a top-split bun like a lobster roll. The burger is a house blend of brisket and short rib with a fresh-baked potato roll.
And unexpected one-off items show up randomly, like Island Creek oysters that they steam in their Super Good Lager, brewed by The Tank, smoke for flavor, then preserve in olive oil. It’s served with Benton’s country ham, which is aged for 20 months.
“We’re just doing whatever we want to do. It’s the stuff we like to eat,” Santana said.
Almost too much work goes into every dish, they admit. But for both of them, returning to this hands-on approach, which requires both of them in the kitchen making all the food, was the appeal of this new brewpub.
“We love doing something until we get good at it,” Darnell said, “just as much as perfecting the final product.”
Off Site
Address: 8250 NE Second Ave., Little River
Hours: 3-9 p.m., Tuesday-Sunday
More info: 786-360-4237. Offsite.miami
