There, There: When Things Changed Overnight
It’s a misty Friday night sprinkled with rain on the West Side of Providence, but despite the weather, every table is full at There, There, which opened its doors in June 2023. Nery Espital holds a spatula in the small kitchen, standing over the flat-top griddle, and slowly presses down on a sizzling ball of meat with a practiced restraint. He doesn’t quite smash it.
“It’s a small margin of error,” says Brandon Teachout, owner and chef of There, There, who watches like the captain at the helm of a ship. “We don’t do a true smash burger with laced out edges.” There, There uses a quality grass-fed beef blend from a purveyor in North Carolina, says Teachout. “We want that perfect sear, but we also want to respect the flavor of the meat.”
Espital stands back-to-back with his brother and co-worker, Nelson Espital, a one-man assembly line who’s stacking double patties on toasted buns with a variety of housemade condiments: onion jam, patty sauce, sweet mustard and chili, along with plenty of “USA cheese” and handfuls of shredded lettuce. Another employee, Sam McCaughey, slides between the two, dips a ladle into a vat of clarified pepperoncini butter and artfully pours it over a side of brine-cooked baby potatoes before finishing them off with a sprinkle of green onions.
“This is the best, when the machine is just doing what it needs to do,” Teachout says, as he begins to describe the journey that brought him to where he is today, the owner of one of New England’s most exciting new restaurants that’s making national headlines. “It wouldn’t have come together like this without a great team.”
‘A SWITCH FLIPPED’
Teachout’s life and business changed at midnight on November 7 when the web-based publication Eater dropped its highly anticipated list: Best New Restaurants of 2023.
There, There was listed among 12 restaurants from major cities around the U.S. “Each restaurant on this list does more than offer an exceptional meal, it also reflects something larger about the way we eat,” wrote Hillary Dixler Canavan, Eater’s restaurant editor.
Teachout was floored.
“It was surreal,” he says, standing next to a prep table in the busy kitchen. “We knew we were going to be featured in some way, but we had no idea about the list. Things changed overnight; it was like a switch flipped.”
The smell of charred beef and griddled onions fills the air as food continues to fly into the dining room. Teachout says the flagship Dreamburger is by far his best seller, but it wasn’t just the burgers that landed There, There on the influential list.
“I was particularly taken by the kale roll,” said Erika Adams, editor of Eater Boston, who was part of the scouting team, in a recent email. “It was so clearly a nod to something that I’ve seen 1,000 times before, that quintessential New England clam roll, but it challenged my thinking on what that food could be. Coating kale with cornbread batter, tossing it in some barbecue rub and dousing it with a tangy, chunky pickle relish and gobs of tartar sauce—like, come on!”
“Nothing is an afterthought,” adds Teachout, holding up a kale roll for a photo op. “All my experience is in fine dining, and I wanted to take that same level of care and attention to detail and put it into something that’s accessible to everyone.”
The inside of the restaurant has exposed metal beams, houseplants, and a large painted ode to a local favorite brand of coffee syrup, Autocrat. The general vibe is ’90s and nostalgia is in high demand. In searching for the best restaurants, Eater took more than the food into consideration, said Adams: “The decor, the soundtrack, the way diners were welcomed into the space—it was all incredibly well thought out and the intention was very clear to me.”
ON THE HORIZON
After working in restaurants for several years, Teachout left it all to sell sandwiches off a table at Moniker Brewery—less than a block away from There, There—where he still operates a mostly-stationary food truck under the name Dips Provisions.
“We probably wouldn’t be here at all without that partnership,” he says of Moniker, adding that there’s a general camaraderie among young Providence restaurateurs. “We’re all homies, it’s awesome. We all just want each other to kill it.”
Between running a restaurant, a food truck and doing corporate catering, Teachout is, well, kind of busy. “It’s by choice, though,” he says smiling. He also has plenty in store at There, There: daily specials, breakfast sandwiches on the weekends, guest chefs, special events and an anticipated liquor license. A second location at Track 15, Providence’s upcoming Union Station food hall, is slated to open in late August.
It’s about 6:30 pm and There, There is in the midst of a full-on dinner rush. Eventually, Teachout excuses himself and jumps on the line to help out his team with a growing number of orders lined up on the ticket holder.
There, There
471 W. Fountain St., Providence
ThereTherePVD.com
