One meets a lot of interesting people in Chris Slowey’s line of work. The CEO of CLTVT, a local design-build firm specializing in brewery and assorted hospitality-venue projects, his clientele tend to have innovative ideas and share Slowey’s affinity for beer and food. Such was the case with chef and restaurateur Davin Waite. Best known for his avant garde Oceanside sushi spot, Wrench and Rodent Seabasstropub, he teamed with Slowey when realizing his recent vegan eatery, South Oside’s The Plot. Slowey and Waite formed a fast friendship working on that project, a relationship trusting enough for the former to share an idea he’s been carrying around for a dining and imbibing concept he’d had in his back pocket for years: Shootz.
The concept’s name is borrowed from Hawaiian surf slang. It’s fitting considering Shootz was hatched in local waters while Slowey chatted with professional surfer Cheyne Magnuson. Both called Oceanside home back in 2017 and, after a chance board meeting at Buccaneer Beach, the started surfing together and hanging out afterward. Over post-session breakfasts and beers. their conversations kept coming back to the subject food, with Magnuson at one point confessing he’s a “closet poke chef” with an assortment of recipes picked up in his native Hawaii and the South Pacific. Impressed, Slowey floated the idea of them giving poke a go on a pro level.
CLTVT has worked on more than 70 brewery-owned venues over the past decade-plus, giving Slowey a wealth of beer-industry contacts. Early on, he reached out to brewery owners to secure locales for he and Magnuson to hold pop-up events. It was in the tasting rooms of interests such as Oceanside’s Black Plague Brewing and Carlsbad’s Burgeon Beer Co. that the duo tested their poke recipes on patrons. They regularly coming through with flying colors, selling out in a matter of hours. The duo was off to a flying start, but not long after, Magnuson was off and flying to Waco, Texas, where he had the opportunity to launch a new wave-pool business. Rather than pursue a long-distance relationship, the pair put their poke on ice.
Earlier this year, Magnuson returned to Southern California. He and Slowey immediately picked up where they left off, bringing the aforementioned Waite into the equation as Executive Chef, adding branding professional Mike Weeks to the team, and securing a project site they think will be a perfect launching pad for Shootz. It’s a kitchen with an exterior walk-up order window within the upcoming Bottlecraft beer and beverage shop that will debut this summer as part of the Tremont Collective, a 13,000-square-foot mixed-use building with a 4,000-square-foot patio.
Things got real really fast, and the poke concept accelerated in similarly speedy fashion. While the Shootz founders wanted to center everything around the original Hawaiian-style, ahi-based poke the concept is based on, they also wanted to capitalize on their chef’s creativity. “Davin has always taken an irreverent punk-rock culinary approach, and I wanted to let him go nuts in the kitchen, then try to simplify his creations into a super-tight, fast-casual menu,” says Slowey.
As a result, Shootz’ basic menu will feature several bowls, including a California-style bowl with sea bass and Baja-inspired ingredients, as well as a trio of sandwiches—fish, veggie, green eggs and Spam—using buns from a Japanese-style bakery from local chef Willy Eick set to open down the street from the Tremont Collective. Another fun culinary cornerstone will be gourmet corndogs. Seared ahi, Spam and sweet shrimp varieties will all figure into the opening-day menu. And so will beer.
“We loved the idea of having beer as part of the concept; not as an afterthought, but beer designed into the flavor profiles of the food. Beer that just goes perfect with poke and post-surf sessions,” says Slowey. “We wanted to take advantage of all the experience I have working with local brewers to come up with a beer line-up that would work with the Shootz brand and food-pairing.”
Shootz will launch with a Japanese-style lager utilizing rice in its grain bill. That beer will be contract-brewed by a local brewery along with some other “off-Shootz”, such as a double IPA, a rosé beer and a lager infused with cherry blossom water. Also in development is a non-alcoholic brew.
“I see this as a trend in the younger generation that’s coming up. Sometimes you may want a poke bowl or fish sandwich for lunch after a good surf, and you may want to have a beer with it but not be ready to start drinking in the middle of the day,” says Slowey. “Frankly, there just aren’t a lot of good options for quality non-alcoholic beers, especially in the craft-beer capital of the world.”
Slowey says Shootz is on pace to debut at the beginning of August, and progress on the project can be viewed on the company’s Instagram account. If the concept proves successful enough, he and his team will consider expanding by opening other locations along San Diego’s coastal corridor, which would create the potential for once again partnering with Bottlecraft.
Shootz will be located within the upcoming Bottlecraft location at 602 Tremont Street, #101, in Oceanside