Burning Under Control
Jacob Carriker rebrands with barbecue after managing a wild ride at Bisla’s Sports Bar
Jacob Carriker mans the kitchen and barbecue pit at Fahrenheit 250, marking his third attempt to manage a restaurant concept at the unique location and unique challenge that is 7042 Folsom Blvd. Before Fahrenheit, and after a hyper-brief stint as a live music venue, college students swarmed to Bisla’s Sports Bar where wild nights were the norm. Since March of 2014 Carriker has guided the location’s rebranding from fraternity frantic beer pong and bass, to family friendly chicken and ribs, and lived to tell the tale.
Now you guys are known for BBQ when before Bisla’s seemed like a pretty happening college sports bar. Are you targeting a certain demographic, and why was there a need to kind of switch and rebrand?
Well, because Sacramento is growing. They’ve put a lot of clubs downtown. Uber and Lyft came around and it was five bucks to get downtown, and we were suffering from that so we decided to make a change.
Nowadays, what is your typical crowd?
Families. East Sac families, you know, Elk Grove, Carmichael, Citrus Heights.
A relaxed family vibe?
Yes that’s exactly what we were going for. It’s a lot different than the college kids.
Yea, my group of friends was somewhat regular at Bisla’s and had a lot of fun times, but a lot of extra curricular went on too from what I remember.
Yea. Of course. Which wasn’t an issue, but stuff started to get a little crazy there.
Are there unique challenges outside of what you already mentioned, (Uber & Lyft) what challenges does this location specifically bring?Number one it’s a destination spot. If you’re coming out to us, you’re coming to us, for that particular reason. So we’re not gonna get any passersby or foot traffic. Then there is a pretty big vagrancy problem on Folsom (Boulevard). As a family oriented place, that’s kind of hard to — It’s a sticky situation sometimes. You gotta try and kick them out, and you’ve gotta do it as delicately as possible, and that can be a challenge.
Were you around at all when it was the Library or EVOLV before it was Bisla’s?
Yea I came when it turned into EVOLV. I think we had EVOLV for like four or five months.
Why did you guys transition from EVOLV so quickly?
There was a grandiose plan with the Bisla family to attract local musicians and then sign them for deals, and bring them to L.A. It didn’t exactly work out that way. They were kind of stuck in a time period, in the 80’s and 90’s where that was going on. It doesn’t work like that anymore. So we just revamped, opened up Bisla’s, and worked really hard to get the students in there to have fun.
What else can you tell me about what’s happening at Fahrenheit now?We’re just trying to dig up that Sac State crowd. I know that we alienated them for a minute there, but we felt like we did what we had to do to clean up the building a little bit. We’re hoping to get them back. Not in full force, it’s not going to be a nightclub ever again, but we want them to stop by for lunch and come by for happy hour.
Did you guys have to make any repairs to the building when you switched over to Fahrenheit?
Ooooh Yea. We gutted the place. It was awful. If you can imagine running that club for four and a half years — what everybody did to it. Everything had to be redone. It had five years of students having fun at it. It had all the spilled beer and all the dirt and grime that went with it. As much as you try and clean that stuff up you just can’t get it every time.
Tim Wheeler is a Journalism student at Sacramento State who spends too much time writing about food and not enough time eating it. Currently writing as an intern for SportTechie, a sports technology news outlet, Tim is published on SI.com. Reach out to him here.
