Door Prize Pop-Up Eatery Bringing Regional Fare to Mass MoCA
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Bryan "Swifty" Josephs and Jenny Klowden have been hard at work making farm-to-table soups, sides, and sandwiches from across the American region every Thursday.
The couple are attempting to infuse their menu with their experiences from traveling cross county three times. They use a lot of local produce and ingredients when composing the menu. They opened the pop-up eatery at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in February.
"Just all about taking things that we've had while traveling that we loved, and kind of putting a Door Prize spin on it, trying to apply the local produce, the local available, and bring the ingredients up a level, and do everything in house," Josephs said. "Just honor that moment we had a month ago or years ago stopping on the side of the road for a sandwich."
Several customers were impressed with what the duo has brought to the table.
Liz Hartung has ordered from the pop-up a couple of times since opening. During a recent visit, she praised the grilled cheese and tomato soup.
"I was here last week. And it was the first week it was open. And last weekend it was a seitan [pork] sandwich. And that was really really good, too," she said.
Amanda Kleintop commended the food and the outside venue while going to the pop-up for the first time.
"I also just like being outside because winter in New England is hard. So it's just easy to hang out after work and then go back home and just like a kind of happy hour," Kleintop said.
Klowden and Josephs have been enjoying making an impact in the area with their food.
"People welcomed us with open arms. The community and the people are excited about it and have been really kind and said nice things about it and seem to really enjoy what we're doing, which has been really fun," Klowden said. "It was much harder in the [San Francisco] Bay Area to make an impact."
In 2013, Nico Dery, who works for the North Adams Chambers of Commerce, brought the pop-up duo together in Oakland, Calif.
"We [Dery] worked together at Blue Bottle Coffee in its early days and she was telling me she had a guy for me," Klowden. "I didn't like being set up, but I was like, OK, and she showed me a picture. He was wearing a chef coat and holding up two giant cowboy steaks with the biggest smile you've ever seen. And I was like, 'Yeah, I'll meet him.'"
Food has been something they have bonded over since the beginning of the relationship — hamburgers on their first date. They worked together very early on in their relationship.
"As soon as we met, we started doing some events together. I was doing event planning for the Bolinas Art Museum in the Bay Area and he came on and helped me with that. We did all sorts of things when he was working for a catering company," she said.
A year after meeting, they opened a fermentation company called "Swifty Pickles" where they taught classes about home fermentation and sold packaged pickles to bars as bar snacks.
Josephs and Kloman continue their food journey in community with their pop-up, Door Prize, that is open until the end of March on Thursdays from 3 to 7:30 p.m. Patrons can also order online and pickup at Bright Ideas Brewing on the Mass MoCA campus. This week's menu celebrates New Orleans.
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