Border Crossing for Barbecue: Br’ers BBQ in Bedford Hills

Baby back rack

Barbecue is one of those things that people will travel for.

Just over the Connecticut line, specifically in Bedford Hills, is a small, mostly takeout BBQ “shack” in a residential neighborhood, that’s actually not too far of a drive for folks in Stamford, Greenwich, Ridgefield, New Canaan, and their surrounding areas.

Br’ers smokes their brisket and pork shoulder for around 14 hours and the ribs for about five. “People always ask what style it is and we did research on Kansas City BBQ, but it’s not that, it’s New York BBQ,” O’Neill says. “All scratch made rubs and sauces, and we like to play around and have fun (with our BBQ).”

Br’ers BBQ—pronounced brears, like “bears” with the added “r” after the “b”, which is southern slang for “brothers”—opened in May of 2023 and is the little sister spot of a restaurant you’ve probably heard of if you occasionally cross over into Westchester for a meal.

Those restaurants in question? Purdys Farmer & The Fish, Hudson Farmer & The Fish in Sleepy Hollow, and Bistro De Ville in Scarsdale, and the subject at hand, Br’ers, are all in the same family.

At Br’ers, you’ll see a trio of familiar faces in terms of who’s involved; Michael Kaphan (chef, farmer, and owner), Billy Stanton (general manager at the other spots and an owner at Br’ers), and longtime chef de cuisine at Farmer & The Fish and now co-owner of Br’ers, Kevin O’Neill.

Chef/owner Kevin O’Neill and Br’ers’ exec chef Alexa Fitzgerald. “She did her externship with us at Farmer & The Fish,” O’Neill says. “She went onto other things, but when this opportunity came about, I tried to get her back. She’s a great worker, has lot of tenacity, she’s young, hungry, and has experience with us.”

How an offshoot BBQ joint came to fruition last year, actually started years ago, but got ramped up during the height of the pandemic shutdowns and restrictions.

“I started with Farmer & The Fish in 2016, and one of the first projects that Mike and I collaborated on was the smokehouse program there,” O’Neill explains. “He had his own version of it doing smoked bacon, bacon ribs, and other specials just to have fun with it. When I came aboard, he started construction on an actual smokehouse where before he was using a little woodchip smoker kinda thing.”

Turkey. The not dry kind. Br’ers gives it a constant mopping throughout the smoke.

Pre COVID, Mike and Kevin did their research, had a smokehouse built, and started smoking different cuts of meat not limited to bacon, but whole pigs, ribs, chicken, and brisket, and started selling it one or two times per week out of the small farmers market that sits outside of their Purdys restaurant.

“The pandemic hit and BBQ became more of a staple for us,” O’Neill says. “The community that surrounds Farmer & The Fish gave us a lot of support and a lot of them are returning customers that really helped us get through some tough waters. Our smokehouse program evolved out of that.”

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you, that is an ice cream machine! Br’ers features Ronnybrook Farm soft serve in cones, cups, sundaes, and milkshakes when the when it’s not the depth of winter.

It’s no surprise that their quad of restaurants would use ingredients from their Purdys farm. The hot sauce uses their home grown Fresno chilis.

When approached by one of their business partners who owns the building with a then vacant space in a part of Bedford Hills that’s surrounded by houses, BBQ wasn’t even their first-choice concept. They originally thought they were going to open a deli there where a bodega once occupied. Think along the lines of brining and smoking their own turkey, smoking their own hams, and slicing them made-to-order for sandwiches.

“It didn’t work out, but about a year later, it came together,” O’Neill says. “The first time around, we weren’t feeling the BBQ concept, then we said we know we do good BBQ and the restaurants have great fried chicken, so we put the two together.”

When you get the fried chicken, get as many sauces as you can! Hot honey is also house-infused with a variety of dried Spanish chilis, then there’s buttermilk herb ranch, a sweet/sour house BBQ sauce, and a “Swine Sauce” that’s a play on a honey mustard, just a touch more vinegary and acidic.

The end result is a small menu of smoked meats including tender baby backs, turkey, thick-cut slices of 14-hour smoked Angus brisket, hot smoked salmon, and chopped pork shoulder that O’Neill describes as not as finely chopped and not overly sauced and sludgy. Br’ers’ is hand broken, chopped, with “some” sauce to let the meat and smoke shine.

Those who’ve had the fried chicken at Purdys, however, shouldn’t expect the same exact recipe.

“It’s buttermilk fried chicken,” O’Neill says. “It marinates in buttermilk, salt and pepper flour. Simple. No more to it than that.”

The boneless fried thighs show up in the menu elsewhere in a crispy buffalo chicken wrap and as part of a Nashville hot chicken sandwich with pimento cheese and thinly sliced dill pickles.

What Br’ers BBQ is doing, too, is putting their own farm to use whenever they can. Some of those sandwiches and wrap specials they’re rolling out will often times include an ingredient grown by them. Even the rubs you see are made in-house, as is their lineup of homemade sauces.

They’re also not afraid to try new things. O’Neill, along with chef and Brookfield native, Alexa Fitzgerald, are constantly trying out new sandwiches—some of them extreme and will require a nap soon after consumption—and different types of cured and smoked meats. Once a month, customers should watch out for a pastrami special that gets a four-week brine and a nice crust of peppercorns, coriander, and other secret spices.

Though not to where they wanted it, but close to it, I stopped by on the right day when Br’ers was doing R&D on pastrami ribs.

When I stopped by, O’Neill mentioned they’re testing out pastrami ribs, to which Fitzgerald added, “We’re testing out corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day, too. You think of something cool and you try it out,” she says.

Now with almost a full year under their belts, O’Neill mentioned they can now factor in Br’ers and Bistro De Ville in their farming plans. “There will be carryover with the farm stuff,” he says. “Cross branding makes sense because we’re the same family of restaurants. We’re planning crops that can support all four restaurants, so expect more of that.”

52 Church Street, Bedford Hills
914.729.5674, brersbbq.com