Sports
Redding bar and restaurant a hit for both hungry foodies and sports fans
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Riddick’s is not your typical sports pub. Far from it.
Of course, there are plenty of TVs so customers can watch their favorite teams and sit at a well-stocked bar or comfy tables. But what sets Riddick’s Sport Pub in Redding apart are its tantalizing food creations.
And you don’t have to be a sports fan to enjoy the upscale pub food.
“We try to not be normal with our stuff,” said Justin Bassett, who’s owned the Hartnell Avenue pub with his wife, Semone, for more than five years. Before that, the location was the All Stars Sports Bar.
“When people say bar food, they always kind of think just deep-fried mozzarella sticks and those kind of things. That’s nothing like we do,” Justin Bassett said. “We have deep-fried appetizers, but it’s stuff we make in house — not a bag that you can buy at the store.”
Following brunch on a recent Sunday, the $20 special featured a plate of cherry, whiskey and Coke smoked tri-tip with spicy tequila-lime chicken drumsticks, crackin’ green beans and smoked jalapeno cheese bread.
“(The marinade) was an actual adult Roy Rogers (drink). It was whiskey and Coke with grenadine and maraschino cherry juice,” Bassett said.
What makes the green beans “crackin’”? They’re heated fast before shocking them with oil and adding chili peppers.
Bassett describes the couple’s pub as a “fun, neighborhood kind of bar — like an adult Applebee’s.” Leave the kids at home because Riddick’s caters to a 21-and-over crowd.
Who’s Riddick?
Another unique item from the Saturday and Sunday brunch menu is the Monte Cristo pinwheel.
“Our twist on Monte Cristo comes out looking like a rose instead of a sandwich,” Bassett said.
Riddick’s pinwheel recipe calls for rolling out the dough, putting down raspberry jam, Swiss cheese, ham and turkey and rolling it up like a cinnamon roll. The roll is cut and baked in the oven, dipped in a cinnamon french toast batter, deep fried and covered with jelly. The dish is served with potatoes.
“Really good” is how Riddick’s main chef with a Cajun last name, Travis Michéal, describes the dish.
Michéal has been at Riddick’s for almost three years after working at a number of restaurants. “I love it here because I get to create — be an actual chef and create,” he said.
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Michéal said he’s been in Redding since about 1995. He studied music at Shasta College and his first restaurant job was at Chevys Fresh Mex. He started as a dishwasher and worked his way up to assistant kitchen manager. “I’ve been cooking ever since, about 30 years now,” he said.
Riddick’s staff — including bartenders — work under the gaze of family canine Riddick, whose face is depicted on the pub’s logo. The Great Dane is the Bassetts’ dog.
Bassett said he’s bartended around Redding for 20-plus years. He used to have a bar up the street called JJs. He operated a beer concession stand at Shasta District Fair grounds where he used his liquor license.
Theme-filled days
Daily food specials match the days of the week.
The Monday Night Mac Down highlights macaroni and cheese with house-made white cheddar sauce over macaroni elbows, toasted panko and parmesan cheese. Smoked brisket is one topping that’s available, but so are but others such as carne asada and smoke carnitas.
A recent Taco Tuesday featured a customer request for buffalo shrimp tacos. The shrimp were sautéed in a honey-Cajun sauce and topped with a purple cabbage-and-red-onion slaw, blue cheese crumbles, plus a drizzle of buffalo sauce.
For a Wing Wednesday in September, Michéal assembled an apple butter barbecue sauce from scratch that was nearly sold out by late afternoon. Nashville hot chicken wings was another offering, with the battered wings fried to a crisp and dribbled with a spicy sauce, served with bread and pickles.
Throwback Thursdays are when the kitchen brings back a popular dish. Thursdays also feature country line dancing following Thursday night football. Occasionally on dance nights, Riddick’s will give away concert tickets.
The pub was feeling generous one Thursday in September, when customers ordering a Stella Artois beer got a free Stella drinking glass.
A chicken carbonara sandwich was the served one Fast Food Friday. Sometimes the end of the week will switch to a Fair Food Friday theme and feature a chili cheese waffle dog on a stick.
Fans come to root
For sports on TV, the biggest draw comes Sundays for NFL football. Bassett says Riddick’s is one of the few places that carries the NFL Sunday Ticket from DirecTV. “On Sunday, we have everything,” he said.
Popular sports, such as mixed martial arts on UFC pay-per-view fight nights on Saturday, often fill Riddick’s to its nearly-200 person capacity.
If you want to watch a popular event, it’s best to arrive early. “For like UFC fights, we’ve had nights in the last year where we’ve had to turn people away because we’ll reach occupancy,” Bassett said.
This time of year is saturated with sports with Major League Baseball’s playoffs and upcoming World Series. Aside from NFL games on Sunday and for Monday Night and Thursday Night football, college football dominates Saturdays. The Oregon Ducks football team has a large following in Redding, Bassett noted.
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NASCAR also does well along with motorcycle racing. “We have a NASCAR crowd and now that we’ve got Peacock, we are also starting to do motocross, which is a big one,” Bassett said.
Riddick’s has enough TVs — 18 of them — to even present dog shows and international soccer.
“There was one day when we had 20 people from England, cheering for their team. It was great,” Michéal said.
The pub draws the line at wrestling and boxing. “They’re both just too expensive,” Bassett said.
Beer — and hard tea — at the bar
Riddick’s has 12 beers on tap and offers a lineup of mimosas, MegaMosas and Bloody Marys. The Big Mary for $24 has double the Tito’s vodka “and a bunch of stuff on top,” according to the menu.
Bassett said he plans to offer more nonalcoholic brews. “We’ve been expanding our nonalcoholic beer line. Right now we carry four nonalcoholic beers and we just had a company come in yesterday that had four totally new ones that were nonalcoholic IPAs, nonalcoholic Mexican-style lagers,” Bassett said. “Even a 25-calorie low carb beer. We’re excited to add those too.”
The pub also pours Twisted Iced Tea on tap. “A lot of liquors here,” Michéal said.
Customers can play billiards, shuffleboard and more. “We have lots of other games, like we have a giant Connect 4. We have a giant Jenga,” Bassett said. “We rotate out. We’ll get some vintage arcades.”
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Another attraction every other Tuesday is Speed Bunco with Redding radio personality Heather Ryan.
Outside-the-pub attractions are charity golf tournaments held twice a year. They’re called Keg Classics because they’ll go through three beer kegs on nine holes. The golfers will come back to the pub and buy raffle tickets to raise money for parents whose children are sick. “We’ll give (parents) money for hotels and the unseen (expenses),” Bassett said.
Riddick’s also has done past fundraisers for animal shelters.
Change-of-pace specials
Riddick’s serves pizza (the spicy Volcano is popular), pizza rolls, calzone and hamburgers, and makes its own pastrami in house.
One well-used piece of cooking equipment is the smoker.
“We smoke all of our own meats,” Bassett said. “We smoke our tri-tip that we use in our French dip. We also do barbecue multiple times throughout the week where we’ll just barbecue up a brisket.”
Some of that barbecue will end up in tacos or Texas Twinkies, which are similar to jalapeño poppers but with a Lone Star State twist.
Riddick’s Texas Twinkie is a piece of brisket wrapped in cream cheese inside of a jalapeno popper. It’s wrapped again in bacon and then smoked for another two hours. A glaze of barbecue sauce is the finishing touch.
Other unique items include a deep-fried potato salad, seared ahi and sushi-grade tuna. One most-requested item is the “famous” strawberry-balsamic salad.
Credit Bassett, Michéal and fellow chef Ryan Goble for coming up with the unique specials. “Whatever day we’re working, we come up with crazy ideas,” Michéal said.
Michéal said soon he hopes to get a GoPro video camera to make TikToks of him going about his day.
Don’t miss a meal
Check Riddick’s Facebook page for updates on the special of the day. They’ll photograph the dishes and put the best pictures online, but not always with captions. “Sometimes we don’t describe it. Sometimes we just say, ‘Hey, come on and grab this,’” Michéal said.
Riddick’s production is made possible due to its substantial kitchen that has a range-top oven, flat grill and a pizza oven. “We used to have this tiny, tiny kitchen and it was maybe 300 square feet. (Now) we’ve got a 1,000-square-foot (kitchen) over here and we can do anything,” Bassett said.
In keeping with its Riddick-the-dog identity, Bassett said the pub is a pet-friendly establishment. It also has outdoor seating.
In the future, Bassett said he wants to update the outside entrance with a clever sign intended not just for dogs. “One of the things that’s going to be put on the door when we change it over is a sign that says, ‘No barking, biting or jumping on customers. And that goes for your dog, too,'” Bassett said.
If you go: Riddick’s Sports Pub
- Menu: Brunch items: Breakfast burrito with bacon or sausage ($12), carne asada ($14). Monte Cristo pinwheels ($15). Chicken and waffles on a stick ($12). Monday Night Mac Down macaroni and cheese ($10 regular, $16 with smoked brisket; other toppings available). Thursday night is chili dog night with scored and deep-fried all-beef dog with tots ($12). Recent barbecue special featured cherry, whiskey and Coke smoked tri-tip, spicy tequila-lime chicken, crackin’ green beans, and smoked jalapeno cheese bread ($20)
- Hours: Open seven days a week beginning at 11 a.m. except Saturday brunch starts at 10 a.m. and Sunday brunch starts at 9:30 a.m. Bar will be open until 2 a.m. business permitting.
- Address: 200 Hartnell Ave, Suite A, Redding, in the Cobblestone Court Shopping Center near intersection of Hartnell and Parkview avenues.
- Phone: (530) 215-1775
- Facebook: facebook.com/Riddicks-Sports-Pub
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