Dark Rye

Whole Foods' Dark Rye talks James Beard Award, the future of journalism and sources of inspiration

In early May, Dark Rye, an online magazine from Whole Foods Market, was honored with the Best Group Food Blog award at the James Beard Foundation Book, Broadcast and Journalism Awards in New York City, defeating well-known fellow nominees Eater National and Grub Street. Just over a year old, Dark Rye is quickly becoming one of the most innovative food/lifestyle blogs on the Internet, incorporating the use of text, video, infographics and photography to tell an array of captivating stories.

We spoke with Vadan Less, senior director of video content for Dark Rye, about the publication, winning a James Beard Award and where he sees the future of journalism and storytelling headed.

CultureMap: Tell me about the James Beard Award experience.

Vadan Less: The James Beard Foundation has always been a part of our culture, but if you had asked me a year ago if I thought we would win a James Beard award, I'd say absolutely not. I'm thrilled and shocked to be part of it. It's a dream come true really. How it happened is actually interesting. We started looking through the opportunities we had to submit, and we submitted Dark Rye to a handful of journalism categories.

We were nominated for two of them and ended up winning for best group blog. We were up against Eater.com and Grub Street. The other one we were nominated for was Best On-Location Video Webcast, and one of our ongoing series, The Adventures of Kirk Lombard, was nominated.

CM: Did you go to the awards show in New York?

VL: Yeah. There were two separate events. There were the food awards, and then there were the books, journalism and publishing awards. We went to New York City for the awards, and it really was an amazing who's who in the food journalism world. It was great to see all our counterparts from other food blogs there as well. Seeing people come around a passion for food writing was amazing. We had a great time. Actually I think we were having maybe a little too much fun!

CM: What did you do this year in particular that you think stood out to the James Beard Foundation?

VL: Dark Rye is a very rich experience. We cover the world of food from a broad perspective. It's visually stunning, the written material is in depth and the videos tell the story further. We have created a full, well-rounded package of media surrounding food. I think the experience on Dark Rye is striking, and people are floored by its presence. The periodical is something new for the most part; you don't get this type of multimedia experience from any other online publication. I think people do it really well with photography, video and the written word, but Dark Rye really ties it together in a nice package.

CM: As a journalist, I've seen the media world change and evolve in not the most pleasant way. I feel like every day I see another newspaper laying off the staff, or worse, even completely going out of business. How does Dark Rye represent the future of journalism in that regard?

VL: Take your pick for any reason why newspapers are failing. Is it because they're on paper? Is it because that's not how people want their information delivered anymore? The truth is people are leaning more toward the Internet. The Internet offers that multimedia experience, whereas a magazine or newspaper leaves much more to be desired. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge magazine fan; I have tons of subscriptions, but as I flip through magazines, I feel like they're pushing me to be on the Internet or go to my phone.

We've taken that concept of "go online to see more" and changed it to "here's more" at Dark Rye. We are giving people a feature story and building into that experience. We tell that overarching story that delves deeper into those individual worlds. You can have a five- to 10-page article in a magazine with beautiful detail and storytelling, but all you do with that is read it. When you read something like Dark Rye, you have more opportunities to understand and interpret the story.

CM: I just read the Detroit issue and loved it. What are some of the upcoming issues we can look forward to? And how do you name each theme?

VL: How we name them is a complicated process. We get into a room and start talking about different perspectives on things like seasonality, for instance. We also find inspiration through people we want to talk about. Then we search around that topic, and from that, we figure out the theme. We have the Wander issue coming out soon; then we have an issue about home and one about meat.

We'll do things like focusing on meat through a vegetarian's perspective, or focusing on alternative meats. There has to be a variety of topics and perspectives going along with each issue. We don't like the idea of being too locked into one topic or theme. The titles are designed to guide the issue, but not confine it in any way whatsoever.

CM: What blogs or websites inspire you?

VL: We find a lot of inspiring material in food and fashion blogs. We follow theWilder, Remedy and Lucky Peach, but they're quarterlies. They're are quite a few others.

LL: I love Lucky Peach.

VL: Where we've found a lot of inspiration right now is in quarterlies. We're in love with the fact that quarterlies are making a comeback in the publishing world.

Balcones Distillery: Chip Tate talks about his award winning whisky brand in Waco, Texas.

Photo Courtesy of Whole Foods

Balcones Distillery: Chip Tate talks about his award winning whisky brand in Waco, Texas.

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Belles of the Ballroom

9 Austin bar and venue experts take over popular Old Austin space near UT

29th Street Ballroom/Facebook

Changes are coming at the 29th Street Ballroom, but the goal is to preserve what already makes it special.

The evolution continues at the 29th Street Ballroom, the music venue formerly attached to Spider House Café. It's no secret, Resound Presents CEO and co-founder Graham Williams says, that he and a large team of other industry pros are taking over the space; but now they're ready to talk about what comes next for the venue and adjoining bar.

Although Spider House Café closed in 2020, the Ballroom stayed open, and has continued serving University of Texas students and anyone else who wants to see a show outside of the ordinary: punk shows, burlesque revues, fundraisers, and more. It'll stay open through most of the renovations, scheduled through January of 2025, and is expected to hold a grand opening in March.

Now Resound — one of Austin's top live music organizers, which was itself born from the ashes of another Austin institution — is lending two of its co-founders to managing the space going forward: Williams and Ian Orth. They're joining seven other team members from venues around town, many of them overlapping: Amy Mullins, Brian Tweedy, Jason McNeely, John Yaklin, and Shannon LeBoeuf of Hotel Vegas, Chess Club, Kinda Tropical, Tweedy’s, and Yellow Jacket Social Club, in varying capacities; and Brian Buscemi and Mike Sanchez of the Little Darlin’.

Williams emphasizes that although things will be changing at the Ballroom, the goal isn't to change anything people already love.

"Over the next few months as we kind of ease into the spring, we're using this downtime to revitalize things, decorate, revamp some of the stuff in the venue and the bar, and just kind of get things moving in the right direction," Williams says, "taking what's already popular about the venue and just adding to it, really."

Bar updates
The biggest shift will be turning the bar from an accessory to live shows into its own entity that's open even when there's nothing else going on. Amy Mullins, best known as a co-owner of Yellow Jacket Social Club, is overseeing that transition. She's never operated a venue that is primarily focused on music, and has been enjoying learning more about how to do it; she even worked the door recently when a staff member called out sick.

Mullins echoes Williams in assuring that the change is more about logistics than tone. It'll still feel like Old Austin, but she does express a hope to run more than the "typical venue bar," handing out simple drinks as quickly as possible. She's working on a new menu that includes wine, beer, craft cocktails, and non-alcoholic options like tea, kombucha, or mocktails. Regardless of what's on the schedule on any given night, Mullins says the menu will stay the same.

"There's no drink too complicated for us to make, however busy we are," she says.

Food options
Another goal for the team will be making sure the space works when there's not someone onstage to crowd around. They'll expand the front and side patios and create a food truck food court that features the same trucks that are there now, plus one newcomer. All in all, that includes Yalla Burger & Wings, Gyro Center, Li’l Nonna’s Vegan Pizzeria, Guppy’s Indian Fried Chicken, Waylon J’s BBQ, and Ay Chihuahua Tacos.

The expanded patio will connect to Tweedy's Bar next door, which also has its own food trucks. The idea is to create a space to hang out after shows that feels fit for the purpose. It's possible to stick around after events now, but the layout does create a vague feeling of loitering.

Artist and fan-friendly tweaks
On the entertainment side, Williams says some of the renovations include putting in a new sound system, redoing the green room, updating the facade, and repainting signs. Since the winter is a slower time for live music, they'll be taking advantage of the extra time to work on things before packing the calendar with more events than before. Resound will handle most of the bookings in live music, comedy, and DJ sets, welcoming both national and local talent.

Whatever the details end up being, this team has proved to Austinites that they know how to run venues worth visiting. And since they're all friends and business partners on multiple levels, it sounds like having this many cooks in the kitchen just isn't an issue.

"Some of us have been roommates and known each other since we were young," says Williams. "It's a good mix of people who are all very like minded, so a lot is being brought to the table per decision. So yeah, it's it's really exciting. Sometimes that's not the case. .... But with this project, it's a lot of really great, creative people that are good at what they do [and] they trust each other."

bars live music concerts comedy