Vista Ramen chef-owner shares plans for Mothership at Earthbound

Vista Ramen chef-owner Chris Bork will land the Mothership at Earthbound Beer this winter.

As The Scoop reported in August, Earthbound Beer announced Bork would helm the kitchen at its new location at 2724 Cherokee St., which opened in September, but the concept was still in the works. Now, Bork has announced the initial menu lineup and a tentative opening timeline, as reported by Feast.

“My inspiration was to find a niche on Cherokee that didn’t exist,” Bork said. “We really just bought a smoker and built the menu around that.”

While bowls of ramen won’t make the move to Mothership, Bork has put together a tight inaugural menu focusing on smoked meats. In addition to a rotating barbecue plate, Mothership will feature smoked turkey with pita, sumac, pickles and yogurt; smoked chicken chili with cottage cheese and pickled daikon; a veggie burger topped with fontina, Kewpie mayo, lettuce and red onion; and kielbasa with mustard and onions.

Sides also follow the barbecue theme: beans, potato salad and coleslaw, along with a variety of kimchi and pickles. House sauces will include pomegranate, root beer, Carolina, Korean barbecue and vinegar. Hawaiian rolls with gochujang honey butter will round out the offerings.

Bork said some of the new menu items will be available at Earthbound’s third anniversary party, scheduled for Friday, Nov. 17, and Mothership should open “a week or two after Thanksgiving.”

Matt Sorrell is staff writer at Sauce Magazine.