Mexican Food Made With Love
Burritos And More In Red Hook
By Lambeth Hochwald
Photo by Sabrina Eberhard
For nearly two decades, Bard students and locals flocked to Bubby’s Burrito Stand for stuffed-to-the-max burritos and quesadillas. The fact that you could order these lunch favorites from a refurbished 1970s fiberglass camper parked at Montgomery Place Orchards near the Bard campus just added to the appeal.
Behind the two tiny cast-iron pots: Bjanette Andersen (her childhood nickname was Bubby), and her then-husband, whose seasonal business developed a cult following pretty much from its start in 2002, even though the couple didn’t have a business plan or professional cooking experience.
The Bubby’s story is one of right place, right time. After dropping out of high school, Andersen, who grew up in Rhinebeck, started traveling to San Miguel, Mexico, and every winter she’d stay just a little bit longer. During one of those trips, she met her now ex-husband.
“We were trying to find something to do seasonally so we could be in Mexico in the winter and here in the summer,” she says. “We were inspired by the street food in Mexico and decided to give it a try. We had no idea how popular and intense and great the business would be.” These days, that beloved $200 camper is parked in Andersen’s backyard and, while it contains lots of memories of the hundreds of thousands of burritos she folded back in the day, it’s now the place where Andersen sketches or plays the ukulele.
Not that she has lots of time to herself. In fact, most days Andersen is preparing lunch or catering orders at Bubby’s Take Away Kitchen, the brick-and-mortar restaurant she opened on Red Hook’s main drag a decade ago.
“I had always had my eye on the space where I am now,” she says, adding that she handles everything from restaurant decor, her brightly colored paintings, many of them featuring her own dogs, hang on the walls, and she’s known to do carpentry work when needed and even fix the electrical systems should anything go awry.
On her off hours, she spends time with her mom, a local mural artist, her 19-year-old son, or walking her dogs in Poets’ Walk. For several years, she was also a songwriter and ukulele player with The Moonlighters, a local band that’s currently on hiatus. When she’s in the kitchen, though, she’s laser-focused on giving customers the most reasonably priced and delicious lunchtime meal she can, along with something distinctive that’s a throwback to the stand.
“Back then, we were serving 500 burritos in a few hours, so we had our tiny cast irons cranked up as high as possible, which charred the tortillas,” she says. “That gave them this toastiness, which adds a really nice flavor.” No matter how many burritos Andersen folds in the future, they’ll always be made with love, she says.”I like this idea that simple food is the best food and that you shouldn’t have to fuss so much about it,” she says. “I believe you should eat real food cooked by a person and not from a frozen bag.”
––facebook.com/bubbystakeaway
