Rainbird Taylor had an epiphany in his early 20s.
After spending most of his life living on the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and helping to prepare food for celebrations, he realized peeling 50 pounds of potatoes and preparing pork was a lot like working in a commercial kitchen. Now, almost a decade later, Taylor is bringing his years worth of experience in culinary fusion to Old Town.
After getting furloughed from an upscale kitchen when COVID reared its head in 2020, Taylor went on to open his Indigenous soul food eatery Yapopup in a stall of Chomp, a Santa Fe food hall. Yapopup is a portmanteau of sorts that Taylor came up with while he was traveling the country with the James Beard Award Legacy Network. The first part of the name–Yapop–honors a revolutionary figure from Ohkay Owingeh, but the name also includes the term “pop-up,” which references his time traveling with the legacy network.
“It’s honoring Po’pay, the leader of the Pueblo Revolt, and it’s also just honoring the fact that what we were doing at the time,” he says.
Now his limited menu of wings and tacos infused with flavors from Ohkay Owingeh can be found in Tiny Grocer ABQ, just around the corner from the Old Town Plaza. The small menu is deliberate—he wants to show customers some consistency before expanding—but he tells The Paper. he’s excited about a larger kitchen and more room for customers.
“I went from a 12’ by 12’ space to now I have a 2,000 plus square foot restaurant and that’s not including the patio,” he says. “The seating that I have here, at this current spot, is like 125 people.”
Taylor has grand plans to expand his operation, which includes fine dining at some point. But first, he says, he’s looking to bridge a culinary gap.
“I have a ton of friends who live on the reservation, and they’re just always there, they never want to leave. But then they’re like, ‘Oh, cool, we have a friend’s restaurant we can go try out,’” Taylor says.
On the flip side, he adds, people who “have never been to the rez and tried to rez food” can get an introduction through familiar fares such as tacos and hot wings.
Everything on his Old Town menu includes a nod to those days of preparing food for celebrations.
“We have dances and feed everybody, and that’s basically like running a restaurant,” says. “So, it was just kind of an eye opener, realizing that I had been around cooking like this my entire life.”
Taylor found his fusion inspiration after a trip to New York City. He says he had $600 in his pocket and was out to find new flavors. His Chimayo Korean wings were one result of his East Coast flavor odyssey.
“I tried out so many different types of foods, and one of the best things I tried was a Korean sauce,” he says.
When Taylor got home he learned from a friend how to make the sauce that tickled his taste buds and started playing around with substitutions. The result was a crispy wing, with a familiar sticky, sweet and nutty sauce, but with an even more familiar kick.
“I substitute half the Korean chili flakes for New Mexico red chile powder,” he says.
Those strategic substitutions that he says connect different culinary worlds can be found up and down his menu.
“Everything is soul food, but it’s indigenized,” he says. “So, the lemon pepper wings, we added green chile and then we made ourselves a cactus blue cheese.”
Thanks to a hungry, yet generous editor, The Paper. recently swung by Yapopup for lunch. The small menu makes ordering easy and justifies ordering one of everything. Food in a newsroom always goes fast, but the 18 wings and nine tacos disappeared faster than an Oxford comma. While all of the offerings were delicious, one of the stand out stars was the carne asada tacos, which had familiar spicy notes, but with a much smokier flavor. Both the lemon pepper and Korean wings tied for a close second, with both offering their own unique flavors.
Taylor says he and his fiancé and co-owner Nessa Belin, along with a line cook, are all still living in Española and commuting about 200 miles, round trip, each day.
“We don’t really have a plan B,” he says. “This is our plan right here.”
Yapopup: Indigenous Soul Food
1919 Old Town Road NW #6
12 pm-6 pm, Wednesday -Thursday