Beaver Choice owner debuts BeCe Kitchen
There’s a new spot in town for sauerkraut, schnitzel and Swedish meatballs. But if BeCe Kitchen seems eerily familiar, there’s a good reason why.
Beaver Choice, Hanna Gabrielsson’s plucky Polish/Swedish/Canadian eatery, was an East Valley institution, ably stuffing diners to the gills since 2010.
But times change. The cost of running a restaurant is on the rise. Staff is hard to come by. Diners want to spend less and eat out more often. Gabrielsson joined the legions of restaurateurs who struggled to maintain a traditional table service format.
So she stopped struggling.
In May, Gabrielsson shuttered Beaver Choice and relocated her kitchen to Sun Lakes. There, in early July, she opened BeCe Kitchen (pronounced: “bee-see”), a revamped fast casual version of her previous restaurant.
“BeCe Kitchen is the Chipotle of European food,” Gabrielsson exclaims, beaming.
She’s sort of right. But this is way better than Chipotle.
Why it moved to Sun Lakes
BeCe Kitchen doesn’t yet have a sign, but you’ll have no trouble spotting the place.
The former KFC has been repainted in a rainbow of bright pastels, its dining room festooned with colorful vinyl tablecloths and a modicum of homey kitsch.
At 11:30 a.m. on a Friday, just a week and a half after its grand opening, the place is already hopping. More than half the tables are full and the quick-moving line is about a dozen patrons deep.
Gabrielsson seems to have hit on a formula that resonates with her new neighborhood, which would explain why Sun Lakes developer Robson Resort Communities worked to court her.
“This is with the help of the Robson family,” Gabrielsson says. “Mike Robson wanted there to be good food for his community, and he made it possible for me to move. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here.”
Watching the change in her customers’ preferences, Gabrielsson has long talked of developing a fast casual concept.
“They want fast, quick and good,” Gabrielsson says. “Here, they can pay ten bucks and get a home-cooked meal.”
This only works if the food is good. Unsurprisingly, it is.
A smaller, more focused menu
Beaver Choice’s lengthy menu is gone, and while longtime fans will miss a few old favorites, this change might be for the better.
Ten dollars gets you an entrée with a side dish and a side salad, served cafeteria-style alongside self-serve drinks and desserts. Gabrielsson has narrowed the choices to five regular entrées and a couple of rotating daily specials, and the newfound focus is paying dividends.
Fear not, the Swedish meatballs haven’t gone anywhere. Plump and perfect, they’re seasoned with cardamom and dressed in a rich cream gravy, pairing well with dill mashed potatoes or carrots and peas. Golabki are similarly hearty, pork-stuffed rolls of melt-away cabbage drowning in a tomato-spiked cream.
Gabrielsson has acquired a schnitzel press and she’s putting it to good use. The schnitzel is excellent — chicken or pork smooshed into a skinny cutlet that’s fried to a golden, breaded crisp, great with creamy salad of diced beets, or a mound of sweet and sour kraut that practically pulsates with a heavy shot of clove.
The pierogi, while good, might not be at their peak coming off the cafeteria line, but this format was made for dishes like the bigos, a meaty sweet and sour Polish stew brimming with tomato and sauerkraut.
Some of Gabrielsson’s desserts remain, including her Beaver Supreme — a cream and Mandarin-topped puff of meringue.
But she’s also granted the use of her kitchen to Theresia Furuseth of A Little Taste of Sweden Bakery.
In addition to delivering her own baked goods, Furuseth makes some of the desserts for BeCe Kitchen, including cupcakes and princess cakes — Day-Glo hemispheres of house-made marzipan filled with raspberry jam and whipped cream.
More locations to come
Though the operation is just ramping up, Gabrielsson has big plans.
BeCe Kitchen currently is open during lunch and late afternoon hours, but Gabrielsson expects to add breakfast service within a month.
What’s more, she’ll soon be launching delivery service and opening the KFC’s old drive-through for anybody who needs a little schnitzel on the go.
And with a little luck, there’ll soon be more of BeCe Kitchen to go around.
“It was always my goal to serve European food in a fast casual way,” Gabrielsson says. “I hope to open more of these.” Tried something delicious lately? Reach the reporter at dominic.armato@arizonarepublic.com or at 602-4448533. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @skilletdoux, and on Facebook at facebook.com/darmato. Support local journalism.Subscribe to azcentral.com today.