Brian “Skinny” McCabe came up with the idea for the new Hi Tone Hot Sauce when business cooled down at his Midtown nightspot.
“We were shut down for seven months straight last year,” McCabe says. “I was trying to find a way to get money coming in. When we can’t have crowds of people, it has been completely different.”
McCabe had some success with fundraisers selling specially designed Hi Tone T-shirts, but that wasn’t a long-term answer. “We relied so heavily on people coming to us to have a drink and see and hear music,” he says. “Shut down, we couldn’t do that. We needed something we could export year ’round.”
So, last February, McCabe thought about selling hot sauce. “I wouldn’t say everybody loves hot sauce, but the majority of my friends and people I know love hot sauce. We go over to each other’s house and they’ll have four different bottles. They have their favorite sauce they’ll swear by.”
McCabe found a company in Florida that makes and bottles hot sauce. “We just tested 14 different ones and I was like, ‘I would like that, but with a garlic kind of kick to it,’” McCabe remembers. “We just kept tweaking these recipes over a couple of weeks and then finally landed on one we really liked.”
He went with a garlic Habanero hot sauce. “I like the boldness of the garlic and then the kick of the heat of the Habanero at the very end,” McCabe says.
The hot sauce is good on “anything you want to put hot sauce on — fries, nachos, seafood, anything that needs a little more garlic and a little more heat.”
His sauce, which comes in five-ounce bottles that sell for $9 each, has a picture of the Hi Tone’s new building on the label, which was designed by Ronnie Lewis. “It’s bold. Really eye-catching.”
McCabe, who got 144 bottles for his first order, was down to 30 bottles a week and a half later. He’s waiting on his next order.
“Goner Records hit me up. They like hot sauce. They said, ‘We want to carry it,’” McCabe says. “I reached out to Nerd Alert on Cooper. They started carrying it in their store. It snowballed from there. I started making phone calls ’cause people are really excited about it.”
Hi Tone Hot Sauce also is carried at 901 Comics, 901 Games, and Shangri-La Records.
The hot sauce will be on sale at the Hi Tone, which will host a launch party — with samples — from 1 to 5 p.m., May 29th. “It will eventually be available online. Not sure when,” McCabe adds.
For now, he says, “I’m trying to keep everything as local as possible. I haven’t reached out to Kroger yet, but then again I never thought about going this far with it.”
McCabe isn’t a stranger to the kitchen; he cooks “all the time at home. Oh, man, ever since I was a latchkey kid coming up.”
But, he says, “Being able to cook and being a cook are two completely different things. I can cook something and it turns out how I like it, but it might not be edible to everyone else.”
He likes “fat boy foods. Comfort. I like meat and potatoes. I’m a big dude.”
The Hi Tone has evolved from the days when concertgoers bought barbecue cooked in front of the venue. “We have chef Sleepy [Johnson]. It’s a whole new kitchen.”
They offer “classic bar food,” including, McCabe claims, “some of the best mac and cheese in the city of Memphis.”
Hi Tone also offers a “smash burger,” McCabe says, noting that it’s a technique devised by Johnson. “He slaps it down on the grill. Pushes it down. His little blend of seasonings he uses on it is incredible.”
For now, the hot sauce isn’t on the table at Hi Tone due to COVID restrictions. But, McCabe says, “Ask for the hot sauce and we’ll hand you the bottle. Then bring it back and we’ll wipe it down.”
As for future Hi Tone condiments, McCabe says he’s sticking with hot sauce for now. But, he says, “We are going to release a super-duper hot one later on.”
Hi Tone is at 282-284 North Cleveland Street; (901) 490-0335.