08/15/2026
Sitting here getting ready to start throwing meat on the grill before the masses show up hungry, and I figured I would take a moment to inform everyone about the contest last night. I posted a question that I wasn't sure if anyone would get, and although there were many answers that were close to it, nobody actually got the whole thing.
Why is Red House BBQ called Red House?
This goes back to the very early 90s. In fact, I believe it was 1990 or 91. I was going back to South Dakota and spending a lot of time on the rez. The reservation my people come from is the poorest place per capita in the entire United States. It also has some of the highest percentage numbers when it comes to teen pregnancy, unemployment, domestic violence, su***de etc etc.
In the early '90s, I was very active in AIM and trying to spend as much time as I could back on the rez. I used to speak to a lot of young teens and the one thing that I would hear from them all the time there was, there is absolutely nothing to do. We only had one fast food place on the entire reservation and it was a Taco John's. For those of you who don't know what a Taco John's is, imagine really bad Taco Bell. That was the hangout on the entire reservation for young folks because there was nothing else. It sat in the parking lot in front of Sioux Nation, that was our only real grocery store. These youngsters would tell me all the time how there was no real activities for them to do and nowhere to go because our reservation is out in the middle of nowhere.
That's when I had an idea about opening up a recreation center on the reservation. A place that I could have young teens go and learn everything from music to basketball to you name it. Basically a safe place where they could get together and enjoy spending time with their friends and hopefully learn a thing or two while at it.
I had a bunch of ideas but unfortunately, zero money. I did come up with a name though. I was going to call the place "Thipi Luta"
Fast forward a few decades, and I'm in Tehachapi.
I always told everyone I never wanted to open a restaurant, and that was the truth. I did it because I wanted to provide a better life for my children. When we decided that I was going to actually try an open restaurant, we sat out in front of a building on Tehachapi boulevard, and I knew right then and there that that was going to be the place. The only problem? Well somebody had just signed a lease on the building and they were opening up a coffee house. Actually it turned out to be a blessing instead of a problem. It gave me 3 years to work on recipes and build up a clientele by doing catering and every event I could possibly do within a hundred miles of here.
Because of this, I started my food booth. When my wife asked me what I was going to name our new little business, I told her, "I have a name".
I'm going to call it, Thipi Luta! I had remembered that name and I figured if I was going to be sharing a little bit of my culture through food with people, then I would go back to what I wanted to do all those years ago on the rez. I wanted to teach and share.
Thipi in Lakota is pronounced "Teepee".
It means "to dwell" or "a dwelling". Basically it's a home. "Luta" is the Lakota word for the color red. Put the two together and you have Red Dwelling or Red Home or Red House. Direct translation would be House Red.
The color red is one of the four directions. It is the North. The Wazíyata. The lifeblood of the people.
So there you have it. Red House has been in my mind and my heart since the very early 1990s.
As far as the album that I always listen to when I paint,
"Bi***es Brew" by Miles Davis.
