Everything you see, touch, smell, taste or hear is deliberate. It is there for a reason. 

 Christopher Bily put it there so you will enjoy yourself, take a picture of the food for Instagram and leave a good tip. 

 Bily, a Syracuse chef, is obsessed with making dining experiences at both of his restaurants — Original Grain and XO Taco — feel wholly. The location, lighting, menu, music and even the way staff interacts with customers is, in some way, dictated or designed by Bily.  

 “There’s so much involved on a plate of food on someone’s table that a lot of people really don’t f*cking think about, you know?” he said. 

As much as Bily is the central pillar of his restaurants, they’re not designed as one-offs. Currently, Bily is building the second Original Grain — OG for short — in Rochester. It’s expected to open in late spring or early summer.  

The new OG will have more light, outdoor space and seating. When people go there, or to XO Taco, the experience will be carefully curated, exactly how Bily wants it to be. 

Anna Buhaj and Mary Bily, Bily’s grandmother and mother, respectively, sowed the beginnings of Bily’s love of food and cooking.  

In a Ukrainian family, Bily grew up crimping edges of perogies, with the adults pickling vegetables and making jams. The bustling nature and loud personalities of the kitchen drew him in.  

XO Taco, Bily’s Syracuse-based Mexican restaurant, features neon lights, fun music and carefully curated, Instagram-ready interior designs. Aaron Kassman | Contributing Photographer

Bily learned to run a kitchen when he headed the culinary side at Abbott’s Village Tavern in Marcellus, immersed in the hectic life of managing a kitchen. After leaving Abbott’s, he planned to start his own restaurant, opting to get his MBA before doing so. But in 2012, after a few months in Chicago, Mike Borcz, the then-athletic director at Wells College in Aurora, called. 

Borcz offered Bily the men’s lacrosse head coaching job. Money spent in Chicago made steady work attractive, so he accepted the offer. By the second season, it was an open secret that Bily was a less-than-attentive steward.  

He still had dreams of opening a restaurant. On free evenings, Bily retired to his attic bedroom, a bottle of bourbon in hand. He wrote. Menus, business plans, restaurant names. He designed a brand package for a wood-fired pizza place called “Brick and Mortar.” 

“I wouldn’t stop until 2 a.m. in the morning, when I was dog tired,” Bily said. 

“Feast Coast” popped onto the page, then it became a real endeavor. But as Bily and Matt Gardner, a childhood friend and accountant, researched the project — a food truck — it became less plausible.  

“It was a point in our lives when him and I were both a little lost in what we were going to do,” Gardner said.   

Bily got a tip that someone was working on a diner project: Modern Malt. Bily and Gardner got involved, cooking and crunching numbers, respectively. In 2014, Bily, at least in part, owned a restaurant.  

“It was huge for me,” Bily said. “It was huge for my ego. It was huge for everything I dreamed of.” 

While the grouping started smoothly, it frayed. Bily wanted more recognition for his work. Visions for the restaurants diverged. Eventually, the other partners told Bily he wasn’t needed at the restaurant on a daily basis. Bily sold his equity in Modern Malt shortly thereafter.  

“It was so apparent I was unhappy,” he said. 

Bily and Hinman traveled to Los Angeles and New York City, eating constantly. In L.A., they ate at Lemonade and Sweet Fin, and Sweet Green and Little B in New York. They wanted to open a healthy fast-casual restaurant, travel spurring their imaginations. 

They built a menu riffing on things they had tasted — smashed avocado toast, acai bowls and poke. They toured spaces, eventually checking out an old Tim Horton’s. With floor to ceiling windows, a downtown location and purpose-built layout, it was the right fit. 

“When we saw it, it was love at first sight,” Hinman said. “Like ‘Yeah we can make this something special.’” 

Opened in 2016, Syracuse’s Original Grain acts as a reflection of Bily’s imagination, featuring eclectic interior decor and pumping rap music in an open space. Andrew Graham | Senior Staff Writer

The menu and decor came into focus, but a name eluded Bily. He almost settled on “Rhythm and Beet.” Instead, “Original Grain” won out. 

 Wood-gray finishes accent the space. Broken skateboard decks and blown up pictures of cassettes adorn the white walls. High ceilings make the space feel very open as rap music pumps from the sound system. 

“You want people to be friends with the brand,” said Eric Hinman, Bily’s friend and a business partner. 

Bily knew Original Grain would become OG — more commonly known as “original gangster,” harkening back to 1990s hip-hop — and he thought the name encapsulates the restaurant. 

“For all the sh*t that I’ve done,” Bily said, “there’s a specific meaning, a specific significance to the name and the logo, and it’s presence in the spaces and on the menus and in social media. It’s super (f*cking) important. 

“People need to visualize, taste, touch, smell the name,” he continued. 

In Original Grain, Christopher Bily’s finally built what he’s so long wanted. It’s all Bily, all born from his own imagination, and distilled down to an art installation on the wall or the food on your plate. 

Published on January 15, 2019 at 10:45 pm

Contact Andrew: aegraham@syr.edu | @A_E_Graham