Bottle Bites 08: ROOKIE

Because food and music are equally important in our world, we invite an Empty Bottle artist to join forces with Bite Café every month — the result is a one-night-only special item to be served on the night of their show.

This month, we invited the most got dang kawaii band in the freaking universe to curate a dish for us. The result is ROOKIE’s: chicken shawarma with Jerusalem salad. Read on to learn about their musical and culinary inspirations via Max Loebman (singer and guitarist in ROOKIE). Limited tickets to their upcoming album release gig on March 13 remain.

 Tell us a bit about yourselves!
A good portion of our time together is spent grabbing a bite post-practice, pre-show, or during a recording break. Sometimes it's a greasy Chicago burger, other times we're headed to the nearest taqueria. It's easy to work up an appetite when you're busy!

Tell us why you chose these specific inspirations for your Bottle Bites dish. 
It's a dish we all love. I have cooked it often and always share when I do. Food is as much an art as is music.

If you could invite five people – living or dead – to your dream dinner party, who would be on the guest list?  What would ya’ll eat?
Terry Kath, Chrissie Hynde, John H. Bonham, Neil Young, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. This would be one classy but crazy dinner party…I'm gonna have to go with sushi.

What's your go-to meal on tour?
We've been on the East Coast for the past couple weeks with the legendary Cheap Trick. Everyone's been eating a bagel a day. Some of us get sausage, egg, and cheese. I get Lox with all of the fixings. Mish mosh bagel is the consensus. NY Bagel and Bialy on Skokie is the closest you'll get to that New York perfection in the Chicago area.