Maybe it’s like a rocket ship landing in a placid Cascades lake — or perhaps more appropriately, like a clatter of hooves in a mud puddle, but it’s hard to overstate the gusto with which Hawkeye & Huckleberry Lounge splashed down on Bend this year. With a massive bar and dining room — done to the nines in cowboy couture — a hugely popular happy hour, an impressive menu of steak and sides, and the star power of not one, but two celebrity chefs, it would have been hard to be a foodie in Bend this year and to have missed the spectacle that is this place. For its scale and ambitious approach alone, we’re naming it our Rookie Restaurant of the Year.
Hawkeye & Huckleberry is the next big dream of chef and Food Network star Brian Malarkey, a repeat restaurateur who grew up in Redmond and owns a family ranch that supplies the beef for the restaurant. He’s joined in the endeavor by Executive Chef Carlos Anthony Ochoa — himself a Food Network regular — and General Manager Jayme Hardebeck, who have opened some 16 restaurants with Malarkey.
“I think Brian sold it to us as a dream, really — come back to his hometown, where we have a ranch, where we have our own cattle, our own farm a in beautiful part of Central Oregon,” Ochoa told the Source, “…this dream about coming here and doing something super special that’s unique to all of the places that we’ve ever done before.”
For Ochoa, who’s no stranger to working with local farmers and producers at Malarkey’s other restaurants in California and elsewhere, producing one’s own product is a dream come true.
“Being so attuned to the cows and the farm and what grows in Central Oregon has been amazing,” he said. He also offered up some praise for Hardebeck.
“Jayme has done such a good job with the nightlife and making this a fun, exciting place to be,” Ochoa said. Hawk & Huck, as it’s affectionately called, hosts regular live music Fridays, as well as pop-up events for special days including Mother’s Day and Easter.
A shot-ski gets pulled out often for group shot-taking. A cowbell rings often to encourage another “cheers” at the bar.
“Because really, when you open up a restaurant, half the battle is the food, and the other half is making it somewhere where you can make memories. I think we’ve done a really good job of creating something special and unique in this town,” Ochoa said.
Hardebeck agreed.
“Brian [Malarkey] always has a saying: They’ll come for the food. They’ll come for the chefs. Carlos and Brian are both on TV, and they’ll come for that, but they’ll come back for the service. And just creating a family is something that, at our restaurants, we’ve had success of being able to do.”
With that in mind, Hardebeck gave a shoutout to the restaurant’s loyal team. “It starts with hiring the right people on our team.
We got Hailey Cook — who’s an amazing bar manager that we brought in from Maui,” he said. While the drinks menu contains a number of fun and fruity options, one of Cook’s signature cocktails also has ties to the ranch. The Doc Holliday is a take on an old-fashioned, with a beef tallow wash.
“It really ties into our program,” Hardebeck said.
When it comes to the two regular Food Network stars who dreamed up that program, we had to ask what you’re very likely wondering: Will Hawkeye & Huckleberry be appearing on TV? The answer is yes — it already has. Ochoa just completed filming with “Tournament of Champions,” which features him in Bend.
“We did a great spread on Hawkeye and started to really highlight what we’re doing,” Ochoa said. Meanwhile, the family ranch recently appeared on an HGTV show, and Malarkey will soon host a new “Cutthroat Kitchen,” where his cowboy steakhouse will be featured. So, if you’ve thus far missed the massive splash that Hawk & Huck has made in real-life Bend, you can also witness it on TV.
This article appears in Restaurant Guide 2025.
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