On any given day this summer you could have found yourself walking down Brady St. and passed by a gem of a restaurant without even knowing it. The Burger Shack at Nomad World Pub, located at 1401 E. Brady St., calls the iconic bar’s patio space its seasonal home. Pushing out specialty burgers and traditional bar food, the small shack itself can be easy to miss if you’ve never been there before.

Nevertheless, it saw its second summer awash with opportunities to satiate bar hoppers and regulars alike. This is largely thanks to its new Executive Chef Christian Röeming—a young chef who spent much of his downtime this summer scribbling away in a journal full of recipes and helping coordinate the Nomad World Pub’s Boricua Night Market event.

Pulling on his memories as a child and the culinary experimentation that his family allowed, Röeming recognizes that this type of success isn’t something you’ll get every day and is something that doesn’t happen overnight. Röeming has almost a decade of back of the house experience under his belt. His abilities and success are a testament to the hard work and determination that every artist puts into making their craft successful.

“I started as a dishwasher before moving to the line at Stonefly, before finally running the kitchen at that place,” said Röeming.

Working his way through the back of the house is largely what brought him the opportunity to run the Burger Shack’s kitchen.

Starting in the company’s pop up location, Nomad Nacional, Röeming put his talents on display for summer 2018 and quickly made it obvious that his goals in the kitchen extended beyond the temporary space. He also helped the company open its Fiserv Forum adjacent venue Tavern at Turner Hall before setting his eyes on the Nomad Burger Shack.

The quaint operation was manned by just two employees and himself for the summer. They pushed to sell through as much volume as possible while keeping customers satisfied, which led to some of the venue’s most successful days.

When thinking back to the busiest days this summer, Röeming immediately considered the Brady Street Festival and Boricua Night Market.

On August 31, Nomad parted from the regular menu for just a night and transformed its outdoor patio, putting Röeming’s culinary skills to the test as he and the bar worked to not only provide excellent food to their regulars, but he invited completely new faces from the community into a space that he had created.

“We were already planning an event to do and me and the general manager of Nomad, Tim [Sluga], thought that doing a Puerto Rican Night Market would be a great way to use my heritage and background in the kitchen,” Röeming said.

The long hours and nonstop cooking gave him the opportunity to show his employees and own bosses that he was willing to put in the work needed to see his kitchen be successful. This success has also primed him for next season’s busy summer with lessons learned from this season ready to be implemented.

Röeming called on the recipes he knew from his childhood and memories of the aromas and flavors that enticed him from food stands during visits to Puerto Rico, such as serving the likes of pernil and papas rellenas, and brought them to the barstools of one of Brady Street’s most well-known hangouts. Truly pushing the Nomad’s motto of traveling the world without ever having to leave your seat.

Along with the success of the Boricua Night, Röeming is excited to add the Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich to the menu.

“It’s something that we had as a special and employees and customers have really grown to like it. It will be on the regular menu next season,” he said.

Röeming would like to see more events like Boricua Night to be hosted in the future. When talking about the event there’s no way to avoid seeing the pride in Röeming’s eyes and hearing it in his voice:

“I feel proud of what we did here. We brought in more people of color than I think I’ve ever seen come to Nomad at one time,” he said. From 7 a.m. to the bar’s close, he and his cooks prepared food that he had grown to love and was now able to share with the world in a kitchen he was running.

As he continues forward with the summer season now over and his eyes set on next year, Röeming also wants to help make positive industry changes that affect more than just the kitchen he works in. He hopes to break down barriers and bridge the gap of collaboration between the front of the house and back of the house. He understands that sometimes miscommunication and front of the house staff can leave people at odds with each other. He sees this as an unnecessary disruption in environments where he wants to see everybody successful.

Instead, Röeming would like to see coworkers who are at odds lift each other up to provide a great environment for everyone to thrive. This ideology doesn’t stop there because he hopes that as the world becomes more empathetic so will the patrons of all service industry locations.

“You know everyone has their own lives and their own stuff going on,” Röeming said. “A little empathy and appreciation can go a long way in making your servers’ day.”