Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Brown.
Eric, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Born and raised in Atlanta, I have always been involved in food. I started learning to cook with my mother when I was 3 or 4 years old and grilling steaks with my dad as soon as I could reach the grill. I was always fascinated with food. By the time I was 10, I could cook an entire meal. I have been involved in the food service industry now for about 25 years working in restaurants as a cook, bartender, server, and manager. I have worked in every style of restaurant from Waffle House to fine dining. After 20 years in the industry, I decided to go back to school for culinary, where I was able to refine my techniques. Last year I started growing peppers and making my own tabasco sauce.
People could not get enough of it. The sauce was being made for personal use, yet people were begging to buy it. This January, my wife encouraged me to plant more pepper plants and bottle the sauce for sale. So that’s what I did. We have 5 jalapenos, 10 banana peppers, 6 cayenne, 1 habanero, 1 grand Marconi, 1 havasu, 1 tabasco, 1 caren, 1 poblano, and 1 ghost pepper plant that are producing right now, as well as, cucumbers, tomatoes, and several herbs. We just launched our brand 6 weeks ago. Right now, we have many different locally grown and made products available which we package ourselves including 6 different pepper sauces.
Has it been a smooth road?
I’ve fortunately been able to build this brand at my own pace which has been awesome. So besides the insane amount of rain that has destroyed many of our plants this year, everything has been pretty smooth.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Southgate Atlanta story. Tell us more about the business.
The name Southgate started in 2015 when my wife and I decided that we would open our own restaurant in Locust Grove. We fell in love with this iron gate on the building and since it was south of Atlanta we came up with the name Southgate. We ended up not opening the restaurant, but kept the name close to our hearts. We decided to move forward with this name on bottling our homegrown pepper sauces, pickles, pickled jalapenos, chow chow. and my specialty, barbecue sauce (the only thing not grown in the garden). I became known in the community of Melrose Park for an event that I started for our community called Meatfest in 2014. It is a pot luck barbecue where, if you bring it, we’ll smoke it. The past 2 years we have had about 100 people (neighbors and friends and family of neighbors) show up and have worked with another neighbor and friend, Phil Augustine, to put on live music featuring reputable local bands. From there I have been able to get myself out there to our neighborhood and have become known as “the chef” in Melrose Park.
I’m most proud that I grow all the peppers and vegetables and cook all the sauces myself. And that we bottle and label and seal everything ourselves.
What sets us apart, is that we are an urban garden, not some big farm or operation. I can look out the window of my condo and see my garden at any time of the day. This makes things very personal.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Right now, we are just focusing on the integrity of what we produce. Who knows what will happen in the next ten years. Right now, we are looking at possibly purchasing a small portion of land in town to make the garden bigger for next year. All I know is that I want to keep the personal aspect in my business, because that’s what makes it special.
Contact Info:
- Address: 704 Argonne Ave., unit 3
- Phone: 4043968595
- Email: ericbrown611@hotmail.com
- Instagram: Southgate.atlanta
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/southgatebarbecue/
Image Credit:
Eric and Toni Brown
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