Pie in the Sky bakeries have been a fixture of Karachi for over a decade, and the original Chatterbox at Zamzama was a natural extension. "I want to have the flexibility to be a very active father.In a city that thrives on reinvention while remaining dedicated to its classics, giving an old favourite a makeover is a tricky undertaking. "My goal is to continue busting my butt," he said. He has received small-business grants from the Community Foundation, Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union and the city of Chattanooga through a Community Reinvestment Grant.Įllis said he hopes to soon deploy a new 52-foot food truck with a commercial kitchen that will become the beating heart of his food operation. He said he has managed to build the business without taking on debt. There is a patio at the property that he hopes will come alive with guests once the COVID-19 pandemic is over. Soon, he began booking events and using a concessions truck - a converted horse trailer - to grow a small barbecue cooking business.Įarlier this year, he took over the lease of a produce store on Shallowford Road near Lee Highway and began to serve take-out barbecue dishes to a growing customer base. Here in Chattanooga, he started a commercial cleaning business that grew to involve about 30 clients - including the Lookout Mountain Club and the Manker Patten Tennis Club - and a dozen employees.Įventually, Ellis handed the cleaning business off to an aunt and decided to try something new. I wasn't just having to figure out my own." "I had a support system at church and mentors. "Building relationships in Chattanooga helped me," he said. Once out of prison he used the Adult & Teen Challenge program to redirect his life. "I ended up getting into trafficking drugs - trafficking cocaine, marijuana, pills," he said. That's where the twists and turns came into play."īack home, Ellis worked several lower-paying jobs before yielding to the temptation of the streets, he said. "I wasn't serious about it, and was just wasting time and money," he said. He returned to Kentucky for his final year of high school and then briefly attended Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Kentucky, before dropping out. There, he learned how to navigate in a largely white environment, he said - the county's population is less than 3 percent Black. Meanwhile, Ellis said that when he was a child his mother worked two jobs and his father was not always around.Īt age 15, Ellis, who is Black, moved to Forsyth County, Georgia, to live with an uncle. Staff Photo by Angela Lewis Foster / Brandon Ellis takes jerk chicken out of the smoker Friday, Feb. "If I wanted a BB gun and it cost $100, I needed to make $100." "My grandfather showed me that if I wanted anything all I had to do was be willing to work," Ellis said. Growing up near Franklin, Kentucky, population 9,010, Ellis said, he was working for his grandfather planting tobacco by the time he was 8 years old. "I just want to be able to cook enough to pay my bills and live," he said.Įllis believes that his work ethic, honed as a child in the tobacco fields of Kentucky, will help him make it as an entrepreneur. It's Ellis' dream to build the business so he can attend Harper's after-school activities in a few years. Some days his 2-year-old daughter, Harper, hangs out with him. He specializes in cooking pulled-pork barbecue, ribs and beef brisket along with side dishes such as potato salad and smoked macaroni and cheese. You may see him on Signal Mountain Road this week selling barbecue from one of his trucks. His Chatter Box Cafe at 6801 Shallowford Road is home base for his food truck and catering business. Now, more than a decade later, Ellis is a small business owner. He was released into a faith-based program called Adult & Teen Challenge that provided structure, mentors and a path to independence. Until you are taken out of it, you can't really see it for what it is."Īfter only a few months in jail, Ellis got a second chance. "You wake up, sell drugs, make money and survive. "For some people, like it or not, that's their reality," said Ellis, 36. The Kentucky native said he started selling drugs after he dropped out of college. Fourteen years ago, Brandon Ellis hit rock bottom.Įllis, then in his early 20s, was facing felony drug charges, he said, with the possibility of spending significant time behind bars.
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