Alumni Magazine - Fall 2008 - (Page 47) Photo: Gary Meek Holy Smokes Barbecue opened for business at 1944 Braselton Highway in Buford, Ga., in the fall of 2006. Garren left In Touch Ministries to run the place. Hathaway juggles restaurant co-ownership and his present job as a systems engineer with TI Broadcast Solutions Group, for which he works with such clients as Great American Country. A third partner and former co-worker, Brian Hume, is the media director for Hebron Baptist Church in Dacula, Ga., and Holy Smokes’ chief financial officer. After Hathaway and Garren recovered from the turkey-smoking episode, they bought a smoker with a 3-by-4-foot cooking surface. “We started offering some catering. We had a couple of people from churches hire us to do events. That was kind of the beginning of everything,” Hathaway says. Hathaway, Garren and Hume carpooled to work and started straying from their usual route to check out restaurant sites. None of them had experience running a restaurant. They call their immersion into the business a crash course. “It’s not even the stuff that you think it’s going to be. It’s 90 percent running a business and 10 percent cooking. I bring the brains,” Hathaway cracks after admitting that Garren is the creative force behind the food. “I do most of the technical stuff. I manage the Web site (www.holysmokes-bbq.com). I create the marketing materials.” With seating for less than three dozen barbecue eaters at a time, Holy Smokes is tucked at the end of a small strip of stores, a Chinese restaurant on the opposite end, along developing Highway 124 in northern Gwinnett County. “This location is an investment for us,” Hathaway says. “This intersection sees 25,000 cars a day, but it’s not a destination. We saw the development that was going on here and decided that if we can invest here and get established, as this corner develops we’ll develop with it and our business will grow. We’ve seen that happen slowly.” When the co-owners saw the space, they knew it was meant to be. The architect’s >>> Mat Hathaway, EE 01, and Kenny Garren have turned 28 turkeys and an all-nighter into a barbecue business. Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Fall 2008 47 http://www.holysmokes-bbq.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.