Zac Brown Band ‘eat and greets’ featured on TV show on FYI

He is also responsible for feeding 150 fans before every concert in what he dubs an “eat and greet,” a twist on the standard fan “meet and greet.”

And Hamlin doesn’t dole out burgers and hot dogs. He cooks gourmet meals.

The FYI network is chronicling his efforts on "Rusty's RockFeast: Backstage With Zac Brown Band," which debuted last Thursday.

Georgia’s own Zac Brown said he cares about food as much as he does his music.

“What we love about the ‘eat and greet’ is that it completely turns the table around on the fans,” Brown told CNN last fall. “We’re eating with them and serving them, hanging out with them. That is the best fellowship we can create.”

Hamlin, who also runs Atkins Park Tavern in Smyrna, met Zac Brown songwriter Wyatt Durrette at Atkins Park in the early 2000s when Durrette was a bartender there. Durrette introduced Hamlin to Brown, and they became fast friends. “When I first met Zac, I knew there was something amazing there,” Hamlin said, when Zac Brown’s group was just a bar band.

He’d join Zac Brown on the road, and by the time “Chicken Fried” and “Toes” had become massive country hits in 2009, they decided to create the “eat and greet.”

Hamlin first bought a used 14-foot taco truck that was pulled behind the tour bus. It was suitably named “Miss Treated.” Eighteen months later, Zac Brown rewarded Hamlin with a spankin’ new 54-foot trailer Hamlin dubbed “Cookie.”

In each city, Hamlin wakes up early in the morning long before the band does and starts sourcing food. With just a few hundred dollars in his budget, he’d hit local farmers markets and docks and pick out his menu on the fly. He’d try to get back by noon and cook a full meal by 5 p.m.

“It’s a race to find everything,” he said. “It’s always down to the wire. We’re not making mashed potatoes. We’re doing chef food. We put a lot of labor into what we do.”

In an episode that aired last week, the band rolled into Dallas. Hamlin created Southwestern Berkshire pork sausage with jalapenos, garlic and Jack cheese. This was accompanied by seasonal autumn squash bisque, Greek purple potato salad, sweet-and-smoky collard greens with smoked turkey and sweet Vidalia onion and farmer’s pot pie. Dessert? Monkey bread.

Hamlin said fans who are in the Zac Brown fan club ($40 a year) at zacbrownband.com can place themselves in a lottery to be part of an "eat and greet." The "eat and greet" passes are $100 each and are sold only in pairs — $200 for a pair, limit one pair. To spread the wealth, fans can win the lottery only once every six months.

“We’re more interested in getting to know our fans than them getting to know us,” Hamlin said.

The band doesn’t really make any short-term profit from the “eat and greets,” but as Hamlin says, “they are hopefully fans for life.” Folks who attend these events, he said, will hopefully spend plenty of bucks down the road buying Zac Brown music, purchasing merchandise and seeing them multiple times in concert.