Before Eric Hanks opened his restaurant, he had to make sure the food was just right. He also had to know what it cost him to make the food, so he could figure out what to charge.
DeKalb and Clayton counties became his testing ground. For the last several months, Mr. Hanks’ weekends were dominated by food. Ribs, meatloaf, dirty rice and other tasty treats could be ordered from his mobile eatery. Most recently he could be seen on Candler Road, across from South DeKalb Mall. Flanked by his mother, Deborah Hanks, and his fiancée, Gladys Ferguson, Mr. Hanks gladly served up heaping helpings of food, and the people came back for more.
“Since it was mobile, people had his cellphone number,” Ms. Ferguson said. “And sometimes it would be midnight and they’d still call and say, ‘Just tell us where he’s going to be tomorrow.’”
Mr. Hanks, 44, was pleased with the result of his market study, and had even picked out a spot for his first fixed location. He was the happiest Ms. Ferguson had seen him since they started the mobile kitchen.
“The point wasn’t to have a mobile business, but to make sure the food was right,” she said. “He didn’t just jump out with a restaurant idea.”
Early in the morning of Aug. 15, Mr. Hanks was returning to the Buckhead-area apartment he shared with Ms. Ferguson. He’d dropped off a relative in Clayton County and was headed toward the Lenox Road exit on Ga. 400 when his car collided with a vehicle being driven in the wrong direction. Mr. Hanks and the woman who was driving the wrong way were both killed. A passenger in the woman’s car was critically injured. Police officials said alcohol may have contributed to the female driver’s actions.
A memorial service for Eric Eugene Hanks of Atlanta has been scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday at Williamson Mortuary in Riverdale, which also handled the cremation.
Born in Detroit, Mr. Hanks and his mother moved to Atlanta when he was 8 or 9 years old. An only child, he graduated from North Clayton High School and attended some college, but his passions were food and music, his mother said.
“We used to get in the kitchen and cook together,” Ms. Hanks said. “And the dishes I taught him to make, some of them he made better than me.”
Mr. Hanks really fell in love with food when he lived in Florida, where he was a sous chef at Walt Disney World Resort. He studied chefs, foods and spices, and he even learned French cooking. He was a natural at taking a recipe and adding just the right thing to it, Ms. Ferguson said.
“So what you got was a blend of Southern and French cooking, with an Eric twist,” she said. “He just knew how to put things together.”
Ms. Hanks has no doubt her son’s restaurant would have been a success. Since he was a small boy, he could be very focused when there was something he wanted to do, she said.
“He had a way of figuring things out,” she said. “So if he decided he was going to do something, he did it.”
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