Like many people did during COVID, Adaobi Ofor of Suwanee started baking. Her specialty was comfort food from her homeland of Nigeria, specifically African meat pies. Having only baked for family functions, she had no intention of starting a business. It took losing her job as a financial analyst for Coca-Cola to make her start taking her baking skills seriously.
Now Ofor is testing the commercial waters by serving her pies and other Nigerian dishes at Uptown Test Kitchen. The restaurant incubator in Uptown Atlanta hosts the Chow a La Carte pop-up every week, Thursday through Sunday, featuring up-and-coming chefs who create dishes representing a variety of cuisines.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
As pop-up restaurants continue to grow in numbers and popularity in Atlanta, much of their success can be attributed to food halls and other businesses that help them get established by covering their overhead or publicizing their events.
“Just look at this! Do you see my name right there?” Ofor says excitedly as she points to her business sign displayed at Uptown Test Kitchen along with flags from Chile, Mexico and Nigeria. “How many restaurants can you walk into and say, ‘This is me?’ … This doesn’t say Chow a La Carte … this says The Butter Crumble,” the name she calls her enterprise.
In addition to Ofor, Chow a La Carte currently also hosts Jackson Washington III of JW3 Kitchen, who specializes in Southern comfort food, and private chef Michele Tompkins of Roots & Culture Craft Kitchen, whose eclectic dishes combine elements from various global cuisines.
Chow a La Carte is organized by Yohana Solomon, cofounder of Chow Club Atlanta, a monthly dinner showcasing local chefs. Providing a space where chefs don’t have to worry about the overhead and “can cook to their heart is content and present it to the guest is a privilege,” she says. “You have chefs from Colombia, Nigeria. Where else can you go in and talk to a Nigerian chef?”
Ofor’s goal is to have a stall one day at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, but for now her biggest challenge is advertising. Getting the word out is essential for pop-ups to succeed. Sam Flemming has a solution for that.
Flemming has created Punk Foodie, a digital resource that culls social media posts to populate a searchable database that tracks the locations and hours of restaurant pop-ups and food trucks throughout the city. The service is free for both consumers and chefs. Users can just go to punkfoodie.com, click on “App” and plug in a date range to find all sorts of options. Flemming also produces a subscription newsletter and is developing an app so that details about pop-ups and food trucks will be at users’ fingertips.
“I was in China for about 20 years and while there, I got to travel all over China, all over Asia, really, all over the world and tried all kinds of different food,” Flemming said. He started Punk Foodie to recreate that rush of trying new food, interacting with chefs and sharing in their passion.
Credit: Courtesy of Uptown Test Kitchen
Credit: Courtesy of Uptown Test Kitchen
Earlier this year, Punk Foodie partnered with Darwin Hotel in Old Fourth Ward to host a regular series of pop-ups called Evolution of Dining: A Pop-Up Chef Series. Gourmet Street Foods, Jimmie’s Jerk Chicken and Salty Smiles were among some of the outfits that were featured.
Private chef Andre Bernadine said his pop-up at Darwin provided a platform for him to network with the community and “now they have certain groups that can request me to be their personal chef at their event.”
On Oct. 12, Flemming opened Punk Foodie @ Ponce, a food stall at Ponce City Market where he’ll host month-long residencies for chefs in exchange for a percentage of their sales. No stranger to the pop-up scene, the Korean fusion restaurant Ganji will be the stall’s first resident. During their residency, owners Jess Kim and Jun Park will produce their signature dishes like ramen fries and the Ganji burger.
Credit: Martha Williams
Credit: Martha Williams
Even businesses not directly related to the hospitality industry are providing a place for chefs to hone their skills and cultivate followers.
Quianah Upton, who opened Nourish Botanica plant and floral shop in southwest Atlanta last year, wanted to provide her neighbors with easy access to healthy vegan food so she opened Nourish Botanica Café earlier this year.
Centered around the pop-up concept, she collaborates with African American chefs like Mahogany Jones of Pizza Haven who pay a fee to prepare their foods offsite and sell it at the café Wednesday through Sunday.
“I didn’t have to hire one specific chef,” says Upton. “Atlanta has so many talented cooks and chefs. It helped me because I was able to keep it fresh and continuously change it up.”
And at the same time, it helps inexperienced chefs figure things out without having to worry about paying the power bill.
Having time to experiment in an incubator “is critical for a Black and brown cook and/or chef,” she says. “We don’t have the accessibility and the resources to mess up … You need to play … Do I really want to do pastries with almond milk? Or do I want oat milk? How does it change the flavor of the recipe? All that stuff is experimental, and you can’t do that at the top because that’s when you fail.”
Food halls and stalls
Chow a La Carte. Noon-7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday. 2440 Piedmont Road, Atlanta. uptownatlanta.com/chowalacarte
Punk Foodie @ Ponce. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday. Ponce City Market, 675 Ponce De Leon Ave. NE, Atlanta. 404-900-7900, punkfoodie.com
Nourish Botanica Cafe. Noon- 6 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. 1651 Pryor Road SW, Atlanta. 404-228-1480, nourishbotanica.cafe
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