Family, Soul , and BBQ with Pat Neely

Tell us your story.

I was one of 6 kids. My father died of a heart attack when he was 40. It was a struggle because he passed without life insurance. So as a boy, I had to work at my uncle’s grocery store. It was my first taste of entrepreneurship – first time I had seen a Black Man running his own business.

All the money I was making went back into the house because my mother struggled to find work at a time when it was especially hard for women to find work outside of the home. I worked all throughout school while also playing sports, excelling at both. When I went off to college with my scholarship and came back home it broke my heart because my mother’s house was in foreclosure, and I blamed myself. I thought that maybe if I had stayed and worked, I could’ve saved her home. She wound up moving in with my aunts.

Around this time, I came home – I had injured my knee while at practice, and while home my brother and I began to think about ways to help our mother. We decided on a restaurant, and thanks to our grandmother who at 94 put her house up as collateral, secured us a 20,000-dollar loan. After two years I was able to pay my grandmother back and begin to expand. First to a second location, but then to Nashville and then we were off and running.

We eventually started to get national attention, which led to an opportunity with Food Network. We wound up producing 300 episodes of a tv show, becoming Brand Ambassadors for other groups, writing a New York Times Bestseller, etc.

Around 2014 it got to be a little too much, so I made the difficult decision to shut it down. Shortly after that my Wife asked for a divorce. I kept working as an ambassador and Tom Joyner asked me work as the Chef on one of his cruise lines. I took him up on the offer and met my next wife on the ship. We wound up eventually moving to Georgia together and I am the happiest I have ever been.

When the Pandemic hit my Wife went back to work, but I stayed with the kids, and it has been such a blessing. We’re beginning to have conversations now with Food Network about getting the show back on the air, but those are ongoing.

Do you see the need for young Black boys to have more mentors?

Yes. It needs to be organized on a large scale throughout the entire community. There isn’t enough vale placed on those roles in our society. For example, teachers are some of the lowest paid professions in our community and it’s a damn shame, because they’re responsible for our kids. We should pay them more to improve our roster of teachers. The black church could be a tremendous foundation for mentors to meet with the youth. Principals, Police and Coaches are also important for the discipline they can instill in the youth. Mentorship is an obligation all adults in the community should share.

How important is business ownership in the black community?

Very important. We’re just starting now to see second generation black business. One of the things we as black business owners have to do is not only worry about profit/loss but also uplift our black employees. This can mean taking a role in their personal lives, but also offering fresh starts to people who need it.