Help Kick Start Grace’s Goodness!
It wasn’t until last summer that I was introduced to the food truck revolution that’s trying to take place in Atlanta. I became acquainted with the movement when my friend and fellow Purge contributor Brittany decided to start a food truck called Grace’s Goodness. Up until that point, I was pretty clueless on the subject, but the idea of a truck potentially pulling up outside the bar at 3am and satisfying my cravings (and helping me avoid IHOP) sounded pretty amazing.
A short while later, I attended what was to be Grace’s Goodness introduction to the city of Atlanta at the Sweet Auburn Market. Upon arrival, Brittany greeted me with homemade pimento cheese and a blueberry beverage that I later found out to be agua fresca. All of it was delicious and left me wanting more.
Fortunately, I got the chance. My next experience with Grace’s Goodness was at a wedding she catered for some close friends. To say that the couple that tied the knot were a bit southern would be an understatement. (It wouldn’t surprise me if they got engaged at the laser show). Naturally, the wedding celebration concluded with a Grace’s Goodness catered dinner that consisted of BBQ chicken, pimento cheese and the best macaroni & cheese that I’ve ever tasted. Currently, the mac & cheese hasn’t made an appearance on the Grace’s Goodness menu, but I would sell a small portion of my soul to make it happen.
Within the first year of operating Grace’s Goodness, Brittany has already taken the plunge and made it her full-time job. Like every new business venture, obstacles are always going to stand in your way and sometimes you have to get creative with your solutions. The next big step for Grace’s Goodness is expansion. No longer satisfied with just setting up at farmer’s markets and catering weddings. Brittany is now ready to fulfill the original vision of Grace’s Goodness–taking her organic cuisine to the streets of Atlanta.
Purge: For those who didn’t read the intro– what is Grace’s Goodness?
Brittany: It’s good food accessible to everyone. It’s slow food stored in jars and containers that you can take with you anywhere.
Purge: If I wanted to buy pimento cheese or any thing else from Grace’s Goodness where can I buy it?
Brittany: There are four farmer’s markets a week. There are two in Decatur(Wednesday and Saturday). East Atlanta’s farmer’s market is on Thursday and it’s across from the Midway Pub. Grant Park’s farmer’s market is held on Sunday mornings.
Purge: If I wanted to give Grace’s Goodness all of my money for all of your food where else can I buy it?
Brittany: I do events, catering, door-step delivery (on special request) and I’ll eventually sell street food in the truck.
Purge: Where did you come up with the idea for Grace’s Goodness?
Brittany: I was working 13 hour days and going to grad school in between and I got really tired of having to go to Kroger to buy blueberries and watermelon when I really wanted something delicious and I didn’t want Chik-fil-A. So then I started going to the farmer’s market and making stuff myself and realized that it was a pain in the ass to do it yourself when you’re working and going to school. So I decided to do it for everyone else!
Purge: Would you say that Grace’s Goodness is healthier than Chik-fil-A?
Brittany: Yes. Undoubtedly.
Purge: What do you order when you go to Chik-fil-A, since there is one across the street?
(The Decatur farmer’s market sits across from the Chik-fil-A and diagonal to Eddie’s Attic in Downtown Decatur)
Brittany: I don’t go there. I do like their diet lemonade. It’s delicious. I believe it might be Crystal Light.
Purge: Do you eat fast food at all?
Brittany: Not anymore. I use to. If it’s a local place that’s fast food, but not a chain and I believe that they’re really awesome and I love the way that they’re talking to me– I’ll eat it!
Purge: What’s your favorite restaurant like that?
Brittany: There was this roadside restaurant in Arkansas that we stopped at that had a big billboard that said that Billy Bob Thornton liked it. They had really good ribs and coleslaw. It was a truck stop.
(Brittany asked her boyfriend what the name of the place was. Their guesses were Uncle Ned’s or Jimmy’s Fried Catfish .)
Purge: What’s the most popular Grace’s Goodness dish?
Brittany: Hands down– Mom’s Pimento Cheese. Which is a recipe that I got from my mother. I hand grate all of the cheese. I grate 10 pounds of it every couple of days.
(While saying this she raised her right arm in a Rosie the Riveter pose, flexed and pointed to her guns. Children hid behind parents, a singer/song writer performing at the market started playing Peter Frampton and Arnold Schwarzenegger discovered that he had yet another “love child“.)
Brittany: I never imagined in my entire life that I would be making pimento cheese for a living, but people really love it.
Purge: You gave me a tasty beverage earlier, what was that?
Brittany: Watermelon agua fresca. It’s made from local watermelon, mineral water, salt and that’s it. I actually do different agua frescas every week depending on what kind of melon I get. They’re delicious and there’s no sugar in it. It’s probably the other top seller.
Purge: What other flavors do you offer?
Brittany: Cantaloupe, honey dew, blackberry and blueberry.
Purge: You’ve recently teamed up with kickstarter.com (a funding platform set up for people to pledge money to creative projects). Can you explain what it’s all about in lay men’s terms?
Brittany: Yes. It’s a really rad website for people who are aspiring entrepreneurs who want to achieve a very specific business project. You have to have a finite project to approach Kick Starter with and tell them what you want to do, why you want to do it, why it’s important and why it matters.
If you’re approved you have to figure out how much money you need for your project and then explain to everyone who would want to pledge money what they’re going to get in return for giving something to you. It’s not a loan, but for every increment of money that someone will pledge, Grace’s Goodness will give something back to them.
It’s supposed to be a very amicable thing, it’s not just “give me money.“
Purge: Is there a timeline for raising the money that you need?
Brittany: Yeah. It started this month(July) and the deadline is August 4th. The pledge is almost at 40%. I need to raise $7,000 total and I‘ve raised $2600. I need to raise about $4000 more.
With Kick Starter if you don’t meet your goal, no money changes hands and I get nothing. So if someone donates $100 and I don’t meet the goal the money won’t come out of their account.
Purge: What’s the smallest amount of money that can be donated?
Brittany: A dollar!
Purge: What’s the most money that can be donated?
Brittany: $200,000!
Purge: After you meet your goal where do you go from there?
Brittany: The reason I need it is because I bought a box truck in February and it stopped working immediately. I had to get it towed to a mechanic in Decatur and they said it would be a lot of money to get it fixed and I said “Oh no!”
So it’s been squatting in the parking lot of this mechanic’s shop since March. When I get it fixed I want to run it on vegetable oil since it’s diesel, pimp it out, get it really pretty and have “Get fresh with yourself on the side”. Then I’ll be able to take Grace’s Goodness to schools, office buildings, parking lots and parties. That’s the idea.
Purge: What does “Get fresh with your self” mean?
Brittany: It means have a good time with yourself!
Purge: With vegetables?
Brittany: Yes it does. You can get fresh with yourself and my vegetables at the same time.
Purge: I know lots of people who get fresh with themselves. It may or may not involve vegetables though.
Brittany: I genuinely love getting fresh with myself and I thought everyone else probably does too.
Purge: So with cucumbers and zucchini?
Brittany: With whatever your heart desires. You can get fresh with anything and Grace’s Goodness items change weekly.
To pledge money to get the Grace’s Goodness food truck on the streets of Atlanta go to www.kickstarter.com.