Recipe for success
Green Acres, the homegrown restaurant chain known for its chicken wings, fried green tomatoes and soul food, is spreading its wings with even more locations.Green Acres Cafe is quietly becoming the place to be in Birmingham.
The homegrown restaurant chain known for its chicken wings, fried green tomatoes and soul food is rapidly spreading its wings as part of an expansion plan through franchise partners. When company owner Charles Gratton died in 1999, Green Acres had only three locations: downtown at 1705 Fourth Ave. North, West End at 1749 Pearson Ave. and in Avondale at 4350 Third Court South.
Today, Green Acres, now operated by Charles Gratton’s son, Greg, has a total of seven. By year-end, four more franchised restaurants will open – Green Acres Hueytown on Allison-Bonnet Memorial Drive in July, Green Acres Ensley on 20th Street Ensley in August, Green Acres Forestdale by late September and Green Acres Moundville near Huntsville this fall. Gratton believes his father, Charles, in whose name the Fourth Avenue Business District was dedicated a few years ago, would approve as the business continues to expand.
“When my father died, some people told me I wouldn’t be able to succeed,” Gratton said.
The restaurant’s success is evident to anyone who has glimpsed the long lunch crowd lines on weekdays, when it’s common to see cars blocking the left lane on Fourth Avenue North as the drivers rush in to pick up orders.
Gratton began helping out in his father’s downtown restaurant at age 7 in 1958. He credits his father’s refusal to compromise on Green Acre’s simple menu, his focus on reasonable prices and his faith for the company’s success.
Josephine Geeter, who manages the downtown Green Acres and has been employed at the restaurant since 1968, said the popularity of the chain’s chicken wings and fried green tomatoes is simple: “We fix ‘em just right, like people like them,” she said. Longtime Green Acres customer Jonathan Austin, executive director of the Center for Urban Missions downtown, said the crispy taste and seasoning of its chicken wings won him over. “First of all they have good food and secondly, they’re good people. I know the family well,” he said.
Bob Dickerson, executive director of the Birmingham Business Resource Center, said Greg Gratton has done a solid job of continuing the legacy begun by his father, who opened the downtown restaurant in 1958, and his uncle, William Gratton, who opened the original Green Acres in north Birmingham in 1950.
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