Biscuits n Brunch
Breakfast, Southern, Food
David Engle took his extra time during the pandemic to raise his cooking skills, push his understanding of flavors, and create Biscuits n' Brunch, a southern-style breakfast that just works.
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Transcript
David Engle: My name is Dave Engle. I am owner and operator of Biscuits n Brunch. It's a catering and pop up business in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
Voiceover: David's business got started the same way a lot of businesses did in 2020.
DE: We started in the middle of COVID when everybody was getting laid off from their jobs. I got laid off as well. I had had a big catering company in Florida. I closed down and the grandkids started coming. And then after COVID hit, I had a lot of time on my hands and I had a lot of recipes that I didn't know what to do with. So we started fiddling around in the kitchen with biscuits and fried chicken and mac and cheese, and we just went forward from there. I found a restaurant, a local Jim and Nick's, where I knew the bartender, I knew the chef, and I knew a few of the people there. So I would come in every week and bring the product. And then they would either love it or hate it. Pushed me back to the drawing board, and this process took about five months of me just going in and going in. And then the look on their face when I nailed the biscuit because that was the whole thing. And when I nailed that, I can’t begin to tell you I could still see very vividly the look on their face where they said they just looked at me and smiled. They go, There it is.
We opened Labor Day in 2020. We set up at a lot of breweries at that time. We figured the first year we would do the breweries, go out on a Sunday or a Saturday, get to know everybody, let them try my product, and we started building a nice little following, nothing spectacular. I stayed in my area, but we were doing about eight or nine breweries for about a year. Brides were calling and moms were calling. And so now the business developed and we sort of shifted directions in the second year and we do like three or four weddings a month. We do a lot of brunches, a lot of catering.
VO: with food being such a popular business, David had to be very strategic with his niche.
DE: Believe it or not, my Southern menu. Since I'm a Jewish guy from South Florida, what the hell did I know of Southern menus? But I make a really good pulled pork and brisket. And then when you add the fresh mahi and the collards and the green beans and it's a great brunch that surprised me. It took a while on the pork. Once I nailed the pork, people were going crazy. I went with a Latin style, pulled pork. Everybody had a wing, so we weren't could do wings. Everybody had chicken and waffles. But we were going to do them our way. But we wanted to add more like a Southern flair to everything and a more updated street food, like we have a fried chicken quesadilla. It's basically my fried chicken, peppers and onions, mixed cheese and a big, you know, a big tortilla shell. And then as the year went on, we created almost 35 different biscuits in terms of the recipes. The biscuit is we have the basic pepper drop then a cheddar, then a jalapeno and then I've got the sweet biscuits. And then we have an item called the discuit, which is a biscuit donut.
VO: With all those offerings. Which biscuit has been the winner?
DE: Well, the cheddar. I didn't realize how popular the Cheddar Biscuit was going to become. I also have to my advantage is my daughter does all the canning, so I've got fresh jams and jellies that go out to my branches.
VO: What keeps biscuits and brunch working events? It's not just what he brings to people. It's what they give back.
DE: It's everything because it's instant feedback. The funny part or the good and the bad part. The bad part, which is really a good part. I guess the way you look at it is that 20 years ago, when people would try your food, they would say, Oh, I love this, this is delicious, or I've had better. That's it. Now it's a sermon about, you know, the texture is so this. And I love the mix of the flavors and the layering.It's like, did you like it or not? Texturing, layering. And believe me, it took me a long time to learn how to layer my foods with flavors because, on my cluck cluck, it's the pepper drop biscuit with this buttermilk sriracha fried chicken. But then it's cheddar, then it's applewood smoked bacon, then it's coleslaw, then it's honey mustard. So it's a layer upon layer. Now, if didn’t work, you would know it, but it worked. That was part of the testing for that, for that part for five months. That's my number one item. It just works. People like to see you cook. People like to see the food’s fresh, scratch made. With me, it's an open tent. What you see is what you get. You see the waffle batter, You see the biscuits. You see the chicken being made right in front of you. So nothing is sitting.
VO: If your mouth is watering, maybe it's time to bring David Engle and Biscuits n Brunch to your next event. It's going to make your attendees very happy.