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Chef Charles Gabriel is a legend. He’s a two-time James Beard Award nominee, and the man the New Yorker calls the “fried-chicken king.” He’s also the person who — without even knowing it — set me on my life’s path.
When I was a kid growing up in Harlem, my mom would take me to his soul food spot, Copeland’s, whenever she had a little money saved. I’d rush to the counter to stare at the oxtails. Then the kitchen door would swing open and I’d see a Black man (Chef Charles) in a chef’s hat. I’d think, “Man, I want to do that.”
He’s the reason I went to culinary school, became a chef, and got into restaurant management. I saw that he had moved on from Copeland’s, which closed in 2007, but was always cooking for people, whether it was at a brick-and-mortar restaurant, a food truck, or a fold-out table in Harlem. It was an inspiration. Fast-forward to 2020. I was watching the news and, boom, there’s Chef Charles. He had closed his restaurant because of COVID. But he was still cooking, serving 300 meals a day to the homeless at a commissary he had set up at church. I said to myself, “I’m going down there to help.” He had no idea who I was, but I wanted to work next to the man who had inspired me.
I cooked with Chef Charles every day after that. I was a ball of nerves working next to him, but I was excited. We bonded cooking for the homeless day in and day out. We weren’t firefighters or doctors, but it was a critical time and we were doing what we could. At one point he told me he wasn’t going to reopen his restaurant. I told him, “We can’t let that happen. COVID has already taken too much from us. It’s not going to take away Charles Pan-Fried Chicken, too.”
Our business partnership started with saving the restaurant. Thirteen months later, we were running four locations and had a booming catering business. It all happened fast — and yeah, it was a little crazy. But the lessons we picked up along the way? They’ve stuck. And they can help anyone looking to scale their business quickly, successfully, and authentically — that combo is what got us featured on CBS, Netflix, the Food Network, and MasterClass.
Consistency is everything
I used to work for a lot of big chain restaurants, and one thing you learn with them is the value of consistency. You can go to a restaurant four times and have great meals, but the one time you get a bad dish, you’re never going back. And guess what? All the times you had a great meal, you might have told one person, but the one time the food stinks, you tell the world.
That’s why, if you want to scale your restaurant, you’ve got to get the food right. Every single time.
Our restaurant had a huge advantage: Chef Charles. I mean, the New York Times has said he makes “the Platonic ideal of fried chicken.” But here’s the thing: Chef Charles doesn’t use recipes or measurements. He does everything the way his mom taught him.
So our big challenge was: How do we get Chef Charles’s magic even when he’s not in the kitchen? How do we make his collard greens for thousands of people a day, not hundreds?
Chef Charles and I spent a whole summer cooking his dishes together. Whenever he’d grab seasoning, I’d catch every grain in a measuring cup. I wrote down everything and tested each recipe until I could get it right over and over again. We broke a $10,000 stove from cooking so much!
That’s the kind of focus you need. Scaling works only if every customer gets the highest-quality meal each visit.
Build your utility belt: your systems
Once you get a little bit of momentum, so much of scaling the restaurant occurs behind the scenes.
When Chef Charles and I started working together, he did everything himself — the cooking, the shopping, even managing the books with a pencil and paper. No website. No digital tools. He and I counted inventory by hand.
From my own experience managing restaurants, I just knew we couldn’t grow that way. I had worked with pretty much every operational tool out there and saw what worked. I knew we didn’t want 10 tools that couldn’t talk to one another. To me, a restaurant’s systems are like Batman’s utility belt: you should have every tool in one easy-to-reach spot.
With Square, we manage every location, every sale, every employee, every item coming in. It lets us break out each part of our business — online, walk-in, catering — individually.
The right tools keep us organized, make employee training easier, and let us focus on serving great food and growing the business.
Jump on opportunities
A good business plan is a must, but you also need to grab unexpected opportunities.
We expanded Charles Pan-Fried Chicken so fast partly because, after COVID, we found great deals on rent in prime locations. I had never opened a restaurant before, so I had to figure it all out — permits, red tape, plumbing, electricity, kitchen buildouts, everything. Now we are working on a playbook that makes every new opening smoother. That documentation is a huge help.
Did we make mistakes? Yeah, plenty. You’ll mess up, too. But don’t let fear of mistakes keep you from seizing opportunities. Learn to address problems quickly.
We decided to sell our fourth location so we could focus on the other three. It was the right call. And we haven’t stopped growing — we have plans to franchise and keep expanding.
Never lose sight of what defines your business
Here’s the big question: How do you grow without losing what makes your restaurant special?
For us, beyond serving great food, contributing to the community is what defines us.
Chef Charles has been serving the Harlem community for 60 years. When he arrived in Harlem at age 17, he saw Black folks holding their heads high. These were his people. Chef Charles became known for giving food to anyone who needed it. He wouldn’t charge a dime. To this day we have grandmothers come in and say, “This man fed us when we had no money.”
Even as we’ve expanded beyond Harlem, we bring that spirit of connection to each new location. Here’s how we do it:
- Feeding the community: We throw a block party with free food each time we open a new spot. Every month, we serve meals to the homeless. We do giveaways during the holidays. Every Thanksgiving, we give away 400 turkeys; every Christmas, 500 gifts. It’s all to honor what Chef Charles has done for decades.
- Connecting with kids: We want to show kids possibilities, just like how Chef Charles inspired me when I was a kid. So we offer cooking classes weekly at the YMCA and partner with Avenues for Justice to run a youth cooking program, Cooking with Shirley’s son. Participants don’t have to become chefs, but we want them to know what it feels like to follow a passion and encourage them to foster positive images in themselves.
- Hiring local: We don’t just give people a paycheck; we invest in their development. We teach them how to move up, how to run a business, how to treat others with respect (and demand it back). I’ve spent 25 years learning so now I can teach others.
Your priorities will drive your growth
Scaling a restaurant is never easy, especially if you want to grow fast. You need great food, effective systems, the courage to make bold moves, and a deep understanding of your “why.”
You’ll make mistakes, but as long as you keep those priorities, you’ll know you’re on the right path.
