By
- Drew Taylor for AL.com
Greg Gratton’s office sits at the back of Green Acres, the restaurant his family has run in one place or another around Birmingham for nearly 70 years
The room is cluttered, stacks of papers littered across a red couch with pictures and reminders lining its green walls. Even after retirement, Gratton still comes back here a few times a week just to check in on things
And when the lunch crowd rolls in, it’s where you can find the best seat in the house
Just above Gratton’s desk is a window that overlooks the kitchen, where fry cooks can be seen pulling out chicken wings and fries from vats of bubbling oil. A few feet over, customers can be seen walking up to the cash register, giving their order to store manager Juanita Barnett, and then ambling over to the side, waiting for a bite of something hot and golden-brown, from the fryer to the grease-stained paper bags that have become a signature of the beloved soul food institution
From its chicken wings to its famous fried green tomatoes, the menu at Green Acres has pretty much stayed the same since Greg’s father, Charles Gratton, started it in 1958
“My father instilled in me the philosophy of keeping the menu short, sweet and perfect,” Gratton said. “The only thing that has changed is the oil we cook everything in.”
To Gratton, the secret to Green Acres’ famous chicken wings, doused in ketchup and hot sauce, is how fresh he can get them. Even the green tomatoes are ordered year-round from around Florida and Mexico
“We don’t use anything frozen,” he said
Gratton makes the argument that Green Acres was among the first restaurants in Birmingham, if not the first, to sell chicken wings as its own meal. While the storied Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York has received notoriety for its early claim on the invention of the Buffalo-style chicken wing sometime in the mid-60s, Green Acres set itself apart by selling whole wings: drums, flats, and tips
“I was selling whole chicken parts but found that the big parts of the chicken were not selling,” Charles Gratton told The Birmingham News in 1995
The youngest of 10, Charles Gratton grew up in Birmingham’s Norwood community, a couple of miles outside downtown. His brother, David, had left home for Chicago in 1946, starting his own restaurant, Green Acres Farm, specializing in fried chicken. Within a decade, he had already expanded to nine different spots across town
The early years of the restaurant had their own challenges. In 1963, as Gratton and his family were leaving Sunday services at Shiloh Baptist Church, they received word about a bomb going off at 16th Street Baptist, killing four Black girls, injuring many others and blasting out the windows of his restaurant
“We were probably closed a week,” Greg Gratton said
Greg Gratton was a boy when he began working for his father, starting by peeling potatoes and getting the wings ready to be dipped and fried. Gratton remembers how rough downtown could be in the 1960s, often waiting until night to walk back home to Norwood to avoid being chased down the street by the neighborhood white kids
“It was pretty rough,” Gratton said
Green Acres moved several times over the years until 1990, when the restaurant put down stakes on Fourth Avenue North, a block over from the Carver Theater. Years before, the area had been a hotbed for Black entrepreneurship before running cold in the 70s and then being revived again under Mayor Richard Arrington’s urban renewal plan for the area. Charles Gratton remained a champion of Fourth Avenue, serving as the board chairman of the Fourth Avenue Merchants Association. Today, his picture hangs from a light post in front of the restaurant, recognizing the early success stories of the area.
By the time Green Acres made its home along Fourth Avenue, Greg Gratton had been living with his family in Compton, California, just south of Los Angeles. He was working at Southern California Gas Company while his wife worked as a nurse. However, the last time he came back home, Gratton noticed how his father seemed a little slower, a little sicklier. He knew what he needed to do.
“It was a big decision,” he said looking back. “It was a kind of ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda,’ so we sold our house, brought our furniture, and moved back in January of 1993.”
From there, Greg learned everything he could about the business, eventually taking over Green Acres before his father died in 1999
Tomeka Bell, Gratton’s daughter, was 17 years old when the family moved back to Birmingham. Like her father, Bell helped around the restaurant as a kid, but to her, it was just another job. However, as she started to see how her father and grandfather did things, Bell began to take pride in what the family had built throughout the years at the restaurant. She started coming in earlier, staying later, and doing everything she could to help out
“I just started raising my hand,” Bell said about taking on more responsibilities around the restaurant
In 2000, Bell moved back to Los Angeles, got married and started a family of her own. Within a few years, Gratton had told her something that she felt was more than enough reason to come back home
“My dad had told me how my granddad would talk to him about how much I impressed him, something I never knew about,” she said. “When I heard ‘You have to come back,’ I knew I needed to reconnect with Green Acres, and it’s been popping off ever since.”
Coming back in 2005, Bell opened a Green Acres in East Lake, learning everything she could about running a restaurant. She eventually began working at the downtown location in 2009
“Every year, I just began to do a little more and Dad would give me a little more responsibility each time,” she said
Bell, who also runs her own real estate company, Green Acres Realty, took over the business in 2015 after Gratton retired from the day-to-day grind at the restaurant
“When I think about where we have been for as long as we have, it’s just a phenomenal legacy to be a part of,” Bell said. “I believe we have the opportunity to continue sustaining that success.”
Green Acres has always been a family affair, even among its staff. Juanita Barnett, Gratton’s cousin, has worked at the restaurant for the last 15 years, starting right after she had retired from Regions Bank
“People always come back because, first of all, the food is good, and they get good customer service,” Barnett said. “We’re always giving them what they need.”
Curtis Rutledge, one of Green Acres’ fry cooks, first started at the restaurant at 17, not long after graduating from Carver High School
“Mr. Gratton is like a father to me,” Rutledge said
The same way David Gratton was able to expand the Green Acres footprint far and wide across Chicago, Charles and Greg Gratton were able to open several Green Acres locations across Birmingham. At one point, there were 11 different Green Acres restaurants across Jefferson County. Today, the downtown location and another in Ensley are all that remain. Gratton doesn’t get into the specifics on why the other businesses closed, other than the franchisees weren’t interested in following his lead
“They were trying to undermine me,” he said
However, with Bell at the helm, Gratton believes the time is ripe for Green Acres to expand once again
“I know the pieces are in place,” he said. “People who know about Green Acres are everywhere.”
