Celebrated Baker Erika Council Is Opening a Restaurant Dedicated to Homestyle Breakfasts and Church Brunches

Bomb Biscuit Co., the Irwin Street Market stall from celebrated baker Erika Council, is relocating this fall to the former Field Day space on Highland Avenue, the Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported. Expect plenty of buttermilk biscuits, cinnamon rolls, breakfast, and Sunday brunch when Bomb Biscuit opens in November.

Council says it’s the next step in the evolution of her growing business, which began as a series of weekend biscuit and breakfast pop-ups in Riverside, before transforming into a delivery service, and then opening as a food stall inside Irwin Street Market in the Old Fourth Ward.

Bomb Biscuit Co.

“It’s definitely yellow, the color of butter,” Council says of the design of the new restaurant. “It’s a continuation of my story and my grandma, who basically raised me. Her kitchen was yellow. There will be old pictures on the wall of my family, my Grandma Dip and her restaurant in Chapel Hill. I want people to know the people who got me here.”

Council’s paternal grandmother, southern cooking icon and award-winning cookbook author Mildred “Mama Dip” Council, owned Mama Dip’s Kitchen Restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Geraldine Dortch, Council’s maternal grandmother, also baked and sold cakes to support the civil rights movement in Goldsboro, North Carolina.

A photograph of Dortch standing in her yellow kitchen will be given pride of place at Bomb Biscuit, hung near the front entrance to the restaurant. Windows, trim, and doors painted in black and white round out the trio of colors at the restaurant and make up the Bomb Biscuit branding.

Kate Blohm

Kate Blohm

Kate Blohm

“I didn’t particularly wanted to open a restaurant to start with, but then the idea grew on me,” Council says. “This neighborhood has been good to us, so when my landlord found this space and I walked in that first time, this is what I envisioned for a restaurant.”

It’s important to Council that regulars to the business can continue to walk to Bomb Biscuit, which expands into more breakfast and brunch dishes at the restaurant, including fried catfish and grits and pancakes made from Council’s biscuit dough. The menu will also eventually feature her popular cinnamon rolls, fish fry Fridays, more gluten-free options, and fried chicken sandwiches on freshly baked rolls in flavors like lemon pepper, hot honey, and Bomb Biscuit’s glori-fried topped with scrambled eggs and American cheese.

Look for a variety of homestyle egg dishes, along with sides of hash and potatoes often served on the menu when Council did pop-ups over at B’s Cracklin BBQ in Riverside with pitmaster Bryan Furman. She hopes to persuade Furman to offer his brisket at Bomb Biscuit.

“I definitely want to do a Sunday brunch, like an African-American-style brunch we used to do after church when we’d congregate in fellowship hall,” Council says. “I want that kind of Sunday church brunch experience and environment because that’s such a big part of my story and my life.”

A full bar is in the works, too.

As for dinner service in the future, Council says that’s not something she’s thinking about right now. However, she is planning to offer biscuit making classes from the restaurant in the evenings and host special events like Sunday supper serving soul food dishes inspired by her grandmother’s North Carolina restaurant. Council’s new cookbook also comes out next spring.

“It’s all still a work in progress because a restaurant is way more responsibility,” says Council. “But I feel like, you know, we’re at a point to say, ‘Okay, let’s take the next step and see where it goes.’”