From Hospitality To Housing: Ebony Austin’s Bold Move Toward Community Ownership
Ebony Austin has never been afraid to dream big and build it herself. Known for her successful restaurants, the Atlanta-based entrepreneur is now taking her vision a step further with The Plaza, a first-of-its-kind development in Forest Park, Georgia.
In partnership with the city’s first Black woman mayor, Mayor Angelyne Butler, Ebony is creating a space that will hold nine office units for local entrepreneurs and nine affordable housing units for low income families. As a Black woman leading in both hospitality and real estate, Ebony is not just opening doors, she’s making sure others have the keys too.
Her Agenda: You’ve already built an empire in hospitality. What made you decide that real estate — and specifically affordable housing and entrepreneurship — was the next chapter of your impact?
Ebony Austin: It’s funny how things really go in full circle. Actually I started real estate before I opened up any restaurant real estate. I have my own real estate investment company. I was already building homes, rehabbing homes before I even opened up Nouveau. I’ve been doing it [for] over 14 plus years. So for me, it was just coming back to what I really enjoy doing outside of the restaurant industry. And that’s building up our community so that we can have a voice in our own community.
A lot of the time we have no power because we have no ownership. And so that allow[s] us to have power because we now have ownership. The only way that we have that is through affordable housing so that people can still have a decent way of living.
Her Agenda: You’ve said before that community is your heart. How did your own upbringing and early experiences shape the way you approach development and ownership today?
Ebony Austin: My upbringing was very different. I grew up in a house. My grandparents owned a house. And so my family would live on the exact same block. What I realized was most of the people that lived on that block, my neighbors, our family, they own those houses. That gave them a little bit of power to be able to speak up in neighborhood meetings and things of that nature.
But then I also realized when I started to hang out a little bit more, that a lot of people didn’t have ownership. And you would see those blocks looking really bad, like trash on the ground. You would see people snatching people’s purses, like you would just see a whole lot of different things. I’m talking about blocks away from where I grew up.
That alone taught me the importance of having ownership, and so for me, it was continuing to build up in my community. So all of my projects in Chicago are in my hood. So they’re in the community that I grew up in.
Her Agenda: You’re partnering with Mayor Angelyne Butler, Forest Park’s first Black woman mayor. What does that collaboration represent to you in terms of legacy, leadership, and community-led change?
Ebony Austin: The things that she wanted in the community of Forest Park were the things that I was going to bring to a community, not necessarily knowing that it was going to be in Forest Park. And so when I saw the Plaza, I was like, hey, what if we did X, Y and Z? And then on top of that, we do real estate where there’s affordable condos for your teachers, for your police officers, for communities like that.
When you think about teachers, the pay for teaching is very low when you’re starting. So then you think about now you have to pay rent. You have to figure all these things out. But what if we can do something where you can live in the same neighborhood as the school that you teach? And it’s modern, it’s upscale and you’re paying the same price that you would pay on the outskirts of where you were teaching that.
So for us, it was how do we effectively help the teachers, the police officers? And then also, how do we bring things into the community that people don’t have to drive to the city for? So I think our visions [were] very similar on what the expectations were. So that was a great partnership.
And I actually love the mayor in Forest Park. I love how she loves the community of Forest Park. So, yeah, I think it’s going to be a great partnership. We’re both excited.
Her Agenda: As someone who’s created spaces for people to gather, what have you learned about the power of physical spaces in helping communities thrive?
Ebony Austin: When I think of anything, whether that’s real estate or if it’s [the] restaurant, it’s always going to be the impact that you have on the community. It’s always going to be the footprints that you have in your community, because most of the time when you think about it, in any business, what’s missing most of the time is the reach of the people.
I grew up watching [the show] Cheers. And that was like a thing. Me and my grandmother would sit and watch it. But at a young age, I understood what kept Cheers, even on TV, like relevant and open. A lot of times you’ve seen the exact same customers in there. You never really see anybody different. It was the relationship, the foundation that they had built together. And so for us, like even when we talk about Nouveau, Nouveau is like the Cheers and communities with a twist.
My real estate is in my neighborhood for the most part. That’s in Chicago. So it’s in places where we can still touch the community. I’m building a youth center that’s right behind one of my properties, that’s behind my church in Chicago.
I just think that the impact has to match. The dollars that our customers are spending in our communities should never be one sided. Whether that’s real estate, whether that’s plazas, whether that’s restaurants, whatever that looks like, how do we help the community be better? So in anything I do, it’s always going to be God first, community second.
Her Agenda: You’ve mentored and invested in so many others. What does real wealth-building look like to you, and why is it so important that we redefine it?
Ebony Austin: When we talk about wealth and redefining wealth for me is how do I help the next person create generational wealth? Because ultimately we’re so far behind as a culture, [and] the only way that you really create wealth and expand it in our community is [by] bringing the people up with you.
I don’t want to get up to the top and have to reach my hand down. We can climb together and hold each other’s hand and we’re stronger that way. For us is how do we create wealth all across the board, whether that’s communities, whether that’s my team? Literally, when I opened up my restaurant, I would have team meetings and I would have my team tell me their goals within the next 24 months. And the ones that had goals of having their own houses, they now own their own houses. Right.
How we really effectively create wealth is [with] knowledge. Because I have to be able to teach it. So for me, it’s having those classes that I don’t charge for, having those phone conversations [and] having those Zoom meetings. We’re honestly growing together. Somebody might know something that I might not know that might be beneficial.How do we get grants for these storefronts? How do we literally build your credit up so that you can buy your own home?
One person being a billionaire does not help the rest of the culture. But if you got how[ever] many millionaires, now we’re working to help the culture.
Her Agenda: What do you hope The Plaza represents five, ten years from now: for Forest Park, for the families living there, and for the next Black woman ready to build something bold?
I hope it really represents God’s favor [and] God’s grace for me, because ultimately it’s not about us. We just become servants and vessels of God’s plan. I want somebody to think of it and be like, how did this girl come from the hood of Chicago and now have open doors where now we can go and drop plazas at how[ever] many different states. And that’s all owed to God. Ultimately, it’s a lot of people that could have done the same thing that I’ve done, but you have to be chosen. So for me, I wanted to represent God’s grace, his favor, and Black excellence.
And I also wanted to represent the possibilities of what we can do. And that’s most important. I want people to see like, oh, it was possible for her to do it. Let me read her story. Let me read up on this person’s story to see how they got started. So if I had to sum it up in one word, I would just say the possibility.
