Business

This Is It! BBQ & Seafood: Atlanta’s best place for Southern cooking

ROLLINGOUT.COM — This Is It! BBQ & Seafood is dedicated to Southern culinary excellence.

Published

6 years ago

February 5, 2019

By Rollingout.com

This Is It! BBQ & Seafood is dedicated to Southern culinary excellence and its founder, Shelley “Butch” Anthony III, has set a new standard for family and business dining. This Is It! continues to forge ahead toward greater heights in expanded markets across the country and internationally.

The seeds for Anthony’s entrepreneurial spirit were planted in Tampa, Florida, where he helped his parents operate their family-owned restaurant. Years later, he tried his hand at the corporate sector, before returning to the food-service industry.

Anthony opened his first restaurant — “Butch’s Slide-In BBQ” — in 1977 and has since successfully operated a multitude of restaurants in various locations.

With two decades in the industry, This Is It! BBQ & Seafood is recognized for its exceptional hospitality and authentic, home-style recipes. As This Is It! BBQ & Seafood launches into global markets, rolling out asked Anthony to reflect on how it all began and what’s coming next.

What’s the origin of this successful restaurant chain?

It actually started over 65 years ago. In 1951, my parents opened a diner in Tampa, Florida, named Anthony’s Drive-In. That’s where I got my start in the restaurant business, working for them.

How hard was it to go from location No. 1 to adding a second location?

The first official This Is It! BBQ & Seafood location opened in 1983. I opened the second one in 1985. It was difficult going from the first to the second because the first location was not yet generating enough income to fund the second location. Adding the second location actually made the income problem worse. I did everything in my power to make them both work, but it was very difficult.

What are your future expansion plans?

Last year, I signed a licensing agreement with a company, Belief Brands, to open 300 This Is It! BBQ & Seafood franchise locations all over the U.S. and Canada over the next 10 years.

Describe your management style and customer-service beliefs. How do you translate them to your front-line workers?

My management style is simple: I put God first in all that I do. We believe in delighting our customers with delicious Southern-style food cooked with love and history and delivered with excellent customer service. The message gets all the way down to our front-line workers through communication and observation. They get to hear it in our communication and training, and they get to see it in our behavior.

How do you expect the city of Atlanta to respond to the added attention of hosting the 2019 Super Bowl?

Atlanta is a wonderful host city with years of experience. We did a great job with the summer Olympics in 1996, and I know we are preparing to show the world we can do it again with the Super Bowl. I expect … we will show the world once again [that] Atlanta is truly [a] global city with the extensive capabilities needed to successfully host large global events.

Visit This Is It! BBQ & Seafood’s website: www.thisisitbbq.com

Following them on social media:

IG: @thisisitbbqandseafood

Twitter: @thisisitbbq

FB: @TheOfficialThisIsIt

This article originally appeared in Rollingout.com.

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Business

Google’s New Deal with California Lawmakers and Publishers Will Fund Newsrooms, Explore AI

Gov. Gavin Newsom, California lawmakers and some newspaper publishers last week finalized a $172 million deal with tech giant Google to support local news outlets and artificial intelligence innovation. This deal, the first of its kind in the nation, aims to invest in local journalism statewide over the next five years. However, the initiative is different from a bill proposed by two legislators, news publishers and media employee unions requiring tech giants Google and Meta to split a percentage of ad revenue generated from news stories with publishers and media outlets.

Published

6 days ago

October 1, 2024

Oakland Post

iStock

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

This deal, the first of its kind in the nation, aims to invest in local journalism statewide over the next five years. However, the initiative is different from a bill proposed by two legislators, news publishers and media employee unions requiring tech giants Google and Meta to split a percentage of ad revenue generated from news stories with publishers and media outlets. Under this new deal, Google will commit $55 million over five years into a new fund administered by the University of California, Berkeley to distribute to local newsrooms. In this partnership, the State is expected to provide $70 over five years toward this initiative. Google also has to pay a lump sum of $10 million annually toward existing grant programs that fund local newsrooms.

The State Legislature and the governor will have to approve the state funds each year. Google has agreed to invest an additional $12.5 million each year in an artificial intelligence program. However, labor advocates are concerned about the threat of job losses as a result of AI being used in newsrooms.

Julie Makinen, board chairperson of the California News Publishers Association, acknowledged that the deal is a sign of progress.

“This is a first step toward what we hope will become a comprehensive program to sustain local news in the long term, and we will push to see it grow in future years,” said Makinen.

However, the deal is “not what we had hoped for when set out, but it is a start and it will begin to provide some help to newsrooms across the state,” she said.

Regina Brown Wilson, Executive Director of California Black Media, said the deal is a commendable first step that beats the alternative: litigation, legislation or Google walking from the deal altogether or getting nothing.

“This kind of public-private partnership is unprecedented. California is leading the way by investing in protecting the press and sustaining quality journalism in our state,” said Brown Wilson. “This fund will help news outlets adapt to a changing landscape and provide some relief. This is especially true for ethnic and community media journalists who have strong connections to their communities.”

Although the state partnered with media outlets and publishers to secure the multi-year deal, unions advocating for media workers argued that the news companies and lawmakers were settling for too little.

Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) proposed a bill earlier this year that aimed to hold tech companies accountable for money they made off news articles. But big tech companies pushed back on bills that tried to force them to share profits with media companies.

McGuire continues to back efforts that require tech companies to pay media outlets to help save jobs in the news industry. He argued that this new deal, “lacks sufficient funding for newspapers and local media, and doesn’t fully address the inequities facing the industry.”