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| Emmanuel and Derrick at TSU's studios with Genma Holmes on Living Your Best Life Radio |
Childhood friends and proud Tennessee State University alums; Clinton Gray, III, Derrick “Mo” Moore and Emmanuel
“EJ” Reed, are no strangers to entrepreneurship. The trailblazing trio are owners
of GT Services, which operated Green Truck Moving, and are proprietors of
the much-touted Slim & Husky’s Pizza Beeria. Slim & Husky’s, located in
North Nashville at 911 Buchanan Street, has become extremely popular to not only
the North Nashville corridor residents and area employees but also has garnered
a large following throughout Davidson and surrounding counties. With the
explosion of endless positive reviews on Trip Advisor and Yelp, visitors to the
Nashville Area have joined the chorus of singing the praises of eating Slim &
Husky’s delicious pizzas as they check off their bucket lists of Things to Do while visiting Music City.
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| Emmanuel and Derrick with one of Nashville's pizza 'experts', Alex. |
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| Alex inspecting his pizza. |
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| A happy customer! |
Since Slim & Husky’s debuted in
early spring, the lines and loyal customers have grown very rapidly. To see
customers in line at popular restaurants like Pancake Pantry on 21st
Avenue near Vanderbilt is acceptable and makes for many ‘You are so Nashville If’ jokes. Many see it as a badge of honor to stand in the line for hours for breakfast.
However, to see a line appearing around 10:30 am for an African-American owned
establishment barely six months old near TSU makes everyone take note and super
curious to bite into the custom made to order pizzas. The popularity of Slim
& Husky’s, with lines, has the new restaurateurs gearing up for another grand
opening in Antioch in the fall in the former Applebee’s across from Hickory
Hollow Mall and a carryout location with a retail store, The Rollout.
The carryout location will double as
a catering kitchen and will be located on Buchanan Street across from the
flagship restaurant. As if they are slaying all naysayers and putting to bed
any doubt that they know what they are doing, the dynamic trio are also capitalizing
on the Slim & Husky’s social media branding by opening a merchandising
store in the old James Otis hat store. The Rollout will give customers a “taste”
of Slim & Husky’s to wear. If you are
keeping count of the number of the real estate transactions, that is three commercial buildings to date.
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| A little bit of This and a lot of That! |
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| Yes! |
“As
natives of Nashville, we are aware of the developments that have
contributed to the new 'It City' persona. In the midst of our excitement
for Nashville's growth, our team is still focused on providing creative
local concepts to communities that have been overlooked. North Nashville
and Antioch are great examples of these,” stated Gray.
“We could have opened our
restaurants in any area in the city but we were intentional about being in the
locations that we selected. We want to be great entrepreneurs. But we also
focused on economic development. We wanted to bring jobs to North Nashville and
we wanted to be investors in the communities where we were raised and educated.
We are very proud of being able to show that opening a business can happen. Our
success will attract others to follow our lead,” said Moore.
When asked if they were jittery
about opening a restaurant? The answer was an immediate collective, “No, Ma’am!”
“This is not our first rodeo at owning a company,” stated Reed. “We have been
entrepreneurs and a team since 2010. We learned how to research the market. We spent
two years traveling the country learning from others who have been and who are still in the restaurant business. We had a passion and drive to open Slim & Husky’s and we love what we are doing.” Their passion for business and their community shows.
You can listen to their radio interview here.
911 Buchanan Street
Nashville, Tennessee 372018
Mon-Sat 10:30am-11:00pm
Sun Closed
615-647-7017
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