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The LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of Commerce celebrated Ellison Brothers BBQ’s entry into LaGrange with a ribbon cutting on Wednesday.

Owner Will Ellison said he and his brother started the barbeque food truck and catering business four years ago at their cousin’s fruit stand with their grandfather’s pull-behind smoker. Will said his brother has since gone back to school, but he has kept the business going.

Ellison Brothers specializes in private catering and food truck events.

“We’ll do weddings, corporate lunches and corporate dinners and then our food truck events, like a Wild Leap and Pabella’s for market days,” Ellison said. “We do any type of barbecue catering, whether they want the food truck or a buffet setup.”

Ellison said they post their full schedule on their Facebook and Instagram so fans can know where the food truck will be located.

“That’s where we do post all of our updates of our upcoming public schedules and all of our private events,” Ellison said. “We will be a Taste of the Town next week with the Junior Service League.”

Ellison is a LaGrange native but hasn’t lived here in many years. He said issues with getting a home kitchen brought him back to LaGrange permanently, and he’s happier about it.

“I was born in LaGrange back in 94 when dad was the Associate at First Methodist. And then when I was four or five months old, we moved to plant a church up in Fayette County,” Ellison said. “My whole life, I heard about all our LaGrange friends and the people in LaGrange. Mom and dad have kept contact with them for going on 30 years now.”

Ellison said they had originally built their home-base kitchen in Fairburn at Fairburn United Methodist Church. He said they spent most of their money over the first six months building out the kitchen and were approved by the state and the Health Department, but they were denied by the city because they would not redistrict the property to host a ghost kitchen.

“They didn’t even have a ghost kitchen in their constitution. So we kind of stepped back, and we were like, Lord have mercy. What are we going to do?” Ellison said.

Ellison said the very next day, Mike Wilson of New Ventures just happened to be in Newnan and swung by the church to see his father, who told him of the situation.

“I get a call about 30 minutes later. Dad said, ‘Hey, Mike has a kitchen down on LaGrange, and he said he wants you to come take a look at it. So the next morning, I was down here at 9 a.m., and we signed a lease,” Ellison said.

“Our whole life, I’d heard about all our LaGrange friends and this LaGrange community … it was a totally different experience than what we experienced in Fairburn,” Ellison said. “Fast forward a little bit. We get the whole kitchen legal. We get the truck. We’re up and running.”

“We fell in love with the community, and it made sense why my parents kept their friends in LaGrange and loved LaGrange so much. Two months into being down here full time with the truck, Christy and I were like, we’re moving to LaGrange. This is going to be home for us. So we bought our house last month,” Ellison said.

“This is a different place. You call somebody, they answer, and they show up, and they’ll take care of you, you take care of them, and they expect nothing in return, and that’s something special that I think America’s losing. But LaGrange has it, and we’re honored and honored to be a part of it.” Ellison said.