Rapper thinks big with airport eatery

Ludacris’ ultimate goal for Chicken + Beer is to have global reach.

Ludacris’ restaurant Chicken + Beer, named for his third studio album, has only been open a few weeks at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, but the rapper and actor from Atlanta is already thinking globally.

“Hopefully one day we’ll have Chicken+Beers not only in airports around the world but (also) in cities,” said Ludacris at a ribbon cutting Monday for the new Southern style eatery on the south end of Concourse D. “That’s our overall goal.

That’s despite the years it took to open the restaurant in Atlanta. Chicken + Beer, which touts “Southern-style comfort food,” was one of 152 restaurants Hartsfield-Jackson contracted for in a massive round of concessions deals awarded in 2012.

It is the second-to-last location to open from that round of restaurant contracts.

Plans for the restaurant were put on hold after Southwest Airlines pulled out of Concourse D and consolidated its flights onto Concourse C, said Daniel Halpern, CEO of Jackmont Hospitality, which partnered with Ludacris for the restaurant. Jackmont is owned by Halpern, former Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson’s widow Valerie Jackson, and the Jacksons’ daughter Brooke Jackson Edmond.

“It has been a long time coming,” Ludacris said. When working on the Chicken-N-Beer album,

which was released in 2003, “never in a million years did I think that it would be a restaurant inside this airport.”

Ludacris — real name, Chris Bridges — is no stranger to the airport area.

“When I moved out of my father’s place when I was 18 years old, I moved, like, right off of Riverdale Road. And I heard that the airport was expanding, and through the grapevine I heard that if you moved into this apartment complex, that sooner or later they would be offering people money to move out,” he recalled.

“A year or two later, they asked us — I won’t disclose the amount of money that they tried to offer everybody to move out, but that was my first business plan,” he said, to laughter and applause at the ribbon-cutting event. “It’s funny how things come full circle.”

Chicken + Beer replaces Passports Restaurant & Bar, a generic eatery that Jackmont operated while the new restaurant was in development.

The site at the end of Concourse D lacks the foot traffic of other locations. But Halpern said he hopes travelers will seek out the restaurant.

Halpern’s company also operates One Flew South, an upscale restaurant on Concourse E, and three TGI Fridays at Hartsfield-Jackson.

Chicken + Beer restaurant at Hartsfield-Jackson on Concourse D took years to open. Chicken + Beer, which touts “Southern-style comfort food,” was one of 152 restaurants contracted for in 2012.