Usher’s mother, Jonnetta Patton, is opening a restaurant.
As AFROTECH™ previously reported, Patton had once been in business as a manager to Usher, born Usher Terry Raymond IV, for 17 years. She played a part in helping to reshape his image on his own terms, which later proved to be a wise decision.
“During the time between that first record and the second record, I worked in silence. I didn’t tell the record label what I was doing,” Patton said in an interview on OWN’s “Behind Every Man.” “So now Usher said, ‘This time I’m gonna do it my way.’ So LA [LA Reid] said, ‘Okay. All right, Usher.’ See, they wanted him to be this bad boy image. Usher’s not a bad boy. That’s that whole image that they wanted. It didn’t work. So Usher said, ‘I’m gonna do it my way,’ and that’s basically what we did.”
Usher released “My Way,” the album that gave him his first No. 1 record.
“What you see on ‘My Way,’ you just see raw talent,” Usher said during the interview. “This is a true testament to an entrepreneurial woman who just really made it a lot easier for me to just focus on my craft while she was able to climb this ladder and have one of the largest acts of this time. She just was no-nonsense. And I reaped the benefits of that.”
Patton also became the owner of a management company and production space, according to ESSENCE. In 2016, Patton pivoted her attention to a new sector, launching J’s Kitchen Culinary Incubator in Atlanta, GA. It supports certified chefs, bakers, caterers, personal chefs, mobile food service, and specialty food producers through workshops rooted in “business and culinary concepts,” its website mentions. It features amenities, including shared kitchen rental space, packaging services, conference rooms, and computer workstations.
Patton’s experience running the incubator has inspired her to open her own restaurant, per Atlanta News First. She now owns J’s Smokehouse in Doraville, GA, which will serve staple barbecue items such as ribs, brisket, and chicken, as well as vegan options such as a vegan hot dog and pulled pork sandwich, Southern Living reported.
“We are a kitchen that deals with traditional, authentic food. So, I’ve had a chef that has grandma’s recipes so really this was inspired by my own personal chefs that I actually work with…This is an extension of the incubator,” she commented, according to Atlanta News First.
J’s Smokehouse officially opened on Aug. 2, 2024.
“So happy to be out here to support your business… Congratulations… Come down here and get some of this incredible barbecue,” Usher said in a video on YouTube.
