Omnivore - Food Ink #2: Kevin Clark, Home Grown

Welcome back to Food Ink, a sporadic series of indeterminate length in which we explore a bunch of creative, inspiring, and downright rad body art sported by members of Atlanta’s food service industry. We’ll be highlighting people whose passion for their work runs so deep, it’s indelibly inked on their skin. Check out our first installment with The Little Tart’s Sarah O’Brien here. (And if you know of any chefs, bakers, sous chefs, bartenders, line cooks, or anyone else with a particularly awesome tattooed homage to the culinary arts, let us know.)

• Gray Chapman

Food Ink #2: Kevin Clark, owner of Homegrown
Artwork: Corn, broccoli, parsnip, okra, carrot, Brussels sprouts, a butcher’s diagram of a hog, the Homegrown logo, and much more
Artist: Mark Green (“Gaucho”) at Memorial Tattoo; Sam Parker at Memorial

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Situated on a stretch of Memorial lined with vacant lots and tire shops, Homegrown is a vibrant little beacon of community (not to mention the home of a particularly distinguished biscuit) in Reynoldstown.

Behind it all is Kevin Clark, a trained chef and Cabbagetown resident who set up shop in 2010—and has stayed busy since day one. Clark earned his culinary chops training under Chef Paul Albrecht (of Pano’s and Paul’s fame) and spent years working in Atlanta’s fine dining kitchens, until a close brush with death in a car accident spurred him and his partner, Lisa, to reassess their goals. Thus, the cheery little meat-and-three at 986 Memorial was born.

Four years later, people fill Homegrown’s cozy, kitschy dining room every morning of the week. Clark describes his little neighborhood eatery as “the way society should be”: people of all backgrounds, shoulder-to-shoulder, lining up for a plate of Clark’s affordable, down-home seasonal eats.

But, all gravy-smothered fried chicken biscuits aside, Homegrown isn’t just another greasy spoon. Clark sources as much of his produce locally as he can, much of it plucked from his own backyard—thus the inspiration behind much of the ink that Kevin sports from his right shoulder all the way down to his forearm. “I never wanted ‘em,” he says when I ask about the impetus behind his first tattoo. “But once you get one, they keep on coming.”

Scattered between a Volkswagen bus, a doodle of a chicken, and an illustration of his dog (the latter two both drawn by Clark’s four-year-old niece) is a veritable cornucopia of produce: a parsnip here, a Brussels sprout there, broccoli, okra, a lone carrot, and so on. Clark’s inspiration behind each? Basically, whatever seasonal goodness Kevin happened to be picking and harvesting in Homegrown’s gardens when his appointments at Memorial Tattoo rolled around. “I went to Memorial one time in the summer, and we were picking tomatoes and okra,” he says. “I went another time in the winter, and we were picking parsnips and broccoli.” So it went, until he wound up with a farmers market’s equivalent of veggies tumbling down his arm.

And, appropriately, that same philosophy pretty much sums up the mission of Homegrown itself: getting creative with whatever happens to be growing out back. (No word yet on whether any comfy chicken biscuit ink is in the works, though.)