Atlanta restauranteur Gocha Hawkins offers culinary delights in new cookbook, product line
Atlanta restaurateur Gocha Hawkins is winding up with some exciting new additions to her growing restaurant group, while most Atlantans are winding down for the holidays. Hawkins, 52, recently unveiled a new product line and an upcoming cookbook, “Cooking with Gocha: Easy Flavorful Recipes for Breakfast & Brunch Lovers.
“After serving hundreds of thousands of people at our Atlanta restaurants, I wanted to share our signature menu items with a wider audience. What better way to spread the deliciousness worldwide than to create a cookbook and product line,” Hawkins said. “Whether you’re a seasoned cook or a kitchen novice, the detailed recipes in the cookbook are so easy to follow that anyone can recreate our flavorful meals in under 20 minutes.”
The book consists of 90 breakfast and brunch recipes like banana foster french toast and shrimp & grits to elevated dishes like lamb and grits with gouda cheese, peach pancakes, jerk chicken & walles, and vegan options like herb-crusted cauliflower streak, and avocado on multigrain toast.
“I cherish the pure joy on our guests’ faces as they savor our Southern-inspired dishes. Every plate is created with love and each dish is a testament to our team’s
passion for culinary excellence. My ultimate measure for success is measured by the
happiness we bring to guests and the jobs created in our communities,” Hawkins said.
Over the last five years, Hawkins has continued to make her mark on the Atlanta restaurant scene. The South Fulton resident owns Gocha’s Restaurant Group, the parent company of Gocha’s Breakfast Bar (Cascade Road and Fayetteville), Gocha’s Breakfast Bar Food Truck, and Gocha’s Tapa’s Bar.
She debuted when she opened her first restaurant, Gocha’s Breakfast Bar, on Cascade Road in 2019. An already well-known celebrity cosmologist and television star, she made the decision to enter the restaurant business not too long after moving to South Fulton.
“I always cooked so I felt like it would be the perfect opportunity. I moved to the southwest side of town in 2014 and it was nothing over there. This area is so underserved, considering you have Andrew Young and Keisha Lance Bottoms over here. There were a lot of people who lived in these neighborhoods,” Hawkins said.
She struck gold almost instantly after opening Gocha’s Breakfast Bar, which allowed her to follow up with a second location in Fayetteville, GA, in 2020. Hawkins also added a food truck to her arsenal in 2021. And last year she opened Gocha’s Tapa’s Bar on Campbellton Road.
Gocha’s restaurants are not just serving customers but the community at large as well. She enjoys supporting the community that supports her whether it’s helping students or the homeless. With the help of her team, she hosts charity events, sponsors schools, and feeds members of the community.
They regularly provide free breakfast for police officers and firefighters.
More recently, Hawkins unveiled her new product line of instant grits and pancake mix, which consists of original grits, white cheddar and garlic grits, white cheddar and jalapeno grits, buttermilk pancake mix, and lemon pancake mix.
“Grits are more than just a side dish—they’re a symbol of Southern comfort. Whether you prefer them sweet or savory, the beauty is in their versatility. Both approaches deserve a place at the table,” Hawkins said.
She also added a sweet and spicy Flippant Honey Hot Sauce to her product line.
Gocha announced that she’s opening a new restaurant in Atlantic Station at the beginning of 2025. Her new restaurant, a combination of the breakfast bar and tapa’s bar concepts, is outside of her southside ecosystem, where she quickly established herself.
In the meantime, Gocha’s instant grits and pancake mixes are available for purchase on https://gochasbreakfastbar.myshopify.com/. Her upcoming cookbook is also available for preorder.
