Hankerson transferred cash from his restaurants to two shell companies: Various Holdings and Awesome Foods, the second of which shares its name with the restaurateur’s son, whose name he legally changed to Awesome in 2011. Other ventures were meant to deceive tax officials, according to affidavits filed by investigators in Fulton and Clayton county Superior Courts. Its dishes included a mac and cheese burger - literally macaroni and cheese on a hamburger. Hankerson’s now-defunct Union City location opened inside a working bowling alley on a stretch of aging shopping centers and auto parts stores. Some of these efforts seemed primed for failure. Hankerson paid rent on a storefront next door to his Peachtree Street restaurant, they said, but never built it out. A Johns Creek store closed within months, and a food truck disappeared within weeks, employees said. A Washington, D.C.-area location opened in 2005 to long lines and good reviews, but shuttered a few years later, leaving a trail of unpaid taxes, according to Maryland court records. What Hankerson did have was a knack for spending on ventures that failed or never launched. “Even the dishwasher drove a better car than Shanga did,” said manager Preston. When it broke down, Hankerson drove the chicken and waffles company van for months. The corporate headquarters for Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles is a split-level house in Jonesboro with burglar bars and a chain-link fence. His home in Atlanta’s Cascade neighborhood is valued by the property assessor at $135,000. “He was just stealing money and converting it to his own use,” said Josh Waites, the director of special investigations for the state Department of Revenue.īut if Hankerson was stealing tax money, he didn’t spend it on typical trappings of wealth. Over the next 16 years, federal and state authorities filed dozens of liens for millions in unpaid taxes against Hankerson and his businesses. In June of 2000, state Department of Revenue officials placed the restaurant on its first of 15 payment plans for back taxes. Within three years, Hankerson and his business partners steered their company into financial trouble. His mother gave him her name - a precious gift in a hometown that has adored Knight since she was a schoolgirl singing in talent shows. His record producer father Barry Hankerson loaned him money for the 1997 launch. Hankerson’s show business kin have a penchant for turning business into family affairs, and Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles was no different. Gladys Knight did not respond to requests for comment placed through a representative. Hankerson declined comment through Steve Sadow, one of his attorneys. “I think he was just in it for the money in the end,” said Charles Preston, 63, who worked as a manager at the downtown location for eight years until he quit in April. Funds were so scarce that managers rushed to cash employees’ bounced paychecks with money from the downtown restaurant’s safe before Hankerson’s representatives arrived to retrieve it, they said. On paper, the company was making $8 million in annual sales, but years of chaos at the Atlanta institution had pushed it to the brink of collapse. In one case, a general manager - one of Hankerson’s childhood friends - put some $12,000 on his credit card to keep the company’s employee health insurance coverage from lapsing, former employees said.īy the time Hankerson, 38, was booked into Clayton County Jail June 22 on felony theft charges, he had pocketed some $52,000 in state taxes during March and April alone, according to his arrest warrant. Managers dug into their own pockets just to keep the restaurant’s doors open for the day, public records and interviews with a dozen former employees and business associates confirmed. At some point this month, the Cascade area location closes.The spending exacted a heavy toll on employees who were shorted on their pay after working under grueling and sometimes unsafe conditions. 20, 2016: The AJC reports that a consultant concluded the owner should consider closing permanently because of the restaurants' "grave" financial position and "unappealing" conditions. 10, 2016: A theft of an estimated $9,000 from the safe of the Peachtree Street location is reported, but no locks are broken, a video camera at the business isn't operating and there is no burglar alarm. 6, 2016: The Peachtreet Street location fails a surprise health inspection, scoring a 44 after dead and live roaches were seen in the kitchen. She then accuses her son of trying to "extort" and "blackmail" her by threatening to falsely claim she has dementia and Alzheimer's Disease. September 2016: Hankerson responds to Knight's suit by saying her "lack of mental capacity" bars her from removing her name. 26, 2016: Gladys Knight, an Atlanta native, files suit to take her name off the restaurant, saying it's hurting her reputation.
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