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Huntsville BUSINESS JOURNAL
FOOD / DINING
Pandemic, Entrepreneurship, and Fried Chicken: A Story of Small Business Success in Madison County Eugene Jung and his partner weren’t just looking for a good business location when they brought their restaurant to Madison Boulevard. At least for Jung. He was looking for a community relationship and found what he was looking for with Champy’s World Famous Fried Chicken, partly because of the pandemic. The arrival of COVID-19 about 17 months after the opening of Champy’s allowed Jung to get off the road from his day job as a software salesman for IBM. “One of the positives of the pandemic,’’ he said, “was I’m usually traveling 150-180 days a year. The pandemic allowed me to stay here not only to dig in with the restaurant but the
Champy’s Chicken located off Madison Boulevard in the Publix Shopping Center
community itself.’’ Champy’s, which is based in Chattanooga but is not a franchise, also has a location at the concessions area of Toyota Field. A self-described “kissing babies
and shaking hands’’ entrepreneur who had never worked in a restaurant before, upped his efforts during the pandemic shutdown to branch out beyond the walls of Champy’s to build bridges.
By Mike Easterling / Photos by Steve Babin
During the shutdown, for example, he bought his skeleton curbside-only staff, meals from all surrounding eateries. “I want all the restaurants around here to be wildly successful,’’ he said as a large lunchday crowd filled into Champy’s dining room after the shutdown was lifted. Jung, 46, has previously only worked in business. His brother-inlaw approached him about opening a restaurant and they decided to go with Champy’s instead of a chain. Next was finding a location. Jung, whose family settled in Atlanta from Korea when he was 4 years old, had considered Kennesaw (Ga.) among 15 other locations including the Bahamas, which would prove impractical. Madison, and the former Buffalo’s site, proved
