Last fall, Angia Cox was in culinary school and catering private events. During that time, she realized she was ready to open up her own restaurant, but she wasn’t sure where to start.
While on a date night with her husband and business partner, 37-year-old Kevin Cox, she noticed a vacancy at the River Market in downtown Little Rock.
In less than two weeks — and after delivering a successful business proposal to a group of 25 — she was able to secure the location.
“We feel like it was meant to be because of how things started to fall into place like you wouldn’t believe,” the 35-year-old said.
Cox, a St. Louis native, opened Platnum BBQ — and that is without the ‘I’ — on Sept. 5, 2017. When asked about how she developed the name, she said: “Well, I figured that anything platinum was worth having. I decided to put my own little spin on it and take the ‘I’ out.”
A mother of five, it is Cox's family that inspires her to keep going. "My motivation comes from just showing them that you can work hard to get the things in life that you want."
Click here for larger versions
Photos courtesy of Platnum BBQ
Photos courtesy of Platnum BBQ
"I teach my kids this all the time: that you are only as successful as you want to be,” she added.
Cox has plans to expand and franchise the restaurant and wants to have her children involved on a corporate level some day.
“We are very small scale right now," she said of the location in Ottenheimer Market Hall, 400 President Clinton Ave. "This place can only fit a certain amount of people at one time," noting that there are 15 vendors inside the hall that all share a space of about 100 seats.
The eatery features daily breakfast, barbecue staples like burgers, ribs and steak, as well as a chef's daily special (one example: grilled chicken stuffed with vegetables and served with pasta in an Alfredo sauce.)
"The motivation behind that is to make sure that our customers don't get bored," Cox explained. "Because not everyone can eat barbecue everyday."