Soul Food Made From Love, Forgiveness, and Compassion
Love, forgiveness and compassion are the ingredients of life for the 76-year-old man who makes some of the best soul food in lower Alabama. Cozy Brown was forced to learn to cook 16 years ago after his seafood market burned. He had no insurance and no other options.
“ Nobody was going to take a risk and hire a 60-year-old man, so I had to do it myself. I started cooking and putting some recipes together, like the way my mama used to cook, and opened Cozy Brown’s Kitchen.”
In that kitchen, 100-quart stockpots of chicken and dumplings, red beans and rice, oxtail, neckbones, chitterlings, collard greens, turkey necks, hog maul, and shrimp simmer over the flames of the stove. He also makes some of the best fried chicken in lower Alabama.
The dining room is painted with murals of Jesus with his disciples at the Last Supper and a family picnic with a turkey, ribs, macaroni and cheese, and a bowl of punch waiting on the table. Signs on the walls say, “Coons for sale $15 each” and “No Gambling on Primises (sic) Thanks...Cozy.”
His menu states that “All foods are created equal but Cozy makes the difference.”
Cozy makes the difference, not just in his food, but also in his community in Prichard.. He gave a job to a man who robbed him two years ago, employs more people than he needs, mentors and motivates youth and feeds the community on Thanksgiving Day. The street in front of his restaurant was recently named Cozy Brown and he was given the key to the city..
Cozy grew up in Prichard and moved to Virginia to pick tomatoes and gather the harvest. A migrant worker until he was 23, he then moved to New York City and got a job in a plastics’ factory making $1.30 an hour. He later moved to a mail-order house, rising from the warehouse to production manager. “I worked hard and I treated the business like it was mine and the owner trusted me. He had never taken a vacation until I came.”
Cozy enjoyed making good money and living in the fast lane in New York City where there was something to do all night. He was production manager for 18 years until the owner's youngest son came home from the military. “He didn't like me being in the position I was in and we didn't see eye to eye,” Cozy says. “It became a problem and the old man didn't want to go against me or his son so he retired.”
It was time to move home, but Prichard was not New York and Cozy had to start over selling recapped tires.,Selling tires led to selling seafood and then to Brothers Seafood Market when someone asked what to do with a building about to be vacant.
“I said a fish market because my brother-in-law was misled that a fish market was a good business and I assumed he was right,” Cozy says. “I didn't know one fish from another, or how to run a seafood business, but I knew I could manage anything. I went to Bayou La Batre where they unload the seafood boats and started figuring it out from there. There were slow times but I kept the faith. I got up at three in the morning and went to seafood holes from Gulf Shores to Louisiana, and bought from places others didn't know about. The other seafood markets closed at 6 p.m., so I stayed open until 8 p.m. They opened at 9 a.m. so I opened at 6 a.m. I worked hard and became the kingpin of seafood. I had five markets at one time, even one in Fairhope. I had a salvage yard, too, and it got too much because I was trying to do it all myself.”
Cozy has slowed down from five fish markets and a salvage yard, but not much. His ringtone is “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke, and that song goes off all the time.
"It's been a long time, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will
It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die’
'Cause I don't know what's up there, beyond the sky"
Motivated by changing lives, helping others is what keeps Cozy going. He has 17 employees at the restaurant now, and if they show a little interest, he tries to help them.
“Even in New York, I helped people with rent, car notes and utilities,” he says. “I could get things done when no one else could, or done more efficiently because I went out of my way to help the people working for me.
Two years ago, he was robbed at the restaurant when he stopped by after a meeting at church. A young man pointed a gun at him and told Cozy to hand over his wallet and keys.
“I said, 'Lord be with me because I am going at him.' I grabbed the gun it and it went off and shot me in the chest. The bullet came out at the top of my shoulder.”
Love, forgiveness, and compassion. Cozy gave all three to the robber. He even went to court and asked the judge to give the man probation.”I gave him a job and worked with him and he was getting better. He was picked up a few months later for things he did prior to my robbery. He is locked up in Jacksonville, Florida, but I still talk to him all of the time.
“Drugs are messing up minds,” he says. “They think smoking marijuana is okay because it is popular, but it is not. It does something to the brain cells. They get high and think it is okay to kill rob or somebody.”
Cozy also talks to men on the streets in Prichard, warning them that whenever there is a fight or killing, it is always guys who know each other, not strangers.
“These guys need to understand, if you are going to be a man you need to stay out of jail,” he says. “Behind bars, you become a child and are told what to do, when to eat, and when to go to the bathroom. You don't want to be that kind of man. You've got to be a man that has love, forgiveness, and compassion. If you don't have those three things, you have problems.”
He says the problems come from making decisions based on what feels good and not taking responsibility to make changes.
“We have been meeting and talking about these things years,” he says. “God can't work for you if you aren't doing what He wants you to do. We pretend that we are Christians but don't have love for one another. Love, compassion and forgiveness are what it is going to take to stop the killings and domestic violence.”
Cozy says no one has it all together and he doesn't either, but God uses us anyway. He wants to keep helping people and hopes God gives him a few more years to do it.
“The Bible says, 'When you do for the least ones, you do unto me.' I believe that wholeheartedly. It doesn't matter who they are or what they do, when I leave this life I want them to say I fed somebody and put a smile on their face.
“Love, forgiveness, and compassion. That is all we need.”
