A pandemic wasn’t going to stop Terrill Brazelton from opening the pizza restaurant he had in the works for Heights Village in Cahaba Heights. A classically trained fine dining chef, he used the quiet of the COVID-19 quarantine to make sure he sourced the best possible local ingredients for the Troup’s Pizza menu. Since they were already planning to do a lot of take-out business and offer online ordering, his team went ahead and opened their doors curbside-style in late April during the quarantine with a limited menu and family-size meals. When we talked to him, he was eagerly anticipating the day when they could also welcome customers into their dining room and onto their patio with fast casual, order-at-the-counter service.
Can you tell us about your background in food?
When my wife, Ashley, and I met, I was working at Open Door Café, and she was working at Ocean. We later bought Open Door Café and ran that for about five years. Ashley has worked front-of-the-house for Ocean, FoodBar and Daniel George, and I went from Kathy G & Company to OT’s on Acton to Slice Pizza for about seven years. It’s always been on our minds that we wanted our own place again, and one day a gentleman asked me if I wanted to go to lunch and said he’d be happy to help us open our own place. With my experience in pizza and how everyone loves pizza, it seemed like a good fit.
Where did the name come from?
Troup was my great-grandfather, and he was everywhere I turned. He developed the street car line over the mountain where Vulcan is that led to Edgewood, and on Lakeshore Drive he had a track to race cars in the early 1900s when cars were a novelty. There are some historical markers that have his name on it. All of the Brazeltons go by their middle name, Troup, and my great-grandfather, grandfather and my father were all Troups. It’s a reminder of what it took for us to get here.
What’s your vision for Troup’s
We want a family-friendly place where people feel comfortable coming more than one time a week. We want people to feel at home and like they are family. My wife and I will be here all the time. We’ll also have some sandwiches, salads and appetizers, and we’ll have beer and wine for dine-in or to-go.
What will the pizzas be like?
Our 12-inch or 16-inch pizzas will be hand crafted with dough made daily, and we are sourcing as many local ingredients as we can. We’ll have Arnoni’s Sausage from Birmingham and Spotted Trotter pepperoni from Atlanta that uses pigs raised in Georgia, and we will use places like Ireland Farms and Sanctuary Farms to get as much local produce as possible. We will have fun with pizza flavors like Smoked Oyster Rockefeller, Pork Belly and Potato, and Prosciutto and Roasted Grape with Arugula. We’ll bring in specialty ones by the season too. On Sundays we’ll do some breakfast items, pizzas with eggs and mimosa
What else will be on the menu?
We’ll have five or six salads with homemade dressings, and we’ll have classic wings and appetizers like hummus and pork belly. We’ll do a hot braised beef sandwich with peppers and fresh bread, and we’ll do sausage and homemade meatball sandwiches. When it comes to beer and wine, we will have as many local beers as possible with 11 on tap. All of our wines will be high-end canned wines. It’s a trend we are going to embrace and have fun with. They make single serving ones and two-serving cans.
