Fort Deposit takeout restaurant is proving a point and giving back to the community

Published 5:18 pm Friday, November 22, 2013

A true family business, Erick, Vunsuan (Suan) and Kiana Scott prepare food orders during the lunch hour rush at Suan & Erick's County Grill in Fort Deposit. Eric and Suan started their takeout restaurant business three years ago, and their 19-year-old daughter Kiana, a student at Trenholm State Technical College in Montgomery. helps out. While they make their home in Montgomery now, Erick and Suan grew up in Fort Deposit and graduated from The Calhoun School in Letohatchee. They say they are using their takeout restaurant business to give back to the community and to show that husband and wife owned businesses do work.

A true family business, Erick, Vunsuan (Suan) and Kiana Scott prepare food orders during the lunch hour rush at Suan & Erick’s County Grill in Fort Deposit. Eric and Suan started their takeout restaurant business three years ago, and their 19-year-old daughter Kiana, a student at Trenholm State Technical College in Montgomery. helps out. While they make their home in Montgomery now, Erick and Suan grew up in Fort Deposit and graduated from The Calhoun School in Letohatchee. They say they are using their takeout restaurant business to give back to the community and to show that husband and wife owned businesses do work.

By Fred Guarino
The Lowndes Signal

Husband and wife owned and operated businesses do work. And in Fort Deposit Suan & Erick’s Country Grill is proof.

If you pass through Fort Deposit during the lunch hour, you can’t help but notice the crowd lined up at Suan & Erick’s County Grill on Old Fort Road.

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It is owned and operated by Erick and Vunsuan (Suan) Scott, who grew up in Fort Deposit and who are using their takeout restaurant to show that businesses operated by husbands and wives do work. And they are giving back to the community.

Vunsuan and Erick Scott are husband and wife and have operated their takeout restaurant in Fort Deposit for going on three years.

Erick Scott said, “It’s always been a vision of my wife’s to have her own business. So, I decided to come in and join her. And one of the things we try do down here, being husband and wife, is give back to the community, of course, and also show them you can have a successful business… husband and wife… and kind of show people how to do it.”

The restaurant is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. It is closed Sundays and Mondays.

While the Scotts live in Montgomery where Erick works for Nestle’ as a sales representative, they were both born and raised in Fort Deposit.

Suan Scott said they went to the elementary and middle school in Fort Deposit and graduated from The Calhoun School in Letohatchee.

“It’s going real good. It’s busy, and we appreciate our customers,” Erick Scott said of the takeout restaurant. “We try to give back to them. It gets challenging sometimes, but that comes with the territory.”

He said the takeout restaurant gives back by holding customer appreciation days and occasionally gives out free food. “And,” he said, he, his wife and their daughter “just try to serve people with a smile.”

The menu features hamburgers, cheeseburgers, double and triple cheeseburgers, clubs, patty melts, bologna sandwiches, grilled cheese, chicken sandwiches, chili cheese dogs, plain dogs, corn dogs, chicken tenders, chicken gizzards and livers, wings, fish including tilapia, whiting and catfish, fried shrimp, salads and sides including onion rings, fried mushrooms, corn nuggets, sweet potatoes fries and more.

“And we wish to expand,” Suan Scott said. “And we want to do more, but it’s going to take time.”

She said, “We hopefully just want to tear down and rebuild and have a sit-in area, but that is going to come as time goes on and we build ourselves up. We just want to make something the community does not have here.”

Before starting the takeout restaurant, Suan Scott said she was in nursing. “I decided to quit that and start my own. Its’ been good.”

Kiana Scott, the Scotts’ 19-year-old daughter, also helps out. She is a student at Trenholm State Technical College in Montgomery where she is studying to become a dental assistant.Family-Operation