I can almost hear the voice behind the premise of the popular (sci - fi) movie and television series Hilander, proclaiming to the immortal warriors that are to engage in battle each time they come face to face with one another, at the final battle, "there can be only one!" remaining as ruler of the universe. This story wreaks of that premise. It appears that I, Eric Austin (aka Chef E aka Big E), am being confused with one Mr. James Eric Walker, who also calls himself "Big E" It seems to me that there was no newspaper, radio or television mention of Mr. Walker before I coined the recognizable name with my first restaurant "Big E's Soul Food".
Since then, Mr Walker has gained a particular amount of notoriety with using the name, some good, and some not so good... which brings me to my point. Recently in a Star Tribune article posted August 16th, 2006 in CJ's column, the headline reads "Big E and date have a bad night at Trocaderos..." While attending the restaurant / club, Mr. Walker, founder of a Minneapolis African American networking club called "First Fridays" and his date had allegedly recieved poor service (I don't know, I wasn't there) and vowed never to host the group there again. In any event, people all over Minneapolis have been coming to me asking me why I caused such a scene. We are not the same Big E, although I can see why people would think that from reading the name. What other Big E could they be talking about, right? While we both share the name, the issue becomes who can be most associated with it? Well, we would have to go into things like when did people first start calling each of us Big E, or which one of us is oldest and has sported the title longer. My contention is this; Google, yahoo or city search the name Big E's Soulfood and the search engine goes on and on. There's not one mention that I saw readily of Mr. Walker. Hey! whatever the case, when you say the name
BIG E around Minneapolis, people think soulfood! As well they should because really, THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!! Sorry James.