Necessities for Fine Living with Curtis Brown

Coal and TheGoodLife! present the latest episode of their Ambassador series, which highlights the lifestyles of a select few New York City residents through video and images captured by Craig Wetherby, the co-founder of TheGoodLife!. Last episode followed dancer and fitness model Emma Lovewell through a day in her active lifestyle and this latest, the fifth in the series, welcomes former rocker turned chef Curtis Brown.

Always as passionate about food as he is music, he started out as the frontman for hard rock outfit Bad Wizard before opening the Endless Summer Taco truck. After selling it, he headed to the West Coast to open Territory BBQ + Records in Silver Lake, California. While the venture didn’t last, his knack for cooking brought him back to New York to the kitchen at Bubby’s – a pie shop-turned Southern restaurant in Tribeca. After his time there, he at last got around to opening a joint of his own, The Cardinal.

Celebrating its second anniversary just this summer, the restaurant is named after the bird of his home state, North Carolina. It serves a mean “90 percent Southern” menu of ribs, pulled pork, brisket, and a variety of other Southern comfort foods. To stay close to this second child (he’s also the proud father of a young son) he moved from Tribeca to an apartment just above his two-level restaurant. And while it would seem that the 60-hour workload of managing a restaurant and raising a kid might seem like more than enough, the 38-year-old Brown is allegedly still working on music with a new band with the hopes of releasing an album soon.

To check out the full roster of the TheGoodLife! ambassadors head on over to Coal.