Aspiring opera singer changes tune, finds niche as a chef

CRAWFORD - Seventy-year-old Alon Wilson has come a long way from his native state of Hawaii.

Wilson's sung opera in New York, cooked meals in a Beverly Hills hotel and retired for more than two years before he decided to open his own restaurant in Crawford.

Other entrepreneurs have seen their Crawford restaurants close down, but Wilson's determined to fill a niche for fresh food and to keep his costs low with Alon's Eatery, he said.

"I'm so lucky, because what I'm doing and what I'm able to do, I'm totally stress-free," he said.

Wilson thought about opening his restaurant in Lexington, but Crawford has the sewer system he needed, he said.

He skipped Athens as a possible location because he wanted to stay in the community where he lived, he said.

Wilson also wanted to give Oglethorpe County residents a good reason to keep close to home for a fresh meal, he said.

"I thought that the county itself needed to expand or grow," he said.

Wilson has a couple of waitresses and a part-time dishwasher who help out, but he does most of the business' labor, Wilson said.

"I do every speck of the cooking - 80 percent of the cleaning," he said.

Wilson didn't want a career in food service at first and, like many living in and around the Athens-area, his first dream job involved music.

"I wanted to become an opera singer, truthfully," he said.

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