Esco Eats: The Decatur Entrepreneur Building a Brand and Creating Community

Known for his World Famous Apple Cobbler Pie, Decatur-based small-business owner Esco Hill has built a brand and a community by offering his patrons an experience

Decatur-based Esco Hill, better known as Esco Eats, bakes his World Famous Apple Cobbler Pie in a kitchen located across the street from the DeKalb Farmers Market, where he sources all the apples he uses to make his internationally-recognized 2-in-1 dessert. It isn’t just those now-famous apples that keep him in DeKalb, though. If you ask Esco, he’ll tell you it’s also the inspiration from “all the key brands that have grown and marinated here.” And that’s because Esco isn’t just baking cobbler pies in DeKalb – he’s building a brand by creating an experience.

The Inception of Esco Eats

Esco describes the people of DeKalb as “building a culture of talent.”  He was born in DeKalb County into a family of talent and has contributed to DeKalb’s pool of talent himself from his early years. A third generation entrepreneur, Esco attended Wynbrooke Elementary School, DeKalb Agriculture Technology & Environment, Inc. (D.A.T.E.) for middle school and Arabia Mountain High School, where he played football.

He went on to play at Jackson State University in Mississippi where he majored in business marketing. It was there that he began working on a start-up project to make his campus biometric, which ultimately fell through when one of his strongest supporters at the school was let go. Esco wasn’t deterred by this hurdle, though. He returned to his hometown and decided to get to work on a new venture.

Esco Eats started as a food video series on YouTube with a goal of bringing entertaining food content to a broader audience. The World Famous Apple Cobbler Pie was created in a moment of serendipity – after botching an apple pie recipe, he realized he had stumbled upon something even better – a pie-meets-cobbler experience for the tastebuds. He decided to use the pie mistake to help market the series, and the Esco Eats brand was born.

Giving the World a Taste of DeKalb

While his roots are planted in DeKalb, Esco aims to create an experience surrounding his pies that are inclusive of more than those who live in the city of Decatur. He wants to share the rich culture of his hometown with the world. Esco Eats recently promoted the mini World Famous Apple Cobbler Pie in the Delta Sky Club. The goal is for everyone who visits a Delta Sky Club at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport to have the opportunity to try one of his cobbler pies.

Esco describes his World Famous Apple Cobbler Pie as a must-try for those visiting Atlanta, and he’s created enough buzz around the cobbler pie through his grassroots marketing that some are even making trips to Decatur for the sole purpose of doing just that. Videos on Esco’s social media accounts feature some who detail how long they’ve waited to finally try his cobbler pie and the distances they’ve driven.

For those located within driving distance of Decatur, Esco recently provided another experience to help his customers rethink their sense of community and inclusion by throwing Atlanta’s first Virtual Wine and Pie Party. Attendees had the opportunity to pick up some of his cobbler pies and the wine he imported from Europe to pair with them and join other members of their community at a virtual party that they could participate in regardless of their location.

Esco’s cobbler pies may be world-famous, but Esco Eats is still a small business. If you have a business you’d like to locate in DeKalb County, please contact Decide DeKalb to find out more about how small businesses thrive in DeKalb.