1 of 4
Jilan Hall, owner of The Sassy Biscuit Co. stands in front of her newly opened cafe at 1204 Hull St. in Manchester.
2 of 4
The Sassy Biscuit Co. has two dining rooms.
3 of 4
A dining area inside The Sassy Biscuit Co.
4 of 4
The coffee counter and bar area inside The Sassy Biscuit Co.
A patchwork of jewel-toned stained glass in shades of cobalt blue, marigold, amethyst, terra cotta and teal catches the warm morning light above the entrance to The Sassy Biscuit Co., welcoming customers into Jilan Hall’s homey Manchester cafe at 1204 Hull St. that opened in June for breakfast, lunch and brunch.
“Everything we do is centered around the biscuit,” says Hall, a native of Syracuse, New York.
Specifically, the drop biscuit. Hall sees the rustic, unfussy style that ditches the rolling pins and precision as a reflection of her own journey: imperfect beginnings can still lead to something beautiful. For Hall, the restaurant is the latest chapter in a life defined by reinvention — one that has taken her from culinary school and military moves to divorce, shuttered locations and cross-country transitions before landing in Richmond.
“I grew up cooking a lot,” she says. “I loved cooking, I loved eating, and I was entrepreneurial from a young age.”
Her early life was shaped by situations that jolted her into adulthood. One of her parents struggled with addiction, and at 17, she became pregnant with her first child.
“My home life wasn’t really great, and I had my first baby one month before I graduated from high school,” Hall says. “I knew I needed to do something different and get away from the environment I was in, and so I decided to go to culinary school.”
Food became her guiding light.
The experience allowed her to hone the skills she had built in her home kitchen. After graduating, she landed at the DoubleTree hotel. But when employers handled a harassment issue improperly, she says, “I ended up leaving because there was really nothing done.”
Her career took her to the health insurance industry, and she became a military spouse, moving across the country a number of times before earning a graduate degree in human services counseling and working as a transition coordinator for the Department of the Army.
Everything changed when the couple was stationed in Billings, Montana, or, as Hall lovingly calls it, “Blessings, Montana.” Living in a predominantly white community at a pivotal moment in her life, when she was searching for answers, Hall says the idea for the business she leads today came to her like a revelation.
“I have been a Christian my entire life, and I was at a point in life and in my marriage where I wasn’t really sure which way it was going to go,” Hall says. “I feel like God gave me this idea during the time when he knew I would need to leave [my marriage], and then I sort of structured it around this idea of a biscuit waffle.”
Making breakfast for dinner for her four children was already part of Hall’s love language, and she was ready to step back into a profession. “They loved breakfast, and I only like to cook when people like to eat,” she says.
In 2018, she introduced the first location of Sassy’s, ultimately turning her fear of “How am I going to survive in this new place?” into her calling card.
“We were able to open up Sassy and do some really cool and great things there for that community,” she says. “I decided I really want to show — showcase — Black culture and the food that we eat, and just how we do things.”
Hall opened a second location in New Hampshire, in August 2020, with a third planned for Boston before the COVID-19 pandemic put the project on pause and, eventually, shuttered all outposts. Seeking a fresh start for herself and her business, she relocated to Richmond in 2023 and reopened The Sassy Biscuit Co. in June of this year.
The stained-glass entryway at The Sassy Biscuit Co. was completed by local company Mojo Glassworks.
Hall says she now understands the systems, and the people, needed to build a sustainable company.
“The vibe at Sassy is just a fun place to be,” she says. “It’s such a special place. The people who work for me are such special people. They come from all different walks of life. They’re family.”
That sense of community is central to Hall’s vision. The restaurant employs people who have experienced rehabilitation or incarceration and are working toward a new beginning.
“For me, when I went to culinary school, that was a second chance at life,” Hall says. “Food really pointed me in the direction I needed to go, and so when I developed this concept, I wanted to make sure I did the same for other people.”
A display case inside the cafe features biscuit varieties from chocolate chip to ham and cheese, along with seasonal options, while dishes balance Southern familiarity with what Hall calls a “sassy” twist — such as zippy pickled garlic aioli, housemade hot sauce, sweet lemon butter or blueberry jam, all made in-house.
“We always say, ‘Is it sassy?’ when we’re coming up with something. ‘Is it sassy enough?’ We want to make sure that we just do something that is elevated but us,” she says.
Bouncing between sweet and savory, the menu puts the biscuit at the center of nearly every dish, from the signature waffle biscuits to pancakes, sandwiches and French toast.
Find The Sassy, a cinnamon-vanilla waffle biscuit drizzled with sweet buttermilk gravy, or The Cluck, topped with fried chicken and apple cider gravy. The Bennie features a drop biscuit layered with a fried egg, shaved ham and the restaurant’s own caramelized pineapple hollandaise. Sandwiches include The Carolina Cristo, made with applewood-smoked ham, Swiss cheese and pickled blueberry jam on a French toast biscuit, and the Semper Fi, stacked with a fried egg, bacon, cheddar and pickled garlic aioli.
Nonbiscuit offerings include steel-cut oats, lemon morning bread, soft banana granola and avocado toast, alongside coffee, teas, handcrafted sodas and mimosas.
In Hall’s mind, her journey is proof that sometimes the most memorable things are the ones that refuse to fit the mold.
“I knew that I couldn’t just let it stop. I just feel like there were a lot of lessons that I had to learn. There were a lot of things that I had to just go through to make me a stronger person, to kind of solidify the things that I knew that needed to be done.”
The Sassy Biscuit Co. is open daily from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
