La-Van Hawkins (Photo: YouTube)
La-Van Hawkins once stood astride the Detroit restaurant and entrepreneurial scene, a former gang member who left the life behind for that of a businessman, with dozens of fast-food franchises and a marquee spot in Greektown, died Saturday. He was 61.
The Free Press has no cause of death in its coverage.
Hawkins was known as a big man with a big personality, and sometimes for big trouble with the law -- for failing to pay payroll taxes, and in a Philadelphia corruption case, where he was sentenced to prison time for perjury. He also made Crain's "40 Under 40" list of promising young business people, and at one time ran the "12th-largest black-owned company in the United States with $246 million in annual sales, according to Black Enterprise magazine," the paper reports.
Sweet Georgia Brown, his restaurant in Greektown, was an early entrant in the comeback of downtown Detroit dining, a white-tablecloth destination serving upscale soul food. It closed in 2009.
The Freep reports:
By the time he has been named to Crain's list, Hawkins owned 89 Detroit-area Pizza Hut restaurants and had moved his company headquarters to downtown Detroit in the Zeff building.
He said he "saw Detroit as a city on the move with room for entrepreneurs."
Other profiles — published at the height of his success — described his physical presence, at 6-foot-2, 285 pounds, as striking and his personality, as he dressed in the latest fashions and pulled up in a Bentley, as flamboyant.
