Our Story

Our story actually begins in a place neither of us remembers—but one that somehow connects us all the way back to the beginning.

We were both born on the same U.S. Navy base in Okinawa, Japan.

James was born there eight years after Betsy. We grew up in different places and followed very different paths, but our lives seemed to keep getting surprisingly close. In the early 1980s, we were both supposed to be living in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Our paths almost crossed.

But they didn't.

Not yet.

In 2023, James lost his mother after her long struggle with dementia. Grief has a funny way of making you stop and take stock of your life.

During that time, James started thinking less about what he should do and more about what he wanted to do. He wanted to build something meaningful. Something that brought people together. Something that could become part of a community—the kind of community we didn't really have growing up in military families.

Then came a trip to Savannah. After an experience at Southbound Brewing Company, something clicked. The next day, sitting on the beach, James looked at Betsy and said: "I want to open a brewery." Betsy didn't hesitate. "Okay. Let's do it." And just like that, we had a new life goal.

Within minutes, we were calling people in our network and learning everything we could about breweries, locations, business plans, SBA loans, construction, food service, and everything else we didn't know.

We had absolutely no idea what we were doing. But we knew how to figure things out. And every time we hit a roadblock, the right person seemed to show up.

Then Betsy stumbled across an advertisement for Voodoo Brewing Company.

Her first thought?

"Dang. That's a good brand name."

Then she discovered it was a franchise—and they were looking for people to help expand the brand.

Within 24 hours of filling out the franchise interest form, we were talking with the Voodoo team. A week later, we were in Pittsburgh meeting the people behind the brand.

It felt like the next piece of the puzzle had simply appeared.

Then came our first real challenge:

Finding a place for the dream to take root.

We lived in Cumming, so that's where we started looking. And looking. And looking.

After more than 50 location visits, we thought we'd finally found our perfect spot in Alpharetta. We spent weeks negotiating with the landlord, trying to make the deal work. And then… Nope. We walked away.

Not long after, our realtor called. "I have a location in Roswell you need to see."

When we walked in, the space had been home to several restaurants—and it wasn't hard to see why they hadn't survived. The kitchen was in the middle of the building, the dining area was tiny, and the bar was, frankly, horrible. It needed a total gut job.

But then we looked past what was there. Great street. Easy highway access. Plenty of parking. And a hidden lakeside patio.

Suddenly, we could see it. Not what the space had been. What it could become. We looked at each other. Done. We had found home.

We signed our franchise agreement and quickly learned that making this dream work meant becoming brewers. For James, that was exciting. He dove headfirst into learning the craft, equipment, technology, and processes behind making great beer.

Then came the part where we had to turn that tired former restaurant into Voodoo Brewing Co. – Roswell. We gutted it. We rebuilt it.

We learned things we never expected to learn. We solved problems we didn't know existed. And, more than once, we probably asked ourselves what the hell we'd gotten into. But every time there was a challenge, there seemed to be a solution just around the corner.

And then, on December 14, 2024, the doors opened. The crazy idea James had on a beach in Savannah had become real. And that's where our story really begins.

Because we didn't just want to open a brewery. We wanted to build a place where people could gather, connect, celebrate, eat good food, drink great beer, and feel like they belonged. A place that would become part of the community. A place we could call home.

Welcome to Voodoo – where craft beer without community is just beer.