Gay Entrepreneurs Juan and Gee Smalls Get Candid About Success, Individual and Collective Push For Freedom
Gregory "Gee" and Juan Smalls (Credit: Johnnie Ray Kornegay III for The Reckoning)
It's just after 11 am on a Friday when Gregory "Gee" Smalls walks into Virgil's Gullah Kitchen & Bar – West Midtown.
As members of the staff mull around prepping for the day, he stops at a table to talk to a familiar face. They strike up a quick conversation.
Eventually, he stands and greets us – me and Johnnie "Jay Ray" Kornegay III, creative director of the Counter Narrative Project. We are there to capture a few images of Smalls and his husband of 13 years, Juan. It's 12 days after their anniversary.
Smalls hugs us and says, "Juan is up the street. He's on his way." But actually, Juan is already here. He appears at the top of the establishment's stairs. As we take notice, he slowly saunters down the stairs – making an entrance – and pulls his shades from his face.
They are dressed in seemingly coordinated outfits—Gee in a long sleeve, black sweatshirt, camouflage pants, yellow, high-top sneakers, and a Black beanie. Juan is wearing blue jeans, sneakers, and a black asymmetrical button-down, long-sleeved shirt. If their wardrobe choices indicate their relationship dynamic, it shows how their unique personalities and styles complement each other.
Halfway down the stairs, Juan adjusts his shirt to straighten it and smiles. Everyone laughs and exchanges hugs before he mentions the in-house music cannot be heard on the restaurant's main floor.
As they embrace each other, Gee mentions to Juan that the familiar face is a family friend – or extended family member – it's not completely clear, as the conversation is publicly private.
Virgil's Midtown is their third restaurant together. The first, also named Virgil's Gullah Kitchen & Bar, opened in 2019 in College Park. The restaurant is named after Gee's father, Virgil. And the menu is inspired by Gee's Gullah Geechee roots.
"For me, it's been a huge eye-opening experience owning this restaurant and researching the Gullah culture. It's given me a new love for the culture that I didn't know I needed," said Juan. "The experience has made me more connected to my Blackness and given me a greater appreciation for the Black experience that I didn't already have. Growing up in south central Los Angeles, I had a love-hate relationship with Blackness because those experiences led me to associate Blackness with being poor and downtrodden. But now, through Virgil's, that perception has shifted."
In 2021, they opened their second restaurant, The Breakfast Boys, based in College Park, with business partner Lorenzo Wyche. And now that they have the West Midtown location up and running, they have turned their attention back to a Conyers location. They were working on a Conyers location for Virgil's when the previous owner approached them about West Midtown.
"West Midtown wasn't initially on our radar, but it was a really great deal," said Gee. "The owner of the space courted us to come here, so we stopped what we were doing in Conyers to open West Midtown."
The Smalls' didn't have to give opening a second Virgil's restaurant in West Midtown a second thought.
"This was the area we wanted to be in when we started working on the business plan for Virgil's," said Juan. "But no one wanted us. To have someone seek us out; it was validation."
They created the idea for Virgil's six years before opening the College Park location. Initially, the idea was to open a bar, a space for Black gay men in the city.
"The whole point to opening Virgil's was for Black gay men to come and call the space our own. There were spaces we would go into, but they weren't owned by us."
- Gregory “Gee” Smalls
"The whole point to opening Virgil's was for Black gay men to come and call the space our own," said Gee. "There were spaces we would go into, but they weren't owned by us."
One of those spaces was where they met in 2008; Joe's on Juniper. As the story goes, they both saw each other across the restaurant. But when Gee approached Juan stating, "I saw you staring at me," Juan denied it, responding, "No, I was looking at your friend, not you." By the end of the night, they exchanged numbers. Fifteen months later, they eloped.
Joe's has since closed, shutting its doors in October 2021. The location was demolished in the summer of 2022.
"We made it our mission to open a space to celebrate Black culture...that Black gay men can enjoy as home," said Gee. "To come to Midtown around the same time as Joe's closing is full circle. That is pretty special."
The community, said Juan, has now dubbed Virgil's the new Joe's.
Gregory "Gee" and Juan Smalls (Credit: Johnnie Ray Kornegay III for The Reckoning)
‘Pure, unadulterated freedom’
Some assume there isn't much that hasn't already been said or written about these two. From the numerous stories about their relationship dynamics to Gee's social media activity and memoir, "Black Enough Man Enough: Embracing My Mixed Race," one is left to wonder, "what don't we already know?"
Take, for instance, the dynamics of what has been publicly characterized as their open relationship. As we talked about some of the stories written about them, like in The Reckoning, Juan reflected on how it has impacted them and how he sees himself.
"I don't know that I have learned anything new about myself. What I do know is that back then, and still to some extent today, I put too much stock into what people thought and felt and believed about us," he said. "I don't want to be weighed down by insecurity."
Freedom is the goal.
"Pure, unadulterated freedom," Juan said. "Over the last few years, I have really withdrawn into myself. I am more interested today in exploring myself and freedom. Seeing Gee express his freedom and being around that, only makes me want to be freer. It's part of that exploration."
"Over the last few years, I have really withdrawn into myself. I am more interested today in exploring myself and freedom. Seeing Gee express his freedom and being around that, only makes me want to be freer."
- Juan Smalls
Gee believes his freedom and the couple's transparency have led to a greater conversation.
"I am constantly approached by people who share their observations of my freedom. I get it all the time," he said. "We normally try to follow these rules that go against everything we feel or want for ourselves. But people have shared how we have helped them to open their minds to something different. It helps to allow them the space to lean into themselves more."
But none of it was something either of them set out to do. Being public figures or one of Atlanta's gay power couples was never the intent. There was no agenda.
"Everything was accidental," said Juan. "We got married and were approached to write a column about our experiences. We had never done that before."
"Then we decided, instead of writing this, let's just answer the questions on video," added Gee.
So, we pivoted," continued Juan. "Who knew it would lead to restaurants? We just pivoted when we needed to. It all is a testament that the journey may be different than you anticipate, but it will get you to your goal if the goal is freedom.”
“And staying true to your passion," said Gee.
"The people and the community have always been the passion. And love is my strongest passion," he said. "Love for healing, entertaining, and hosting, creating spaces for people to be free and vulnerable. Love for love and love for relationships. I may not have always had the words for it, but it's always been about expressing those passions, and they all just evolved into what they have evolved into."
And in the process, they have evolved as individuals and as partners.
"We are pretty dynamic individuals, and we are even better together. We need to own that," said Juan. "It's not bragging. I am trying to be intentional about patting us on the back because it's true. We have done some amazing things. Our life has been amazing, whether on the upswing or downswing."
Gee admits that sometimes it's easier to embrace an air of humility because he doesn't want to appear braggadocious, especially when Juan brags about them as a unit. It is a work in progress for him – including embracing the label of 'power couple."
In previous interviews and an Instagram post from August 29, 2022, Gee flips the concept of what it means to be a power couple on its head.
"I've heard those words uttered to us more than I can count, and it would make me cringe every time I heard it," he writes. "I have always felt it to be a superficial title, so it was one I'd often reject. I don't do that anymore."
Juan and Gregory "Gee" Smalls (Credit: Johnnie Ray Kornegay III for The Reckoning)
He explains that embracing the moniker has nothing to do with the "things we have achieved together or the fact that we look fly together (we do)," but it is more about what has been at the core of their relationship.
"To be a power couple is to hold each other accountable. It is to challenge one another. It is to forgive over and over again. It is to ask for forgiveness even more. Power knows that you both deserve everything you desire, and you do everything to ensure each other receives it."
Gee spoke from his heart, he said, because he started to appreciate their power.
"The way of my strength is my vulnerability. Part of my rejecting the power couple label had to do with what people project onto you and what they believe a power couple should be, should have, or should do. I did not want those labels," Yes, we have sex with other people. But we have all these other things going on. We are trying to build businesses and trying to pay bills. We have a level of understanding that most people don't get to, so I wanted to talk about all of that."
All-in-all, Juan and Gee are two people attempting to live authentic lives. Along the way, they are helping to shape the narrative about what that looks like – for them.
"We are just like you," said Gee. "Humans are 99 percent the same. What separates us is our ego and the way we are brought up to think about things. But at the core, we are just like you."
Mashaun D. Simon is an equity and inclusion advocate who centers his preaching, writing, and scholarship on cultural competency, identity, and equity.
He has written for NBC News and the Atlanta Daily World, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Black Enterprise, Bloomberg News, TheGrio.com, Ebony Magazine, BelieveOutLoud.com, and Essence Magazine. He has also created and managed cultural competency and affirmative action programming and training and in 2018, Mashaun organized and facilitated Kennesaw State University’s Faith and Sexuality Symposium on behalf of KSU’s Presidential Commission for LGBT Initiatives. In 2021, Mashaun was selected as a member of the inaugural cohort of the Rising Leaders Fellowship.
He holds a professional writing degree from Georgia Perimeter College, a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Kennesaw State University, and a Master of Divinity from Emory University's Candler School of Theology.