From 'a foodie at heart,' Wrap & Roll Kitchen opens in North Augusta (2024)

Where else in North Augusta (or even the entire CSRA) are the Lauryn Hill and R&B’s TLC given some prominence in the shape of specially-created dishes?

Brian Waller, all 10 of the buttons on his chef’s coat buttoned, is the man behind them, and “everything on the menu has a story behind it.”

Wrap & Roll Kitchen opened May 20 in the former T’s building at the head of downtown North Augusta. It's wraps, it's bowls, it's comfort food in the form of rack of lamb and "Pappas garlic alfredo."

"I'm a foodie at heart," Waller said.

After a brief stint in Atlanta studying CNC programming, Waller was back in Augusta, first at Augusta Tech and then at Helms College where he enrolled in the Culinary Arts program.

The transition from learning how to automate machine tools to perfecting beef bulgogi or a gourmet mac-and-cheese was one that, like many in his life, Waller credits to his faith: “God-inspired,” he said of this venture that began fomenting about two years ago.

Waller is already an established businessman in the CSRA, having a trucking company and two barbershops. Wrap & Roll Kitchen, he said, started with its food truck before the extensive licensing requirements – including the need for a home base – led him to “just” open it as a full restaurant.

“I travel a lot. When I travel, my ideal vacation is to eat,” he said, giving a nod to some of the chefs he’s worked under or whose food he’s experienced over the years, chefs who “bring a story to their food.”

Get the QB Chili Bowl and you’ll be paying tribute to a former business partner of Waller’s (and one of the first dishes he created after Helms). Or the Hello Wrap – beef bulgogi and kimchi fried rice in Korean BBQ sauce, this one inspired by his best childhood friend whose family always brought over some of that bulgogi.

“What speaks to me?” Waller mused. Sandwiches, wraps and comfort food.

The flying rack of lamb, made for his wife, gets a madeira sauce. Chicken tenders. Mesquite pork tenderloins – the “3 Little Piggies” on the menu – and fried jalapeños with some honey mustard. "Wrap" is in the restaurant's name, but the menu goes beyond "That Thing," as miss Lauryn Hill would sing it (which, the "That Thing" wrap is first on the menu).

Waller said his eagerness to open the restaurant and the hurdles he’d had while envisioning it as a food truck business were small challenges compared to the biggest one of all: Time.

“Some people just can’t defeat it; you’re either going to live in the past or you’re going to live in the future,” he said.

Those couple of years in Atlanta had been a way to get away from some negativity he’d had early on, he said, and his return to Augusta had come with his father’s death.

“I take my present situation, evaluate what happened in the past, and I put my expectation with the future, and I make a decision,” Waller said.

Now, with his faith lighting the way, Waller said he’s bent on contributing to the full of the North Augusta restaurant scene.

“I want to be an asset. I want to know how I can contribute to our community,” he said. “We’re going to make this a hub for food. When people come to the Masters, people are gonna say ‘We gotta go to North Augusta, I hear they got good food out there.’ Not just Wrap & Roll, but North Augusta."

And the food truck is still a part of things.

Waller has it out back of the restaurant and of his 17 staff, a few will be assigned to that side of the business.

Wrap & Roll Kitchen is located at 220 Georgia Ave. in North Augusta and is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

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