A chat with Ben Ellsworth starts with M&M’s and San Pellegrino Aranciata and ends somewhere much deeper. In this episode of Snackin’ & Yakkin’ with BIG Ben Kennedy, the Charleston chef turned founder talks about 22 years in kitchens, nine years of sobriety, and why building a city people love can push its workers farther out.

It’s funny, honest, and a little raw in the best way. One minute they’re sorting blue M&M’s. The next, they’re talking about addiction, burnout, fatherhood, and the price of staying in hospitality in Charleston.

Candy, orange soda, and how the conversation got rolling

The snack combo set the tone right away. Ellsworth picked San Pellegrino Aranciata and M&M’s, then immediately started pulling out the blue ones like a man with a system. His logic was simple and kind of perfect, you eat with your eyes first, and chocolate plus orange just works.

That Aranciata got proper respect, too. It landed as a lighter, less syrupy orange drink, the kind that doesn’t coat your tongue in sugar sludge. For a long conversation about recovery and restaurant life, that felt oddly fitting.

The connection came through photographer Jon Stout, also known as Bad Jon. A mix-up over who was supposed to reach out to whom led to a very easy yes, which is how good podcast episodes should start. Stout also shot some of Ellsworth’s early branding photos for GigPro, and those images helped him look like exactly what he was, a chef with something bigger on his mind.

From Augusta fry cook to Charleston chef

Ellsworth’s first cooking job was in Augusta, Georgia, working as a fry cook at a comedy theater. By his own telling, he was “more of a drug dealer” at that stage than a chef, which says a lot about where his life stood back then. A high school literature teacher had opened another door for him through books like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Burroughs, Bukowski, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. For a while, he thought literature might be the path.

Then life swerved. After a run-in that ended with police in the driveway and a clear message to leave Richmond County, his mother found a way out, Johnson & Wales in Charleston. He moved in 1998 and never really left.

That shift mattered. Charleston became the place where he built a career, raised kids, and spent more time than anywhere else. Even if locals sometimes guard the word “native” like it’s family silver, Ellsworth has earned his place.

“If you don’t make time for recovery, you’re not going to recover.”

That line changed his life. After getting sober, he stepped away from the 60 to 80-hour grind of running restaurants and took a lower-pressure prep cook job so recovery had room to breathe. Fatherhood also changed the scoreboard.

How GigPro came out of a dishwasher no-show

The idea for GigPro didn’t come from a whiteboard. It came from a Friday night panic at Royal American. The dishwasher called out, the kitchen was short, and everyone started scrolling their phones for someone, anyone, who might pick up a shift.

At the same time, Ellsworth was renting a room on Airbnb and got a booking notification. His first thought was brutal and brilliant, “I wish you booked to wash these dishes.” That was the spark.

GigPro turned that pain point into a hospitality staffing app. Restaurants could post urgent needs, and skilled workers could grab shifts on their own terms. In a town where state-average wages don’t match local rent, that flexibility matters.

Here’s what the app was really solving:

• Short staffing: Restaurants constantly needed dishwashers, prep cooks, and line help.
• Income gaps: Hospitality workers often needed extra money without taking a second full-time job.
• Timing: Operators needed people now, not after a week of interviews.

GigPro launched in November 2019, then COVID hit five months later. Strange timing, but the need only grew. By 2021, as the Southeast reopened, demand surged in Charleston, Charlotte, Nashville, Austin, and Savannah. Local coverage from Charleston Magazine’s profile of Ellsworth and GigPro and the Charleston City Paper’s report on the app’s growth shows how fast that idea took off.

Charleston’s food scene has a worker problem

Ellsworth doesn’t blame one bad boss or one bad restaurant. He points to the bigger squeeze, rent, real estate, insurance, and a city that loves hospitality but makes it hard for hospitality workers to stay close.

That tension sits at the center of one of his next projects, a documentary called We Built This City. The idea is sharp, the people who built Charleston’s dining scene keep getting pushed farther from it. Meanwhile, diners still expect quality, speed, and low prices all at once. Something has to give.

He also talks openly about why leaving the kitchen was necessary. Sobriety forced a brutal question, who are you without the chaos? For him, restaurant life had become too tied to drinking, stress, and survival mode. Even watching The Bearbrought back so much anxiety that he started sweating on the couch.

What comes after survival mode

These days, Ellsworth writes on Substack, helps people in recovery when he can, and spends more time on family. He recently took a long step back after separating from GigPro’s day-to-day growth, and that came with its own challenge. Once you hit the goal you chased for years, what then?

His answer seems to be this, re-build a life on purpose. That means travel, better health, being present at home, and maybe, soon, talking more about a new restaurant project.

The big takeaway from this episode is purpose. Ben Ellsworth didn’t just leave the line. He changed what work means, what success feels like, and who gets helped along the way.

Follow Ben Ellsworth on Instagram at: @tumblin_dice and read his Substack at: https://benellsworth.substack.com/

More episodes to be found here!