The façade of the Heaven Sent restaurant in downtown Renton is misleading.

It does no justice to the southern-fried magic going on inside.

Apparently, the Heaven Sent signage was recently mowed half off by the back end of a wayward truck and now hangs ragged like a broken arm.

Inside, a handful of non-descript table and chair sets await the hungry diner. Pleasant jazz tinkles in the background as the eye takes in the sights, scents and tasty bites of real peppered mashed potatoes, velvety brown chicken gravy, buttery corn and of course the star of the show, perfectly crispified southern fried chicken.

I was at Heaven Sent to try the famous chicken for the first time and also to learn how to make sweet potato pie this Thanksgiving for my family.

I will tell you there is something of a showman in the owner of Heaven Sent, Ezell Stephens.

At a table happily dunking my chicken into tangy barbecue sauce, I watched as Ezell posed for pictures with customers.

“Make sure to get Oprah in there,” Ezell said with an easy smile and a good-natured chuckle as he stood in front of a poster size photo of Ezell and Oprah. A ways back, Oprah tasted and loved Ezell’s fried chicken on a trip to Seattle, it has forever more been dubbed: “Oprah’s Chicken.”

But it was in the kitchen that I really got to know Ezell.

“Every day is Thanksgiving for me,” he said with feeling.

And looking around it was true.

A row of deep fryers loaded up with sizzling chicken inside a halo of flour and spices, sweet buns bloomed and macaroni and cheese bubbled and browned in the hot oven.

“Pumpkin pie has always been my first love,” I say. And it’s true, when it comes to pie and Thanksgiving, pumpkin’s the only one on my dance card.

But lately I’ve been retracing food missteps, going back to foods that I have an aversion to for absolutely no good reason, like sweet potatoes.

“Don’t even get me going about the pumpkin,” Ezell said, delicately palming a sweet potato. He’d peeled away the dingy brown, revealing a surprisingly vibrant orange within.

“God is Good All the Time” was the logo on Ezell’s black t-shirt. A shiny gold cross linked with a gilt Superman shield hung around his neck. He wore the signature black suede leather hat I’d seen on billboards.

But up close there were tassels in the back and up front a pin had been placed in the center honoring veterans, tinted glasses, a mouthful of gold, and a Bluetooth that appeared permanently infused to his ear, presumably, so he could be free to conduct business, make fried chicken and preach the Lord’s blessings all at once.

“A pumpkin is grown above ground,” he said, in a lilting cadence with a Southern accent that reminds me of peaches, sweet teas and preachers; a voice that naturally takes you in and soon you find yourself nodding your head and saying, “Mmmhmmm.”

Ezell continued, “Pumpkins are hollow inside. But a sweet potato, a sweet potato grows in the ground, protected from the elements in the soil with iron and minerals—it comes from the Earth.”

“Mmmhmmm,” I nodded.

According to Ezell you need about 5 medium- sized sweet potatoes for a pie, “Don’t get the big ones,” he warned, “‘cause they’re too stringy and the little ones don’t have enough flavor.”

I watched him quarter the sweet potatoes as he reminisced about life lessons he’d learned as a boy growing up in a small town in Texas. As a young child he was one of seven kids and for a time lived in a one room, dirt floor, tin topped house without electricity or inside plumbing. But the place was surrounded by woods and acres of land. And this is where Ezell learned about farming, cooking southern food like his mother’s sweet potato pie and the power of always trying your best.

“Whatever I do it has to be the best, just like my mama taught me. On the farm, we grew and cooked everything. Raised chickens and pigs, ground our own sausage. Grew butter beans, squash and every vegetable imaginable. That’s where I learned about entrepreneurship walking through the neighborhood with a cart load of vegetables going door to door, asking, ‘you want to buy some squash, some beans, some sweet potatoes?’”

Ezell first learned how to fry chicken at the tender age of 16, after he dropped out of high school and his mama made him go work at the chicken house.

Four years in the Navy brought Ezell to Seattle and he’s been cooking chicken ever since, first with Ezell’s and now at Heaven Sent.

“You know my split with Ezell’s,” Ezell said referring to a recent legal battle between his ex-wife and brother-in-law that led to his opening Heaven Sent eateries (it’s Ezell’s famous recipe, but he can no longer use the name “Ezell’s”).

“It was like the Challenger taking off, you know how it has those tanks on the side at first? After a while those tanks on the side can only get you so far and then, at a certain point you gotta just let ‘em go ‘cause they can’t take you no further,” he paused to smile, “And I’m headed for the moon.”

“Mmmhmmm,” I nodded.

Ezell cooked those sweet potatoes on a low boil until they were completely soft. Then, using an electric mixer he blended the sweet mash with the rest of the ingredients: cream, egg, white sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.

“Whatever it takes, that’s what I do. If you be true to yourself-,” Ezell paused, and, for the first time he looked sad. “That’s what people have a problem with today; they don’t even know themselves.”

Ezell poured the sweet potato pie mixture into a dough crusted tin. And we let it bake.

“But, it’s like exercising a muscle, you got to keep it Godly,” which to him means keep trying your best.

Ezell cut me my first ever slice of sweet potato pie.

It was rich, spicy and sweet with a depth of flavor I had not expected.

Ezell taught me how to make an amazing sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving and for that I’m grateful. But more importantly, he reminded me that Thanksgiving isn’t just about being thankful on one day, but being thankful and trying your best on every day.

“Mmmmhmmm.”