{"id":319921,"date":"2025-11-25T21:41:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T21:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/alabama\/birminghams-hidden-restaurant-empire-comebacktown\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T21:41:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T21:41:52","slug":"birminghams-hidden-restaurant-empire-comebacktown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=319921","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham\u2019s hidden restaurant empire | ComebackTown"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"Rodney<\/a>
Rodney Scott, left, and Nick Pihakis are pictured here at the opening of Rodney Scott\u2019s Whole Hog BBQ in Birmingham,\u00a0 Ala., on Feb. 20, 2019 (Joe Songer\/jsonger@al.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By David Sher<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s it about Birmingham with food and drink?<\/p>\n

Birmingham knows how to create culinary and beverage success stories.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re home to Last Call Baking<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, one of the best bakeries in America.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re the city that gave birth to Frank Stitt\u2019s legendary Highlands Bar & Grill, winner of the James Beard Outstanding Restaurant Award\u2014declaring it the best restaurant in the nation.<\/p>\n

Beverage powerhouses like Milo\u2019s Tea, Royal Cup Coffee, and Red Diamond Coffee are headquartered in Birmingham.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s a Birmingham restaurant success most people may not have connected the dots on \u2014and it\u2019s been hiding in plain sight at restaurants you probably already love.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re like me, you\u2019ve probably grabbed cheese biscuits at Jim \u2018N Nick\u2019s, devoured apple fritter doughnuts from Hero, enjoyed fried chicken at Little Donkey, or savored whole hog barbecue at Rodney Scott\u2019s. Great food, right?<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s what most people don\u2019t know: they\u2019re all connected to one Birmingham visionary\u2014Nick Pihakis.<\/p>\n

Until I started digging into this story, I had no idea these beloved restaurants were all part of the same success story. And the scale of what this Birmingham native has built? It\u2019s absolutely remarkable.<\/p>\n

From one restaurant to a reginal powerhouse<\/strong><\/p>\n

The journey started humbly enough in 1985. Nick Pihakis, just 19 years old at the time, and his father Jim transformed Pasquale\u2019s, an old pizza parlor on Clairmont Avenue in Birmingham into the first Jim \u2018N Nick\u2019s Bar-B-Q.<\/p>\n

That single location has grown into something extraordinary. Today, Jim \u2018N Nick\u2019s operates 52 restaurants across six states<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\u2014Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. We\u2019re talking about a true regional empire built on slow-smoked barbecue and those legendary cheese biscuits.<\/p>\n

But Nick Pihakis didn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n

Building the Pihakis Restaurant Group<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pihakis\u2019s talent for building restaurant brands showed early. When Keith and Amy Richards founded Taziki\u2019s Mediterranean Caf\u00e9 in 1998, Pihakis became an early partner and helped transform it from a single location into a growing chain. Though Taziki\u2019s is now independent with over 90 locations, it demonstrated his ability to spot great concepts and scale them successfully.<\/p>\n

In 2014, Pihakis founded the Pihakis Restaurant Group (PRG) and started partnering with talented chefs and entrepreneurs to build a portfolio of distinctive restaurant brands.<\/p>\n

The group now includes six brands<\/a><\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n