By David Sher
What’s it about Birmingham with food and drink?
Birmingham knows how to create culinary and beverage success stories.
We’re home to Last Call Baking, one of the best bakeries in America.
We’re the city that gave birth to Frank Stitt’s legendary Highlands Bar & Grill, winner of the James Beard Outstanding Restaurant Award—declaring it the best restaurant in the nation.
Beverage powerhouses like Milo’s Tea, Royal Cup Coffee, and Red Diamond Coffee are headquartered in Birmingham.
But here’s a Birmingham restaurant success most people may not have connected the dots on —and it’s been hiding in plain sight at restaurants you probably already love.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably grabbed cheese biscuits at Jim ‘N Nick’s, devoured apple fritter doughnuts from Hero, enjoyed fried chicken at Little Donkey, or savored whole hog barbecue at Rodney Scott’s. Great food, right?
But here’s what most people don’t know: they’re all connected to one Birmingham visionary—Nick Pihakis.
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’s absolutely remarkable.
From one restaurant to a reginal powerhouse
The journey started humbly enough in 1985. Nick Pihakis, just 19 years old at the time, and his father Jim transformed Pasquale’s, an old pizza parlor on Clairmont Avenue in Birmingham into the first Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q.
That single location has grown into something extraordinary. Today, Jim ‘N Nick’s operates 52 restaurants across six states—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. We’re talking about a true regional empire built on slow-smoked barbecue and those legendary cheese biscuits.
But Nick Pihakis didn’t stop there.
Building the Pihakis Restaurant Group
Pihakis’s talent for building restaurant brands showed early. When Keith and Amy Richards founded Taziki’s Mediterranean Café in 1998, Pihakis became an early partner and helped transform it from a single location into a growing chain. Though Taziki’s is now independent with over 90 locations, it demonstrated his ability to spot great concepts and scale them successfully.
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.
The group now includes six brands:
- Rodney Scott’s BBQ
- Hero Doughnuts
- Little Donkey
- Tasty Town Greek Restaurant & Lounge
- Luca Lagotto
- Joyland
James Beard Award-winning pitmaster Rodney Scott was running his family’s small-town South Carolina barbecue joint when Pihakis convinced him they could take his whole hog barbecue to a wider audience. The partnership has been phenomenal—Rodney Scott’s now has locations in Charleston, Birmingham (Avondale, Homewood, and Trussville), Atlanta, Nashville, and they’re even opening in Miami.
Hero Doughnuts started as a pop-up selling brioche doughnuts at farmers markets. Founder Wil Drake partnered with Pihakis in 2017, and the brand has expanded to nine locations in Birmingham, Montgomery, Nashville, Atlanta, and Charleston.
Coming home to Shelby County
The growth continues. In late 2025, Pihakis Restaurant Group is opening Valley Post, an innovative six-acre dining and entertainment complex in Chelsea. The development will bring four PRG brands—Hero Diner, Little Donkey, Luca & Lucy (a new concept), and Rodney Scott’s BBQ—together in one location with outdoor patios, green spaces, and a large screen for viewing events.
PRG has also expanded into Montgomery in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative, opening Hero and Little Donkey locations near the Legacy Museum to serve the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come through downtown each year.
A Birmingham success story worth celebrating
Birmingham has always punched above its weight when it comes to culinary excellence. We’ve got Frank Stitt’s James Beard Award-winning restaurants, Chis Hasting’s Hot & Hot Fish Club, Adam and Suzanne Evans’ Automatic Seafood, and Rob and Emily McDaniel’s Helen all earning national acclaim.
Nick Pihakis has built something that fits right into our Birmingham food tradition—a multi-state restaurant empire that started with one location on Clairmont Avenue and has grown into dozens of restaurants touching millions of customers every year.
So next time you’re enjoying those cheese biscuits from Jim ‘n Nicks, devouring a Boston cream doughnut from Hero, or digging into some Carolina-style pulled pork at Rodney Scott, remember: you’re not just eating at a great restaurant. You’re experiencing part of one of Birmingham’s most remarkable entrepreneurial success stories.
Nick Pihakis built his restaurant empire from Birmingham and that makes this story even more delicious.
David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown. He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).
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Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. dsher@comebacktown.com
Yes, This proves that great things can and do start in Birmingham.
It is a truly great and true story, and it is not the only one, but certainly it is one that might reach the great number of people on a daily basis!
Southern and eastern europeans came to Birmingham initially to work in the mines and the steel industry. Eventually Italians open grocery and drug stores (Bruno’s and Big B), where as the Greeks opened restuarants (as stated in this article). Birmingham was a melting pot before the term was invented. Then the melting pot was cooled down by Bull Conner’s fire hoses. A few years latter White Knights blew Christian children away, which was followed closely by the White Flight over the mountain.