Jim ‘N Nick’s Community Bar-B-Q has never strayed far from its roots, its chief executive said.
Larry Ryback, CEO of Jim ‘N Nick’s for the past four years, said the 41-unit, Birmingham, Ala.-based brand’s mission has remained much the same since its founding in 1985, when the then-casual-dining restaurant was founded by insurance executive Jim Pihakis and his son Nick.
“Their premise back in the mid-80s was to create authentic, home-cooked, legitimate barbecue with great quality sides,” Ryback said. “It’s a pretty simple premise, but harder in the execution than it is in the conception. It was all about five great proteins and five great sides back then. We're not that different today honestly.”
Jim ‘N Nick’s was acquired by Atlanta-based Roark Capital Group in 2017, when the brand had 37 locations in seven states, including Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Ryback said Jim 'N Nick's is committed to slow-cooked, hickory-smoked barbecue with scratch-made sides.
“We do it the old-fashioned way,” he said, adding that restaurants do not have freezers or microwaves.
“We're smoking meats in every restaurant before the sun every day of the year,” Ryback added. Since the Roark acquisition, the company has added a second office in Atlanta to support growth. The company plans to open a unit this month in Madison, Ala., and then one in Rome, Ga. “Five more beyond that will all be in Georgia before the end of the year,” he said.
Ryback, whose background is with brands like P.F. Chang’s China Bistro and True Food Kitchen, said the Jim ‘N Nick’s brand has become more contemporary over time.
“The menu over time expanded a little bit, but we really try to focus on the things that we know we can do well, the things that our guests love, and we try not to do too many things that might compromise our ability to do that,” Ryback said.
Pulled pork, popular in the Southwest, remains the brand’s No. 1 seller, he said. “We sell a whole heck of a lot of ribs — both spare ribs and baby back ribs — but it's a pretty even sales mix across all proteins.”
The openings this year will be smaller than Jim ‘N Nick’s historical 5,500-6,000-square-foot restaurant, Ryback added. The company has two prototypes: one that is 4,000 square feet and another that is 5,000.
“We shrunk the box a little bit because we just didn't have the same dining demand we used to have,” he said of the pandemic’s impact. “We also wanted to invest a little bit more in better enabling the takeout channel.”
Besides making the box slightly smaller, he said, with less indoor seating and more outdoor seating, the brand also invested in take-out channels and drive-thru.
“One of the things that you don't see a lot in casual dining is drive-thrus,” Ryback said. “We're starting to see that more and more, but it's been a part of Jim ‘N Nick’s for well over two decades. We've taken the learnings from all of our years of experience and then the increased demand that came about during COVID and decided we're going to get pretty seriously invested in a drive-thru.”
The company has invested in double drive-thrus and handheld point-of-sale options for team members so they can take orders in the parking lot, he said.
Ryback said the brand was a late adopter in online ordering. It’s also leaned into the catering menu, he said, which was also beneficial during the pandemic.
“When everyone had to close their dining rooms for that period of time and were scrambling to figure out how to survive,” Ryback said, “we had other revenue channels that we could expand upon because we already knew how to do it.”
Today, off-premises channels make up about 60% of sales, he said.
The pandemic also altered Jim ‘N Nick’s service model, Ryback added. Historically, it's been a full-service model, but the concept moved to what it calls a fast-casual-plus model during the pandemic.
“It is counter service, much like you'd find in fast casual,” Ryback said. “But everything is still prepared from scratch to order, so we bring out the food to you and then there are service elements like beverage refills or clearing plates, offering dessert, things that are kind of a hybrid. So it's more like a fast-casual experience when you order and it is more like a casual-dining experience after you sit down.”
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