This Culver's Sister Chain Celebrates Traditional Southern BBQ All Across The South

It's easy to imagine a Culver's sister restaurant serving similar food, such as ButterBurgers, Wisconsin cheese curds, and frozen custard — but that couldn't be further from the truth at a deeply Southern restaurant chain called Jim 'N Nick's Community Bar-B-Q. Instead of Midwestern comfort food like Culver's, this much smaller sister chain rolls out "slow-smoked Southern goodness" day in and day out, based on generational recipes and traditional Southern cooking. We're talking things like classic barbecue and smoked spare ribs, beef brisket, Carolina-style pork, fried catfish, and a parade of Southern side dishes and desserts.

Jim 'N Nick's began as a single barbecue joint in 1985, opened by Jim and Nick Pihakis inside a former pizza restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama. As shared on the company website, their vision was to honor the tradition of classic barbecue masters, use high-quality ingredients, and "serve the whole community like family." The barbecue is slow-smoked for 12 hours, and the team eschews freezers, microwaves, and shortcuts. In other words, they do things the old-fashioned way, even after expanding to the current 60+ locations throughout seven Southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Though a chain restaurant, Jim 'N Nick's carries a reputation similar to neighborhood smokehouses — albeit with a lighter, fast-casual aesthetic after a revitalization that added double drive-through lanes and newer technology. But it's still all about what's on the menu, which remains authentically Southern by most folk's standards.

Diners coming to Jim 'N Nick's for the ribs, platters, and combo plates have plenty to nosh on while waiting for mains to mosey on over. For many, it's inconceivable to pass up the Brisket Mac & Cheese Bombs, though Smoked Wings give them a run for their money. Lighter options include a Bar-B-Q salad, classic Chopped Southern salad, and Brisket Chili.

The menu's "JNN Classics" section is where the smoke really starts blowing you away. Meals come with two sides from the "trimmings" menu. Main dish options include classic pulled pork, Carolina-style pork, beef brisket, barbecue chicken, and two superstar "plates": Mr. Jim's Combo Plate with two or three smoked meats and Karl's Fried Catfish Plate. Similar meats and sauces appear in sandwiches, which are served on Martin's Potato Buns (the brand behind the absolute best store-bought hamburger buns), as are two renditions of smash burgers. 

As for dessert, the four simple offerings are as close as you'll get to home-cooking outside your grandma's kitchen. There's banana pudding, chocolate cream pie, a seasonal pie that rotates throughout the year, and lemon icebox pie, which easily landed on our list of nostalgic foods you probably ate growing up in the American South. 

Customers chiming in on Yelp express appreciation for the authenticity of Jim 'N Nick's, with one echoing various sentiments across the board: "This place is the real deal no shortcuts, no gimmicks, just serious barbecue done right. Chill vibe inside." Facebook reviews from Spartansburg, South Carolina, are generally favorable, with one commenter calling the brisket "tender and juicy" and the cheese biscuits "to die for." A few disagree, contending that the chain isn't special, while some Redditors have complained about high prices in recent years.