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Ah bummer. For me, the article was behind a subscriber wall.
Edit: Once I clicked on it again, I was able to read the article. -
Likely another casualty of the rising costs of doing business in the foodservice industry:- meat and food costs
- labor costs
- insurance
- regulatory costs
- maintenance of equipment
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realdocBBQ I looked up some more articles on it; what I’ve gleaned from reading between the lines is that his partner, Nick Pihakis, and the actually restaurant owner, Pihakis Group, are in serious financial trouble. To be sure, that industry is a tough row to hoe; but the issues are pretty deep. Google “Pihakis group”.Comment
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Yeah I saw some mention of that - lawsuits from unpaid bills - sounds like they might have been floating along for a while without paying suppliers.Originally posted by Mosca View Post
Reminds me of a restaurant I worked at back a number of years ago, while waiting to start residency... old lady owned the steakhouse, I worked as a cook under the assistant manager, who'd been with her for almost 2 decades. Old lady was diagnosed with cancer and was dying, she promised the manager she was going to inherit the steakhouse when she was gone. It was a pretty rapid decline over about 3-4 months and she was gone.
Once it happened and the manager was trying to keep things afloat, it became apparent the old lady hadn't paid ANY of the restaurant's bills for most of the last year - and the suppliers cut them off and said, "No more." Needless to say, the business closed its doors and all the staff were out of work. Only 20 people or so, but it was sad to see a longtime icon of the town go away under those circumstances. <sigh>
Next door neighbor lady here did the same thing - told everyone on the block she had a will with everything set up to take care of her funeral, said she had set up for everything to be handled when she was gone, going to leave things for people, etc. Told us she had set up some things for my son's college, other people, too, blah blah blah. Of course, it turned out when she was gone that she had been floating everything along on a predatory "reverse mortgage" and she had no assets and had burned through everything, it's all sitting in limbo and the house is unoccupied and probably in the process of being acquired by the lending company. She lied to everyone about everything, the funeral home she supposedly had a plan with had never heard of her, her former attorney said she hadn't updated her will in well over a decade, etc.
We never took any of her claims to heart, we knew she was full of it, and of course, we didn't plan on anything she told us about putting anything back for my son's college. That wasn't her responsibility, she just wanted everyone to love her and think she was generous. People are odd sometimes....Comment
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I wish I could say I’m surprised. I went to one of his Atlanta restaurants a couple years ago, and the place was deserted at 1pm. The interior of the restaurant was also bigger than any of the places I’ve been to in Texas. Hopefully Rodney comes out OK..Last edited by Sid P; May 4, 2026, 12:18 PM.Comment
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Hopefully Rodney still owns his name and can open up in a much smaller footprint. I know he has been on BBQ Brawl and hopefully he has the rights to the income from there.Comment
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Major bummer......Could be mis management, tough environment or the march towards massive corporate BS food places continues on. Any good restaurant is being replaced by private equity owned spots or mega-chain fast food garbage that are terrible for you, for the community and leave us with few choices. Start up is too expensive, meat is expensive, wages are expensive, regulations and city boards screw with everything to get their greezy fingers in there. It is not looking good.
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I try to avoid the chains and go to the local places. Most times it is better, seldom not. Have to keep our small towns alive -
Yep, cities can be a PITA to deal with.
A few years ago I had some friends that wanted to open a coffee place. Hoops, hoops, and more hoops… It never happened in that location. Shortly after, a bigger corporate coffee shop went to the same location. Not a problem, it’s all yours. SMH -
Yeah shocking how that works. 😡 There was a BBQ spot in Minneapolis that was making food on a Lang and a Southern Pride smoker…..the flunkies in city hall tried to shut him down cause he was not using a “food grade” kitchen. They claim to love the small guy then bow to massive corporate operations without no soul or character. Just mass produced garbage, reheated outta the factory. (Okay that’s a little extreme but not far off) surfdog
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In my time around the restaurant industry I’ve seen plenty of successful one location restaurants expand to multiple locations and lose everything.Comment
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Spinaker While I not an expert on private equity, my observation is that they are often the kiss of death to companies.Comment
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An Amazing Ribs investigative reporter could look into the Rodney Scott story, backstory, and future plans.Comment
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I would volunteer but I'm iffy in WORD and I just started watching the movie Kill the Messenger -
He’s written a book about that. It was published in spring 2021, and covers up to the merger with Pihakis, and a little beyond. A lot of his rift with his family is public knowledge.
Rodney Scott's World of BBQ: Every Day Is a Good Day: A Cookbook https://a.co/d/0aCQhi1V
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Pretty sad, and it sure seems accepting "help" from the Birmingham based group led to over expansion and unpaid debts, likely by the investment group, and I imagine little of it had to do with Rodney Scott himself.
I'm in a situation where the president of my company is now courting outside investors, after 38 years of us going it alone in a small successful business. It is to help "take us to the next level". But personally I'm worried, as even if there is a payout of some sort, I had hoped to work another 7-8 years at least. My experience at two employers who took outside investment or sold out to a larger company are that in both cases, the place was literally GONE in 1 to 2 years.Last edited by jfmorris; May 5, 2026, 07:40 AM.Comment
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Lots of investment groups now are taking on businesses to show them 'on the books' to be able to leverage assets for more capital investment. It seldom (likely never) works out for the original owners and employees the way it works out for the management/investment group. Keep in mind, they aren't doing it for YOUR benefit... I know you know this. We went through that courtship a couple years back - things didn't add up, not even close.
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Inflation and shrinkflation plus management and overhead.
Queen - Another One Bites The Dust [Lyrics]
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Sad news----Charleston is the only one I have been to----check out the pic showing me with Rodney during a visit.
I hope for a revival of Scott's BBQ.Comment
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