During my trip to Nashville earlier this year, I had a long day of calling on accounts and dealing with a couple visits to private residences that required me to pick up some products that were under evaluation by local studio engineers. I was sort of in the mood for barbecue, but it was raining out and I wasn't all that thrilled with driving a long way for food that evening. I did a quick look on line to see what was available for barbecue around me and I found a place not too far from my hotel called Jack's Cawthon's Bar-B-Que.
The "Jack" behind Jack Cawthon's Bar-B-Que is Jack Cawthon. After graduating high school, Cawthon started his culinary career working in the kitchens at country clubs around the greater Nashville area. By the mid-70's, Cawthon had worked his way up to managing a local country club's dining room. But he had bigger things in his life plans - he wanted to go out on his own with an upscale catering company.
In 1976, he started Cawthon's Catering which serviced upper crust society soirees and events. Cawthon was always nattily dressed in black tie attire while working the events around town.
With the recession in the 80's hurting business for high-end catering jobs, Cawthon began to look into a brick and mortar restaurant. By the mid-80's, Nashville had lost a number of old time barbecue places and Cawthon took notice. Most of the old places were pork barbecue only, but Cawthon wanted to learn more about both Texas-style barbecue - primarily beef brisket - and St. Louis-style ribs.
Settling on a combination of Texas beef, St. Louis ribs and Tennessee pork barbecue, Cawthon experimented with sauces coming up with a sweet and spicy Texas-style sauce, a sweet and mild Kansas City-style sauce, a spicy mustard and vinegar Carolina sauce, a vinegar-based sauce and a white Tennessee-style sauce.
Pictured right - Jack Cawthon. Photo courtesy Tennessean.com
Finding a spot for his barbecue joint was next on Cawthon's list. He leased a building at the corner of 1st and Broadway that used to house the Tennessee State Liquor commission and got it for a song as lower Broadway was in a slow decay in the late 80's. In 1989, Jack's Bar-B-Que opened for business. Many point to the opening of the restaurant as the spark of revitalization of lower Broadway.
Jack's Bar-B-Que became an instant hit and just a year later he opened a second location on the north edge of Central Nashville just off I-65. A number of hotels were in the immediate area and Jack's was a popular stop for the vacationers staying in the hotels as well as the locals who didn't have to drive all the way downtown to enjoy good barbecue.
In 1994, Cawthon was dealt a blow as the lease on his original location was not renewed by the owner. The building had been sold and was going to be razed for the new Hard Rock Cafe - Nashville location. Cawthon was understandably down in the mouth with the turn of events and hoped to stay in downtown Nashville. He asked his employees to give him suggestions where he should look for a new location downtown. The consensus was that he needed to move more to the west on Broadway where more of the touristy spots were located. Cawthon found a place about 3 blocks to the west of his original location and this time he was able to buy the building. Jack's Bar-B-Que's new Broadway location opened in the fall of 1994. Its large neon sign with three flying pigs - highly recognizable along Lower Broadway - was put up on the building in 1996.
By 2013, Cawthon was ready to expand again. He found a building at the corner of Charlotte and McMillen Avenues west of downtown Nashville. (see map) While doing some deed research on the property, Cawthon found that the building stood on what were the grounds of the original Tennessee State Penitentiary which opened in 1831 and closed in 1892. Due to Cawthon's research, the Nashville Metro Council decreed that the building his new restaurant was in would be named Governor's Corner.
It was also at his new location that Jack Cawthon decided to use his full name in the business' title as a nod to the former Nashville barbecue joints that used the owner's full name in the title. That's why the Charlotte Avenue location is known as Jack Cawthon's Bar-B-Que.
A cold front had come through earlier in the day and the temperature dropped from the upper 80's into the low 60's by the time I ventured out of the hotel. The rain was still falling and it was definitely a cool and damp evening. It was less than a mile drive from the hotel to Jack Cawthon's Bar-B-Que. The brick building with the large neon sign along Charlotte Ave. stood out amongst the other buildings in that stretch of road. I pulled into the parking lot behind the building only to find that the parking lot entrance was the main entrance to the restaurant.
Inside Jack Cawthon's Bar-B-Que is a comfortable dining area with a number of booths along the windows that look out onto Charlotte Ave. with a number of music-themed pictures on the brick walls. A large mural on the wall pays tribute to the former New Era Club, a nightclub that used to be just down the street from where Jack Cawthorn's stands today. The mural depicts artists who played there while the club was going strong in the 50's into the 70's - Little Richard, Ray Charles, James Brown and Jimi Hendrix who played in a local band where he was known as "Jimmy" before he became famous. Etta James is also on the mural as she performed two nights in the club in 1963 and those shows were immortalized in the record album "Etta James Rocks the House". I found it somewhat interesting that Cawthon had put his face and the Jack's Bar-B-Que sign logo on the mural.
Service at Jack Cawthon's consists of counter ordering. A line of cutting stations were behind the glass partition on the counter. The menu was on the wall near the counter and consisted of pulled pork, brisket, ribs, smoked turkey, Texas-style smoked sausage, and smoked chicken. Sandwiches and meat on its own were available on the menu as were smoked meat by the pound.
As I like to do with barbecue joints that I'm visiting for the first time, I got the sampler platter. Only it was served in a styrofoam container. I told the guy as he was filling it up that I was planning on staying in to eat and he simply said, "That's OK," as he continued to fill the container. I guess that's how they serve their barbecue at Jack Cawthon's.
For my sampler platter, I got the St. Louis ribs, the Tennessee pulled pork and the Texas brisket. Two sides came with the meal and I had a choice among cole slaw, the steamed vegetable of the day, potato salad, mac & cheese, and some other items. I noticed that they didn't have fries at Jack Cawthon's, but offered potato chips for a buck. I ended up getting green beans and the baked beans. Two slices of toasted white bread came with the meal and I ordered a local IPA (can't remember the name) to go with the dinner.
The barbecue was pretty good. Actually, the brisket was very good to excellent. It had a nice bark on the outer side of the meat and the beef brisket was tender, juicy and full of flavor. The ribs were very good with meat that literally fell off the bone. The rib meat also had a nice charred bark and an excellent taste quality. The pulled pork was also pretty good. I had to add some sauce to the pulled pork - I got the Texas sweet and spicy (which wasn't all that spicy to me), and the Kansas City sweet and smokey (which, quite actually, was almost too sweet for my taste).
The green beans were sort of "meh!", and the baked beans were helped tremendously with a plentiful dousing of the Texas sweet and spicy sauce. The portions that were served to me were generous and I was certainly stuffed by the time I threw in the napkin to end the meal.
For not knowing where all the good barbecue joints are in Nashville, I have to say that it would take quite a bit to beat what I had at Jack Cawthon's Bar-B-Que that evening. The brisket was excellent, the ribs were smoked perfectly and the pulled pork - while a bit bland - were helped out with some of the sweet and spicy barbecue sauce. While the green beans were sort of flavorless, the baked beans were good and even better with some of the sweet and spicy sauce mixed in. I'm starting to notice that more and more barbecue joints are going to counter service and while I don't care for that type of service - especially when they expect you to tip the help the same as if it was wait-service - it's something that I've just sort of learned to live with. If you're in Nashville and in the mood for barbecue, Jack Cawthon's Bar-B-Que - or any of the Jack's Bar-B-Que locations - would be good in a pinch.
Comments