Jack Cawthon, Legend of Nashville Barbecue Scene, Dies at 80

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In Nashville's modern food scene — full of high-profile chefs from the coasts and award-winning locals who helped turn the city into a legitimate culinary destination — the name Jack Cawthon is rarely mentioned, even though he paved the way for much of its success.

“Jack was a trailblazer,” says fellow barbecue purveyor Pat Martin. When Martin opened his first restaurant in Nolensville 20 years ago, Cawthon was among the first to try his West Tennessee-style whole hog and cheer him on. Cawthon “set the tone,” Martin says, and never viewed a new place — even a new barbecue joint — as a threat, but rather as something that made the city’s scene stronger.

Cawthon died on Wednesday age 80 after a bout with cancer. Earlier this year, faced with his own mortality, he told friends and family that he had two goals: He wanted the business to make it to 50 years, and he wanted to make it to 80. He achieved both.

Born in Franklin in 1946, Cawthon grew up on a 150-acre family farm and graduated from Franklin High in 1964. Though he trained in upholstery, he got into management at the Nashville City Club and learned enough to strike out on his own on July 4, 1976, with a business called Cawthon’s Caterer. Though they served a bit of everything, Jack knew he was onto something from the reviews customers gave his barbecue. Cawthon threw himself into mastering different barbecue styles and traveled extensively to hone his craft.

Jack’s BBQ on Broadway first opened in a little shack on First Avenue in 1989 before moving to its iconic home at 416 Broadway — with a neon sign topped by flying pigs — in 1994. His menu blended his love of Tennessee and Texas, featuring both pork and beef barbecue styles, along with a variety of regional sauces. 

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The success of Jack’s spawned locations on Trinity Lane in East Nashville and on Charlotte Avenue near Capitol Hill. His restaurants were written up in USA Today, The New York Times, the L.A. Times and Southern Living. His pioneering led to Travel + Leisure naming Nashville the best barbecue city in the country in 2014. 

In between all that, Cawthon — and his signature hat — even became the answer to a Jeopardy! question in 2011.

Before he opened his Peg Leg Porker restaurant, fellow pitmaster Carey Bringle was a fixture on the competition circuit at big events like Memphis in May, where Cawthon and his son would attend and cheer on his fellow Nashvillian. 

“Jack was a Nashville barbecue pioneer,” Bringle says. “He's always been an amazing ambassador for Nashville, and for the barbecue community, and he took what he was doing in catering and turned it into barbecue and then became a barbecue icon in Nashville before there were really any barbecue icons in Nashville."

Martin says Cawthon and fellow restaurateur Randy Rayburn, who died in 2024, should be placed on the Mount Rushmore of Nashville’s culinary scene for their efforts to create today’s success.

“There had to be people that broke doors down for the rest of us to follow suit,” Martin says. “And in the barbecue world, that's what Jack did for us. ... He was ridiculously kind and supportive. When we talk about what Nashville is, and what makes us different from everybody else, we were all cheering each other on. Looking back on it, I didn't realize it then, but that was because of the Jack Cawthons and the Randy Rayburns of the world, because that's how they treated us. They cheered all their peers on.”

Cawthon was preceded in death by his wife Linda Coral Cawthon, and a brother, James Hugh Cawthon. He is survived by his brother George M. Cawthon Jr., sister Sarah Chisenhall, and two children, Jay Hamilton Cawthon and Elizabeth Rose Cawthon, and a grandson, Finn Oliver Cawthon.

Services will be announced at a later time.

This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.