Nick Bishop Jr.
Nick Bishop Jr. and his father didn’t necessarily start out to create an empire revolving around hot chicken. Even though Bishop senior had already enjoyed a long career in restaurant management with Morrison’s Restaurants Inc., his post-retirement venture was simply to open a small family-run restaurant in Cool Springs — Bishop’s Meat & Three. After his son joined the business, the two began to experiment with their own recipe for the iconic Nashville hot chicken dish, and it didn’t take long before that one menu item began to dominate sales at the cozy cafeteria.
Never ones to miss out on a dining trend, the Bishops decided to move forward with a new restaurant focused solely on hot chicken. They named it Hattie B’s after three women in the Bishop family, and the rest is history — history that is still being written. The chain has expanded to six locations, including three in Nashville and one each in Atlanta, Memphis and Las Vegas. The recent announcement that Hattie B’s will be an anchor restaurant in the massive Fifth and Broadway complex (now rising out of the downtown hole that was previously the site of the Nashville Convention Center) shows that the trajectory of the company remains in a steep climb, like a chicken suddenly blessed with the gift of flight.
We sat down with the younger Bishop and his director of strategy and development, Perry Chen, to talk about where Hattie B’s has been and where they are heading. We met at the Hattie B’s location in Melrose, the newest of three Nashville outposts. After a little more than a year operating on Eighth Avenue, Bishop is still learning about the neighborhood.
“When we opened, we expected a little more neighborhood traffic,” says Bishop. “But we realized that we’re just a mile from the roundabout downtown, so we’re drawing lots of traffic from tourists arriving in Ubers or even on scooters. We also get big groups coming in the door carrying suitcases on their way to or from the airport.”
Since the three local Hattie B’s are relatively close to downtown — and each other — there’s some risk in adding a highly visible new location on Lower Broad. “I certainly think about it,” says Bishop of the locations’ proximity. “They’re all close to each other, so I was already worried they would draw from each other. We just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be on Broadway and to continue to be a great representative of Nashville hot chicken and Nashville hospitality.”
Chen echoes the sentiment: “We figured why not be part of all the cool things going on downtown?”
Bishop says the team started thinking about a downtown location during the celebrations around the Preds’ Stanley Cup Final run in 2017. “I couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like to have all those fans pouring out of Bridgestone right across the street,” he recalls. “Three to five years ago might not have been the right time, but now there are so many visitors to Nashville that never leave downtown. It’s become its own sort of island. We might not have done it without the Broadway entrance, and we think that part of downtown will continue to develop. Broadway ends in water, so you can’t go that way.”
Another factor that emboldened management to take on Lower Broad was the success they’ve encountered at the Hattie B’s outpost in The Cosmopolitan hotel in Las Vegas. “Vegas has been an inspiration for what we might do at Fifth and Broadway,” says Chen. “We’ve been able to keep a tight group of staff and still produce more volume. We’ve learned a lot moving from store to store, but we’re still turning over rocks to see what makes the most sense.”
Bishop was surprised by the immediate acceptance of the brand in Sin City. “There was a line when we opened on the first day, and we thought, ‘Oh shit, people actually know us!’ In the first hour we were open, a lady told us she had flown her own plane from L.A. to pick up chicken for a football party that evening. She had visited us in Nashville and made the trip to Vegas just for chicken.”
As they learn how to work more efficiently with multiple locations, Hattie B’s leadership also wants to learn how to scale their personal style of people management. “We’ve got 250 employees now,” says Chen. “How do you care for them like we did when we just had 25?”
Bishop continues: “We have a lot more people to take care of, but it makes us care even more. Establishing a positive culture and genuinely caring for your people is something you can’t replace. Now we’re big enough that we can offer better wages and health care to our people, and that’s really cool to me.”
Hattie B’s has been approached multiple times about the possibility of franchising. While Bishop says he wouldn’t ever rule it out, he’s comfortable with his chain’s current model of company-owned locations as part of a family business.
“We’re growing at a good speed now,” he says. “After opening three new restaurants in a year, we’re going to take a breath to regroup and talk about what’s next.” He adds that a second Atlanta location “is definitely something we’re looking at.”
“We’re fortunate to have incredible leaders on our team,” Bishop explains. “We don’t have to teach them the culture of Nashville hot chicken, and we’re building systems around how we can check in remotely with the team — how we can be there without actually being there. We’re looking to add to our leadership and figure out how we can give more support to the all-stars. The most important thing is maintaining the same vibe and hospitality for the customers.”
“I’m fortunate to have a father and grandfather who worked in the restaurant business, and we’ve surrounded ourselves with people who know hospitality and service,” Bishop says. “But we don’t think we’ve got it all figured out; we read lots of the reviews.
“We know who we are and how much of an impact we make,” he adds. “You just have to be satisfied with that. Most of all, we’re proud to be able to offer a place where people can come together to work hard and enjoy themselves. That’s fun!”
