For business owners and local economies, the financial toll of abrupt restaurant chain closures which struck the South in April is still unfolding. By contrast, consequences for those companies’ wage workers have been immediate.
Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill, a decades-old Florida-based barbecue chain, on April 28 closed its remaining 31 locations. More significant, at least in terms of Southern food’s national profile, are the cascade of closures associated with Birmingham’s Pihakis Restaurant Group (PRG), the hospitality company which crafted counter-service formats for chefs Rodney Scott and Sean Brock. PRG, facing more than $12 million in lawsuits, began shuttering restaurants on April 12. It’s since posted “closed until further notice” signs on 14 restaurants in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
