BBQ King

“Welcome to the family!” is what you will hear first thing when you walk into Big Nick’s

on Baytree Road in Valdosta, Georgia. A warm family environment is what customers are said to

feel when they eat at Big Nick’s, a brick building with a red patio in the front of it with a big sign

with Big Nick’s smiling face on both sides of it with it reading “Big Nick’s BBQ, Soul food and

Wings” in bold orange letters. Huge paintings of soul singers throughout history such as, Aretha

Franklin, Patti Labelle and Prince were hanging on the red painted walls inside the restaurant.

Big Nick’s to Valdosta locals is more than just a restaurant to eat at, it is also a community event

center. Many people in the community use Big Nick’s as a place for baby showers, work events

and Valdosta mayoral candidate, Kevin Bussey, held one of his campaign events at Big Nick’s.

When I spoke to some of the employees, they all had one word that kept coming up in their

responses, and it was “family.” So, the big question is, who is the man that keeps this family

altogether?

Where it all started

Big Nick’s is owned and locally operated by Nicholas Harden and his wife Ingrid

Harden. Nicholas stands tall at 6’2 bald head with a bushy beard and glasses, hints why they

decided to call the restaurant “Big Nicks.” Nick is born and raised in Valdosta, Georgia, and he

attended Valdosta State University majoring in Business Administration. While attending

Valdosta State University, he pledged the Kappa Delta chapter of Phi Beta Sigma. While

attending college, Nick started hosting parties for his college friends and his line brothers. “They

used to always say I used to talk a lot, so I took the mic and started talking on it, and realized I

had a gift,” Nick says.

 Nick attended Valdosta State for three years before he dropped out and began working at

Convergys, a call-center in Valdosta, Georgia. “Man, I hated working at that place, I never had a

day off. Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, you name it … I was there for every Holiday.”

Nick knew wanted to own his own business, that was his plan from the beginning, but he just

didn’t know where to begin. “School just wasn’t for me anymore, I was going, but I wasn’t

learning anything anymore, so I dropped out and started hosting parties,” Harden says. Hosting

parties for money became a second job for Nick and became life-changing for him when he

hosted a Halloween party one year for his fraternity brothers. Nick met his wife at that same

Halloween party back in 2001, and they’re happily married with two children.

Two years into hosting parties, Nick received a phone call one day from a friend of his

informing him that he was looking to start a new hip hop and r&b station in Valdosta, and he

wanted Nick to be a part of it. “I knew absolutely nothing about radio, but I felt like God was

giving me an opportunity and as long as I could keep my talk game right, I could learn

everything else,” Nick said. Nick began being the Program Director for WWRQ 107.9 The Beat

at Black Crow Media group in Valdosta, Georgia. His station was very new to the city, but Nick

did everything he could to make it well-known. He immediately hired two on-air personalities,

while he also had his own radio show and he bought a truck for the radio station and got it

decorated with 107.9 The Beat promo while the rode around town. He went to every elementary,

middle and high school to help do pep rallies, he got in contact with many businesses so he could

set up live broadcasts and he did ticket giveaways to some of the popular concerts. “I spent three

years building that place up, but I still wanted my own business. I was the boss at the station, but

I wasn’t my own boss. I still had to answer to someone,” Nick says.

 The birth of a new business

Wanting to do more, he opened up his own restaurant called “The R&B Café.” The R&B

Café had a target audience of college students, and business was booming as soon as he opened

his doors. “I wanted the college students like myself to have somewhere to go other than the bars

here. The bars didn’t cater well to the black people, they wanted nothing to do with us, so I

created a place anybody could go, whether they were black, white, brown … money is green,”

Nick says. Nick didn’t care who came to the Café, as long as nobody started trouble or did

anything to take away from his business, he was fine. The R&B Café began to draw in more

people from Valdosta to even some of the surrounding towns like Quitman, Adel and even

Tallahassee, Florida. The Line would be wrapped around the building on nights he would let

college students in for free before 11p.m., and 48 cent wing nights.

Valdosta Police started to patrol and sit outside the café while they open so they could

monitor the activity that was going on. “Valdosta PD camped outside for months waiting for

something to happen, and they would get frustrated when nothing happened. We would close at

two in the morning and of course when we closed down at the end of the night we have to clean

up, but Valdosta PD would try to get us to leave right when we closed. Like damn, can I clean

my business up?” Nick complained about Valdosta Police harassing him for months stating that

the police never acted like this with any of the bar owners in Remerton, the little community

inside Valdosta, Georgia. In 2014, after being open for two years, Nick was forced to close his

doors to The R&B Café after a fight broke out in the parking lot that resulted in a shooting. No

one got hurt in the shooting, but the city voted to shut the bar down raising safety concerns.

“I’m a big guy, of course I love cooking!”

 Shortly after shutting down The R&B Café, Nick went back to working at the radio full

time, but he still wanted his own business. “Nick was so hurt when he had to let go of the café.

He was upset, but then that turned into anger and he was just so determined to open another

business. He asked me what I thought would be good, and for two weeks straight we thought

about different businesses,” Nick’s wife, Ingrid says. Ingrid, Nick’s wife, had a friend of hers

that was having a baby shower, and her caterer cancelled on her last minute, Nick, who used to

love grilling with his line brothers in college, volunteered his services and catered the baby

shower. Already having a smoker, he smoked ribs and chicken quarters, made pans of macaroni

and cheese and made shrimp deviled eggs. “I’m a big guy! Of course, I love cooking and I used

to grill all the time back in college. I made my own sauce for the ribs and chicken, I could hear

everyone smacking,” Nick says. At that moment, he realized he had the idea of his next business,

he wanted to open a restaurant, but not just any restaurant, he wanted his own barbeque place.

The Success of Big Nick’s

In May 2015, Big Nick’s opened their doors to the public for a grand opening. Nick stuck

to his plan and he started off with barbeque and soul food such as: fried chicken, fried porkchops

smothered in gravy, collard greens, and oxtails. When Big Nick’s first opened, business was

great for them, he didn’t want a target audience for the restaurant, he just wanted everyone that

came to feel like they were at home, like they were family. On Sundays, tables inside and outside

on the patio are full and a line coming out the door of customers waiting to be seated. Big Nick

took the idea of having a restaurant a little further when he bought a food truck so he could travel

and sell his food from other places other than the restaurant. Nick frequently travels to Moody

Air Force base and sells chicken and rib plates to the soldiers and staff in one of their parking

lots. A series of events go on at Big Nick’s, he has a DJ come and do karaoke every Wednesday
night with two for $10 appetizers, Superbowl parties and even hosted a job fair. Since the

coronavirus pandemic, he has shut his doors to the public, but is still open for online orders with

a drive-thru window and door dash. Big Nick’s has been open for five years now and has been

voted best wings in Valdosta for four consecutive years. With the restaurant being so successful,

Nick has taken a backseat to radio and is spending most of his days at Big Nick’s helping out his

staff by taking orders when they’re busy, cleaning up when they need help and even cooking a

lot of the meals. “My staff means more to me than anything, if they’re good, then I’m good. My

staff is a part of my family, and I want everything to run as smooth as possible here.”