NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Jack Cawthon, the longtime Nashville restaurateur whose Jack's Bar-B-Que became a Lower Broadway institution, has died after a prolonged battle with cancer. He was 80.
Jack's Bar-B-Que announced Cawthon's death on social media, saying the restaurant founder did more than open a business when he brought Jack's to First Avenue and Broadway in 1991.
"He changed the face of Nashville," the post said.
For more than 50 years, Cawthon built a career around food and hospitality, creating spaces the restaurant described as being rooted in "good food, hard work, and more than a little nostalgia."
Cawthon's career began long before Jack's Bar-B-Que. According to the restaurant's website, he worked his way into management at Richland Country Club, Hillwood Country Club and the Nashville City Club before striking out on his own and starting Cawthon's Caterer, Inc. in 1976.
By the 1980s, he began looking toward a different kind of business. Cawthon believed Nashville had a void when it came to traditional barbecue and developed his own combination of Tennessee and Texas styles, including beef brisket and a variety of regional sauces.
In 1991, he opened the original Jack's Bar-B-Que in a small building at Broadway and First Avenue overlooking Riverfront Park.
The restaurant's website describes it as the first casual restaurant to open on Broadway after years of decline in the area. It soon became a destination for locals and visitors alike.
A second location opened on Trinity Lane in 1992.
When Cawthon lost the lease to the original downtown restaurant in 1994, he relocated farther up Broadway near the Ryman Auditorium, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and Ernest Tubb Record Shop. This time, he bought the building.
That location would eventually become known for one of Lower Broadway's most recognizable signs: three neon pigs flying above the street.
The idea grew out of a debate over neon signs downtown in the 1990s. During a controversy over Planet Hollywood's oversized sign, a Metro councilmember reportedly suggested that allowing it to stay might mean "the next thing will be pigs over Broadway."
Cawthon seized on the comment.
"Pigs do fly, why not three? Let the pigs fly!" he said, according to the restaurant's history.
When the Jack's sign went up in 1997, Cawthon told NewsChannel 5, "Well, it's a great day for a sign hangin'! People can now say, 'where's Jack's?' They look for the pigs over Broadway!"
The flying pigs became a Nashville landmark, appearing in movies, commercials, music videos and television broadcasts.
Artist and longtime Cawthon friend Ron Sweeney told NewsChannel 5 earlier this year that the sign also helped usher in the neon-filled Lower Broadway visitors recognize today.
"It created everybody's wanting a neon," Sweeney said. "It totally created the full neon look today."
"He is so Tennessee. He is so Nashville!" Sweeney said of Cawthon.
Cawthon continued expanding his business, opening a Charlotte Avenue restaurant in 2013 under the name Jack Cawthon's Bar-B-Que.
His work also stretched beyond the restaurants. Metro Council recognized Cawthon in 2004 as a community leader and entrepreneur, and he spent years involved in efforts to improve the downtown, Trinity Lane, Brick Church Pike and Charlotte Avenue areas.
In 2011, his place in Nashville barbecue culture even made its way onto "Jeopardy!," where a clue referred to Cawthon as the "Bar-B-Que King" of Nashville.
Cawthon's son, Jay, eventually followed him into the family business and took over day-to-day operations.
After more than three decades, the Jack's Bar-B-Que location on Broadway closed in August 2025, with plans for its famous neon sign to eventually shine again elsewhere in Nashville.
Earlier this year, NewsChannel 5's Forrest Sanders was there as Sweeney unveiled a portrait honoring Cawthon's life and legacy. The painting shows Cawthon inside the downtown restaurant, with the shadows of the three flying pigs cast across the wall behind him.
"I love it. I love it," Cawthon said at the unveiling. "I think it catches my time on Broadway."
In announcing his death, Jack's Bar-B-Que thanked the friends, customers and employees who supported Cawthon throughout his life and career.
"Your kindness and support meant the world to him," the post said.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
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