BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Two iconic regional barbecue brands -- Alabama's Jim 'N Nick's Community Bar-B-Q and New York's Dinosaur Bar-B-Que -- have formed a partnership to leverage their buying power, consolidate labor costs and grow both companies.

Jim 'N Nick's, which started in Birmingham in 1985, has 34 locations in six Southern states and in Colorado, and Dinosaur, which opened in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1988, has eight restaurants in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, with another on the way in Chicago.

"What makes this so cool is their (Dinosaur's) culture is very similar to ours, but we don't have to cross paths to grow our business," Jim 'N Nick's co-founder and CEO Nick Pihakis told AL.com. "They're from up North, and we're in the South. They're urban and we're suburban."

Both Jim 'N Nick's and Dinosaur will maintain their respective brands, and the restaurants and menus will remain the same, Pihakis said.

"You won't see any change in either one of our operations," he said. "We don't want to morph into each other. That would be a total mistake. Jim 'N Nick's is Jim 'N Nick's, and Dinosaur is Dinosaur. Jim 'N Nick's has been very successful at what we do, and Dinosaur has been very successful at what they do."

Nick Pihakis is the co-founder and CEO of Jim 'N Nick's Community Bar-B-Que, which is based out of Birmingham, Ala. (Photo by Angie Mosier)

Behind the scenes, though, the two companies will work together as the Good Smoke holding company to strengthen their purchasing power, as well as lower such labor-related costs as employee health insurance, Pihakis said.

"They've got long-term employees just like we do, so there is a lot of common ground between us," Pihakis said. "We can still function independently but help each other with things that don't necessarily affect the guests. Guests don't care who our liability insurance is with; guests don't care who our health insurance (provider) is."

The companies share a similar food philosophy, with an emphasis on low-and-slow smoked meats and made-from-scratch sides.

In addition to barbecue ribs, pork, chicken and brisket, the Dinosaur restaurants also feature live music and the occasional motorcycle rally.

John Stage, the co-founder of Dinosaur Bar-B-Q, learned the secret to smoking meat after he hopped on his motorcycle and went on a barbecue pilgrimage to Memphis. He opened the first Dinosaur in an old tavern in Syracuse in 1988.

"From 1988 to '91, I mean, those were some very lean times," Stage says in a video on the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que website. "We could have closed the doors 20, 30 times during those two years. . . .

"So we decided to get into live music. And then at the same time, from the booze to the live music to the bikers that were here to the regular people that were starting to come in, it became like this sociologic experiment that I don't even know existed before this. . . .

"And then, all of a sudden, everything just blew up around that time, around 1992, and it just became kind of became a runaway train."

The original Dinosaur Bar-B-Que opened in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1988. Dinosaur now has seven more locations in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. (Photo courtesy of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que)

Billionaire New York City financier George Soros and his sons bought a majority interest in Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in 2008, but Stage still has a minority ownership and remains CEO of the company.

The business now includes locations in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Harlem, Rochester and Troy in New York state, as well as Stamford, Conn., and Newark, N.J.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que has been featured on the Food Network and the Travel Channel, and in 2009, it was voted the best barbecue in America in an ABC "Good Morning America" poll.

Pihakis and his father, the late Jim Pihakis, opened their first Jim 'N Nick's restaurant in a former Pasquale's Pizza location on Clairmont Avenue in Birmingham in 1985. In addition to Alabama, Jim 'N Nick's now has locations in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

For the past five years, Pihakis has been a James Beard Foundation Award semifinalist for the most outstanding restaurateur in America.

Last year, Pihakis said, the company rebranded itself as Jim 'N Nick's Community Bar-B-Q to emphasize its community-driven focus -- such as its corporate support of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

Over the next five years Jim 'N Nick's would like to double the number of locations to about 70 restaurants, but do so in markets where it already has a presence, Pihakis said.

Jim 'N Nick's rebranded itself as Jim 'N Nick's Community Bar-B-Q last year to emphasize its community-driven focus, CEO Nick Pihakis says. (Ben Flanagan/bflanagan@al.com)

"We are in enough markets now that we can concentrate on the markets we're in," he said. "We have two stores in Charlotte. We could put eight stores in Charlotte. We've got five stores in Atlanta. We could put 15 if we wanted to. We've got five units in Nashville. We could put another three or four there.

"We've got so many great employees that are just standing in line to have an opportunity to become a partner in our business, and we've got to make sure we have a place for them to go."

All of the Jim 'N Nick's restaurants are company-owned, but managing partners in each market maintain a 20 percent ownership in those businesses, Pihakis said.

Dinosaur would like to grow more deliberately but expand throughout the Northeast and into the Midwest, Pihakis said.

"They grow a lot slower than we do," he said. "We can open up to six or eight restaurants in a year. They've opened one a year. . . . Their restaurants are much more complicated because of their size and because of the live entertainment."

To learn more about the history of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, click on the video below.