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ORAL HISTORY

David Biggs

The Pie Wagon

David Biggs might have a thing for music — but he also has a thing for meat-n-threes. David grew up amidst the rich music culture of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and later followed the tunes to Nashville where he worked in both the music and restaurant industries. He purchased the 1920s-era Mack’s Cafe in 1984 when he was only 33. Then in the 1990s, before downtown Nashville had developed into honkytonk central, he owned a music-themed restaurant called Diamond in the Rough, a place where he gave life to FM 100, Dancing in the District, and Live from the District, a show broadcast from the restaurant’s stage. When the restaurant closed, he drifted back into music management until purchasing The Pie Wagon, which began as a street cart in the 1920s. But to hear David tell it, the two industries have more in common than you might think. Rather than managing artists or working with music execs, he’s just feeding them with a taste of the home cooking that many of them grew up on in his meat-n-three they call the Music Row Commissary.