Nick Rabar tries not to think too much, because thinking can be dangerous for him.

“I don’t know if it’s a good trait or bad, but when I see something and I get an idea in my head, I just have to see it through,” he said during a recent interview. “So I try not to have too many ideas, because that would be dangerous.”

All joking aside, the Emmy-nominated, two-time Rhode Island Hospitality Association Chef of the Year was obviously having an inspired moment of thought when he decided to move forward with opening his fourth local restaurant, Honeybird, at a former gas station on Massasoit Avenue in East Providence, in the last gasp of the summer of 2022.

The success of Honeybird — which has led to Rabar being named a semifinalist for the “Best Chef: Northeast” category of the nationally-renowned James Beard Foundation — is as much a story of daring stick-to-itiveness as it is a story that celebrates simplicity. It is the story of making something that is actually quite technically difficult appear easy and accessible. It is also a love letter to the home Rabar and his wife, Tracy, have found in Rumford.

But all blustery, thematic complexity aside, it is quite simply the story of really good fried chicken.

Finding his identity
Rabar readily admits that he didn’t enter the world with a spatula in one hand, although he did take to cooking immediately when fate delivered him into the right place at the right time.

“It’s a little bit of the same old story where I got a job for the sake of a job, washing dishes,” he said. “And one night a cook calls out and they throw you into the line, and the minute I was in there working with my hands and feeling the energy of a kitchen, I was immediately impassioned by it. I fell in love with it instantly.”

That passion led to an education at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, and his first restaurant endeavor in Worcester, Mass., with a fellow CIA alum, called the 111 Chop House, where he worked as the sous chef. After moving to Providence in 2001, he partnered with John Elkhay, becoming the executive chef at Ten Prime Steak & Sushi and the former XO Steakhouse, and helping the development of multiple other restaurants within his growing restaurant group. Eventually, Rabar felt ready to take on challenges of his own.

“After a decade of commitment, I said if I could do five with John, I could do one on my own,” Rabar said. “And how naive I was. It’s a whole different level when you go from chef to owning a restaurant.”

In 2008, the Rabars were settling into their new home in Rumford, which quickly became a place they could see themselves enjoying for the long-term. Ultimately, it wound up to be the place destined for their first restaurant.

“We fell in love with the community instantly. We had young children so we were getting to know some of the people in the town through sports and church and school, and we were always leaving Rumford to go somewhere for a bite to eat or a glass of wine,” he recalled. “We said, boy, wouldn’t it be great if we could create something right here? Not just for food and beverage, but to give all these wonderful people a place to gather.”

The right opportunity presented itself during the development of Rumford Center.

“We had no means, but we had the motivation, and when you have that, things can fall into place, and they did,” he said. “In 2011, three months after our youngest son was born, we opened Avenue N.”

A new culinary avenue
The success of Avenue N, now approaching its 14th anniversary, and the success of The Pantry, which opened around 12 years ago within the same building, and the expansion of Avenue N with its Providence location that opened at the onset of Covid in the spring of 2020, all proved to Rabar that he was indeed capable of operating his own restaurants.

And it was during his routine run from the Rumford Avenue N location, over the Henderson Bridge and back along Massasoit Avenue, when that dangerous brain of his began thinking again.

“I always passed that gas station,” he recalled. “I remember one day just talking to my wife and saying, ‘Wouldn’t that just be the perfect spot for a restaurant?’ We didn’t really have a concept at the time, but we just loved it. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.”

But seeing is one thing, and turning thought into reality was quite another.

“The renovation was so big,” he said. “Every single thing you needed to do to refurbish a gas station into a restaurant had to be done. The only thing that was usable were the cinder blocks.”

The inspiration for a theme and cuisine choice came from their son, Jackson, while attending school in Charleston, S.C. Rabar recalled that the first dinner they had together while moving him into his dorm room was authentic, southern fried chicken.

After a sort of trial run making fried chicken sandwiches for takeout for Avenue N customers during Covid proved successful, the concept was cemented. Then the real work began to perfect their chicken preparation, because Honeybird wasn’t meant to be just another place to get fried chicken — it was meant to be the only place you thought about when the urge for fried chicken came.

“If we were going to be the premier fried chicken restaurant, which was our goal, then it needed to be perfect,” Rabar said. “We tried over 100 different recipes. I think it was actually 100 to the dot when we actually got it right. So, we ate a lot of fried chicken during the development of it all.”

The menu at Honeybird is not extensive. The vibe simultaneously incorporates a modern trendiness where hip-hop plays over the speakers with a southern hospitality that will bring in everyone from young families to a 95-year-old regular Rabar often sees. The interior finishings consist of a thoughtful mix of newer furniture and fixtures, thrifted decorations, customized wall signs, and relics leftover from the building’s past as a Getty gas station.

“You can’t just slap paint on the wall anymore,” Rabar said. “A restaurant has to have a soul. It has to have an identity. And you have to create that for yourself, or you’re just another place to get food. And those are kind of a dime a dozen. People want a place that they can affiliate with, that they can identify with. A place where they can say ‘That’s my place.’ That’s what sustains a restaurant.”

And Honeybird has done more than sustain itself. Rabar said that they are now moving through about a ton of chicken every single week. And if you’ve tried it, you can understand why.

What’s next for Rabar and team?
Although he couldn’t divulge too many details, Rabar said that his team is currently looking into a few properties for new restaurants. One of which, he said, was certainly going to be a second branch of Honeybird.

“I can tell you our little restaurant group is highly motivated and highly engaged and we are big believers in growth,” he said. “Growth for us, growth for everyone on our team. And in order to maintain that consistency you have to take chances.”

And his thoughts on being nominated for a James Beard award? After all those risks and long days and nights and dangerous thoughts taking flight into numerous success stories?

“It’s a wonderful feeling to see after 30 years my name on a nomination, but it really is the entire team,” he said. “The entire team not only is there with me, but you can see it in their faces that they feel it the same as I do. There’s an enormous pride going on at Honeybird and in our whole company right now. That’s what it takes.”