By Sarah Owens
Photos by Sarah Owens and Jordan Wald
Birds & Burgers isn’t the kind of fast-casual restaurant where food arrives frozen and ready to drop in a fryer. At the Alabaster location, owner Jeff Whitaker—who took over from founder Tyree Stuckey in 2022—oversees a kitchen built on fresh preparation, in-house marinades, hand-packed burgers, and small-team consistency. For Whitaker—a restaurant veteran with roots in everything from barbecue kitchens to multi-store corporate operations—that commitment to quality is what drew him to the business in the first place.
Stuckey opened the original Birds & Burgers in November 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic upended the industry. Surviving that first year became one of the restaurant’s early milestones. When Whitaker stepped in three years later, it marked not a shift in concept but a continuation of a partnership: Stuckey still owns the rights to the brand and its future growth, while Whitaker operates the Alabaster store.
The pair met when Whitaker was working with a franchise group that owned Jersey Mike’s and later worked out a deal for Whitaker to buy the fast-casual dining spot. “I’d always worked for a group,” Whitaker says. “So just to have an opportunity to actually own the business, it was a good opportunity for me. I feel like that was the next step.”
A Career Built From the Kitchen Up
Food service has been part of Whitaker’s life from the start. “I’ve kind of always worked in food,” he says. “My mom worked at restaurants, and I went to [the University of South Florida] in Tampa, and I was also working at a country club there, and one of the members there had owned a Domino’s franchise and was getting into Jersey Mike’s and had offered me a job to come on to Jersey Mike’s with them.”
That offer reshaped his understanding of what a restaurant career could look like. “He was doing pretty well for himself,” Whitaker says. “A lot of people think that in the restaurant industry you’re a line cook for the rest of your life, but he showed me that there’s more to do in restaurants than just being one of the crew members.”
Whitaker, an Ocala, Florida, native, eventually spent 12 years with the Jersey Mike’s franchise group. “We went from one store to over 40,” he says. “I started out as the General Manager of the first location and worked into multiple different positions. I did everything from working the line to payroll for a couple of years. I was Regional Director, also Director of Training at one point, so just kind of everything for them.”
But the role was draining. “Being a regional supervisor of a restaurant, it always looks glorious because you’re, ‘I never see that guy. He’s never here.’ They think that they just get the chill all day,” Whitaker says. “But you’re literally putting out thousands of fires, and it’s nonstop. You wake up to bad news; you go to bed to bad news. There’s always something else you could have done. It’s very stressful.”
The job also had him on the move often, from Tampa to Tallahassee and eventually Huntsville. Owning one store—his store—became the next natural step to relieve some of that stress. “The independence of owning a business is nice, but it comes with a whole new set of stress levels,” Whitaker says. “But working for people was more stressful because you’re always trying to please somebody.”
Carrying Forward a ‘Gourmet Drive-Thru’ Vision
When the chance came to take over Birds & Burgers, Whitaker saw a concept that fit his values: fresh food at an accessible price, prepared by a small team that takes pride in doing things the right way. Even as the restaurant falls into a fast-dining category, much of its menu leans toward higher-quality preparation. “We prepare food here. It’s not frozen,” he says. “We marinate, season, and cook the chicken. We hand pack the burgers, the fried chicken gets marinated, breaded and cooked here. It’s not frozen. So, you get fresh made food that wasn’t prepared in a factory three months ago.”
While the classic cheddar burger and fried chicken sandwiches are well-known orders, Whitaker says the biggest surprise for many guests is how varied the menu actually is. “We have people that eat the farm bowl and the grilled chicken plate every single day,” he says. And although he never expected it, “the grilled chicken wrap is probably one of the number one sellers.”
Whitaker is also quick to point out the restaurant’s homemade sauces, from its chipotle “yard sauce” to the spicy honey used on fried chicken.
The Ups and Downs of Independent Ownership
Owning a restaurant outright comes with new responsibilities—and new financial pressure. “Getting equipment fixed, that comes directly out of my pocket,” Whitaker says. “It always hurts when you just see money going right back out just to fix something.”
But one area where he feels fortunate is staffing. “I’ve had great employees here,” he says. “I would say we probably have below average [turnover] in a good way.” The restaurant typically keeps eight to 10 employees, a tight and consistent team.
On a normal day, Birds & Burgers averages around 150 tickets, with steady business from hospital staff, city workers, Alabama Power crews, and others passing through the area. Stuckey also opened Market, a gourmet grocery store, in Mountain Brook last year, and Birds & Burgers provides a portion of their grab & go section, which offers good supplemental business.
But Whitaker is aware that Alabaster’s rapid development could impact business. District 31, the large retail and dining project under construction down the road, has caught his attention. “There’s like, nine restaurants going in over there,” he says. “Honestly, we’ve had the supplemental business with Market, which has been great, but I’m not looking forward to that opening up. I have no idea what that’s going to do to business.”
More Growth on the Horizon
Although Whitaker owns only the Alabaster location, expansion is part of the broader Birds & Burgers plan under Stuckey’s leadership. “The goal is to open more,” Whitaker says. “It’s just kind of getting to a spot to do it.” They’re eying locations from Birmingham to Montgomery, but nothing’s been set yet.
For now, Whitaker is focused on the store he runs day in and day out—one rooted in a simple philosophy: fresh food, thoughtful preparation, and consistency. Located at 717 St. N, Birds & Burgers is open Monday-Saturday form 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
And in a city where independently owned restaurants can be hard to sustain, Birds & Burgers continues carving out its own place—one grilled chicken wrap, hand-packed burger, and homemade sauce at a time.