When Sticky Fingers Ribhouse founders, Todd Eischeid, Jeff Goldstein, and Chad Walldorf entered seventh grade together in Chattanooga, Tennessee, they never dreamed that one day they would become lifelong friends --let alone open a group of successful restaurants. But that's exactly what happened. The three quickly became friends as teenagers and remain close friends to this day.

After graduating from high school, each went off to very different colleges -Jeff went to Vanderbilt, Chad to The University of Virginia, and Todd went west to Arizona State. However, one fateful day on summer break, the three made a pact to one day open a business together.

After college Todd and Chad moved out to Colorado to be ski bums while Jeff went to Memphis to work for his dad at the legendary Public Eye Restaurant. It was in Memphis that Jeff gained a love and passion for ribs and barbecue.

After Jeff's parents moved to Charleston, SC, they complained how much they missed authentic Memphis style barbecue. Jeff was jobless. Charleston was ribhouseless. The idea for Sticky Fingers was born.

Never one to give up on a dream or a vow, Jeff got Todd and Chad off the slopes in Colorado to help him open the first Sticky Fingers in Mt. Pleasant, a suburb of Charleston, in March of 1992. Armed with little money and even less experience, the three partners set about doing what they knew: treating people the way they wanted to be treated.

Jeff originally ran the kitchen, Chad was on the floor, and Todd did the accounting and helped out where he was needed. After eight months, all three rotated jobs and did so again six months later. They all worked over 90 hours a week for the first few years. For almost a decade Jeff, Chad, and Todd lived together, worked together and on several occasions, almost ended up killing each other.

In 1993 after a meaningless discussion about baked beans almost turned into a fistfight, they decided that a second location might keep them from seeing each other so much. They found a burned-out Western Sizzlin’ in Summerville, South Carolina and knew it was just the spot.

With sales on the rise the partners once more seized an opportunity to grow in the Charleston market. The group purchased historic 235 Meeting Street in the market area of downtown Charleston from retiring Serge Claire -the owner of the legendary restaurant, Marianne.

The third Sticky Fingers opened in 1996 in the heart of the busy Charleston tourist area. The new site quickly became the group's highest volume restaurant. 1995 was an especially big year for Sticky Fingers. Mike Monen, another old friend from Chattanooga who was attending the College of Charleston and working at Sticky Fingers, approached Jeff, Chad, and Todd about opening a Sticky Fingers in their hometown.

The Sticky southeastern tour officially started when another friend, Stan, took the show north to Wilmington, and Donnie, Jeff's high school band mate, took it south to Atlantic Beach. During the summer of 2000, Mike opened Chattanooga's second Sticky Fingers, while a fourth Charleston location opened in North Charleston.

Over the course of the next few years Sticky Fingers continued to open more restaurants across the Carolinas and Florida.

As Sticky Fingers grew in locations, its reputation began to grow at the regional and even national level. The restaurants have been praised by the likes of Food and Wine, The Wall Street Journal, Golf Magazine, Nation’s Restaurant News, The Asheville Citizen-Times, Bon Appetit Magazine, CitySearch, The Boston Herald, and the book Where the Locals Eat, A Guide to the Best Restaurants in America.

Demand from Sticky Fingers fans led to the development of a grocery line of five signature barbecue sauces --now distributed in over 2,000 locations --and a successful mail order and catering business. The founders eventually sold the company and the business changed ownership several times over the next decade.

Inconsistent leadership led to a decline in food quality and service and eventually a decline in sales. The company began closing restaurants. In 2019, under new leadership, Sticky Fingers started making great strides in improving food quality and modernizing menus and plateware. Unfortunately, the economic impacts of COVID-19 put a halt to those improvements and the difficult decision was made to close 9 of the 11 remaining restaurants.