The Story of Piedmont Delicatessen

Seeing Ghosts

Actually, ghost murals, but it's purely semantics, right? As the crew began renovations, they pulled plaster from the walls of the building and were met with the surprise of a lifetime. A Piedmont cigarettes mural spanning over 30 feet stared them in the face.

Not painted over. Not buried beyond recognition. Just sitting there, waiting. The colors still carried life. The lettering still had presence. Nearly a century later, it somehow felt less like a forgotten advertisement and more like a message left behind from another era of Gastonia.

It changed everything.

The original plan was simple. We set out to create a story-driven restaurant that would become a staple in the community. But the second that mural revealed itself, we knew that wasn't it.

Sometimes the room tells you what it needs to be instead of you telling it what it should become. And that was exactly the case in this instance. It honestly felt like there wasn't much of a choice. It would have been malpractice to cover it up.

So instead of erasing history, we decided to build around it. Preserve it. Let it breathe again. What emerged from that decision was the speakeasy, a hidden space inspired by the era already living inside those walls.

That mural will forever remain in that room as a reminder that the best spaces aren't always created from scratch. Sometimes they're uncovered.

Larger Than Life

Two players. Different worlds. Same city.

Honus Wagner was the biggest name in the MLB. Smokey Joe Williams the larger-than-life pitcher in the Negro Leagues. Because of racial constructs, their paths never crossed — but at Piedmont Deli, they live side-by-side.

Long before sports cards became million-dollar collectibles, the Piedmont Cigarette Company tucked baseball cards into their cigarette packs as a promotion. One of those cards would eventually become the most valuable card in history — the legendary Honus Wagner Piedmont card. It's a piece so rare, so mythologized, that it's transcended sports entirely and become American folklore.

But while Wagner's name found its way into history books, auction houses, and collector vaults, another giant of the game was dominating on fields in spaces too often ignored.

Smokey Joe Williams was a man many hitters called the hardest pitcher they'd ever faced. He was a towering presence whose fastball became legend in the Negro Leagues during an era when Black athletes were denied the same stage, recognition, and permanence afforded to their white counterparts. By all accounts, he was every bit the icon, every bit the spectacle, every bit the hero — just in a different world.

When the Piedmont mural was uncovered, we knew baseball needed to be a large part of what Piedmont would become. We also knew that tension sat at the heart of this era.

So we made sure to represent all sides. Not to rewrite history and not to pretend the divide didn't exist, but to acknowledge the greatness that existed on both sides of it. Two names tied

to the same era, the same tobacco culture, the same American pastime, yet separated by systems larger than either man.

And despite that, all these years later, both stories have found a home here inside these walls.

Honus Wagner and Smokey Joe Williams finally occupy the same room. Not as rivals, not as opposing figures, but as a complete picture of the greatness baseball had to offer in the early 1900s.

History has a funny way of circling back around when people are willing to pay attention. And in that spirit, we hope the small sliver of history represented here helps you see a more complete picture than you did before.

The Barber and the Builder

Derrick "Fly Ty" Jacobs and Preston Wilson come from wildly different backgrounds, but share a singular heartbeat. Their love of local business and shared values of care and community have led them to partner together in a vast array of business ventures. And Piedmont Delicatessen is just the most recent one.

On a sunlit afternoon in 2022, a conversation over lunch sparked a partnership that would become a living testament to friendship, dreams, and shared purpose. Preston and his wife, Somer, listened as Fly Ty and his wife, Jacinda, shared their heartfelt vision to create salon suites — spaces where beauty professionals could thrive in creativity and community.

In 2024, Christian Jacobs Salon Suites, a tribute to Fly Ty's late son, was launched, and consequently, so was a business partnership that would see many more ideas come to fruition.

When they together purchased the property at 125 E. Main Avenue in Gastonia and discovered the ghost mural, it gave them the inspiration and opportunity to bring a new concept to life.

Not only could they bring a top-tier food spot to Main Street, but they'd be able to create a unique space for entertainment, live music, and a one-of-a-kind experience.

Piedmont Delicatessen was born.

Fly Ty and Preston created a spot as unique as their friendship and, in doing so, created a space where people of all kinds, colors, and creeds could feel at home and enjoy their time in Gastonia.