By Susan Swagler
Blueprint on 3rd, one of Birmingham’s hottest new restaurants, is named, quite simply, for the building it occupies – the old Birmingham Blueprint Company headquarters. But, really, owner Dean Robb’s decades-long career as a restaurateur has been a kind of creative, working blueprint for this place.
Robb understands the value of honoring the past, and he looked at some 25 spaces before deciding on this one with Pepper Place right down the avenue and historic Sloss Furnaces as a backdoor landmark. Maybe that’s because he has his own noteworthy history of regional and local food experience.
He began his career in the 1980s at The Victoria, a Country Inn in Anniston, where he eventually managed both the inn and the restaurant. He worked for 17 years with Frank Stitt as the general manager of Bottega Restaurant and Bottega Café before opening Watermark and Miro District in Nashville, Tennessee, and then DoDiYo’s in Birmingham. Robb spent five years growing Taziki’s Mediterranean Café from 11 locations to 72 in 13 states. He left his position as vice president of Operations after Jim Keet stepped down as Taziki’s CEO, and the two soon partnered to create Blueprint on 3rd.
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