Monday, January 13, 2014

Bits & Bites

New Goodwill coming to Smyrna 
Goodwill of North Georgia is opening yet another new location, this one on Cobb Parkway in Smyrna.  The new store and donation center will open at Cumberland Square North on February 20th.  The center is also home to D. Geller & Son and a freestanding Olive Garden restaurant.  The Goodwill space was most recently an Office Depot.  In addition to the new Smyrna location, Goodwill also has stores coming to Piedmont Road in midtown later this year, and Lawrenceville Highway in Decatur in 2015.

Much more after the jump. --> 

Arena Tavern has closed its Kennesaw location on George Busbee Parkway.  The restaurant, which opened in May 2012 in a former Smokey Bones restaurant, closed at the end of 2013.  The restaurant was the sibling location of the Original Arena Tavern in Duluth that is actually a stone's throw from the Arena at Gwinnett Center on Sugarloaf Parkway.  The original Arena Tavern opened in a former Roadhouse Grill in April 2009. 

Kate Spade will relocate later this spring from Lenox Square to Phipps Plaza.  Kate Spade's reported desire to be located near Tory Burch will be achieved in the new space, currently Coach, where they will be separated by just a single storefront.  Coach will consolidate stores, keeping open their existing, main level Lenox Square store.  Sources say that the Coach store at Phipps Plaza is slated to close in June.

Interestingly, Kate Spade's parent company, Fifth & Pacific, sold their Juicy Couture brand late last year, and said they would convert the stores to "a number of Kate Spade New York" stores.  With the existing Juicy store at Phipps still in business and in the Nordstrom wing, they seem destined for closure, rather than conversion.  (Just in case you missed it, after the purchase from Fifth & Pacific, Juicy's new owner, Authentic Brands Group, made a deal with Kohl's that will will make the giant department store the sole seller of the Juicy Couture brand.)   A similar arrangement was made in 2011 when VF Corporation partnered with Kohl's to make Rock & Republic, previously a contemporary and expensive denim company, a house brand of Kohl's.

A new restaurant called Greek Island is coming to Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road at Satellite Boulevard in Suwanee. The space has been "coming soon" since before Thanksgiving, but there are no signs of an imminent opening. The space was previously home to Atlanta Bread Company.  Interestingly, a restaurant by the same name and with an identical logo, spent tens of thousands of dollars on renovating an over 9,000 square foot space at Friday's Plaza off Peachtree (Industrial) Boulevard last year.  The owners reportedly ran out of money before opening.  The space has since opened as The Crab Boil.  Hopefully the smaller and more manageable Suwanee location will eventually open.

Minneapolis-based Target has announced another eight stores will close later this spring. Among the eight slated for closure is the SuperTarget in Duluth on Venture Drive.  The stores will close May 3rd.  This announcement comes on the heels of a similar announcement by the retailer that it plans to close four other locations February 1st.

The stores scheduled to close February 1st are in Leesburg, Florida, Morrow, Georgia, Chandler, Arizona,  and Chula Vista, California.

The more recent store closing announcements are for the closures of stores in West Dundee, Illinois, Las Vegas, Nevada, North Las Vegas, Nevada, Duluth, Georgia, Memphis, Tennessee. Orange Park, Florida and Middletown & Trotwood, Ohio.  These stores are all slated to close May 3rd.

Moe's and Joe's is under new ownership. They are remodeling and  combining with the space next door that was most recently The Cavern. (The Cavern reportedly closed about a week ago)

Menchie's at Toco Hills has changed management and is no longer accepting any coupons, gift certificates or other promotional offers.  I'd heard months ago that this location was slated for closure.  Perhaps this change is instead of closing.

Dunkin' Donuts may finally be getting close to getting its long planned Lindbergh location off the ground.  In the works since March of last year, Dunkin' has recently filed permits with the city of Atlanta that indicate they are close to breaking ground on their new location. The restaurant will reportedly be located adjacent to the LongHorn Steakhouse at Lindbergh City Center and will be roughly 1,800 square feet.  

Pizza Shack in Brookhaven has changed its name to Slice of Brookhaven.  According to the restaurant's facebook page, the name and ownership changed took place in mid December. The pizza restaurant, located in a freestanding building on Caldwell Road close to Kaleidoscope, opened in June 2013.  Before opening, the restaurant was called Pizza Rock but changed its name to Pizza Shack shortly before opening.  Local sources say the restaurant has struggled since opening in June, and its recent name and ownership change combined with its current appearance on Scoutmob, does not exactly lend credence to it being a successful establishment.

Starbucks has closed its main level location at Phipps Plaza for a renovation.   The renovation at Phipps follows last year's renovation of the main level location at Lenox Square.  By all accounts, the renovation at Lenox did nothing to expedite service or make ordering more efficient, and was instead purely a face-lift.  With any luck, the work at Phipps will result in a more efficient operation.

The Original Boutique Warehouse has announced that this year's sale will be January 24th & 25th. This sale boasts over a dozen boutiques and plenty of parking.  The sale has taken place for over ten years, and has moved numerous times.  Most recently it occurred twice last year, in January in the old Container Store space in Buckhead, and in July on Defoors Hills Road.   This year, the sale will once again be in Buckhead but at 3126 Piedmont Road, the former car dealership.

Arden's Garden is planning five new metro Atlanta locations according to company CEO Leslie Zinn, daughter of founder Arden Zinn.   Arden Zinn was a trailblazer in the world of juicing back in 1995 and has steadily grown her business via both wholesale accounts like Publix and Whole Foods, and though their own retail network.   Arden's Garden currently has seven locations around metro Atlanta, including Buckhead, midtown and Sandy Springs.  In March, another location is slated for Emory Walk on Clairmont Road in Decatur.  The center is home to TAPS Craft Beers as well as Los Loros Mexican restaurant.  Another location is scheduled to open in the former Atlanta Daily World Building on Auburn Avenue.  Other areas being scouted for future locations include Alpharetta, Peachtree City and Vinings.  

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

FYI menchies and cheese closed in Marietta at Sandy Plains and shallowford

SB said...

Cavern is gone?????????????????????????????

Atlantan99 said...

@SB,

I'm always amused at what people take from these posts. Clearly The Cavern was special for you. According to a Moe's & Joe's employee, The Cavern closed about a week ago.

Hope this news has not ruined your week.

Thanks for the comment and readership, I appreciate them both.

Anonymous said...

Moe's and Joe's is also now non-smoking as of today and serves liquor. The new owners apparently plan to keep the name, but not the spirit.

Anonymous said...

GUESS WHAT? I was just in the closing Duluth SuperTarget today and found out Whole Foods bought the building! :-) 
I'm going to miss Target terribly, but I do feel better that a store I shop at that is successful is going in there and the rest of the stores will probably survive in the area. It's never good for a building to sit empty.


Carl said...

Today is my first visit to the area with the former Morrow TGT since it closed. Looks like the whole shopping center is going out of business. I remember when BBY moved here from Southlake Festival because this was the new and more upscale area. Oh well.

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