Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Tin Drum Goes Quiet in Buckhead

Asian fast casual chain has closed its north Buckhead location.


Atlanta-based Tin Drum Asiacafe has closed its north Buckhead location on Roswell Road.  The fast casual Asian eatery opened in mid 2012 at Roswell-Wieuca Shopping Center, replacing what had been a struggling unit of the now nearly defunct salad joint, Doc Green's.

Sources say the restaurant closed after dinner service on Saturday with a sign posted in the window indicating the closure is for a "renovation."  The location has already been wiped from the corporate website and I highly doubt it will ever reopen.

Roswell-Wieuca Shopping Center is also home to Goldberg's Bagel Co. & Deli, Cheeseburger Bobby's, Willy's Mexicana Grill, Pita Grill and a freestanding Arby's.  Without a doubt, Goldberg's and Willy's are the best performing restaurants in the center

I foresee more rough waters ahead for the Tin Drum as it continues to expand more than perhaps it should and or is ready for.  Currently the chain has 11 locations open in Georgia with a twelfth coming soon to The Village at Druid Hills, at the the corner of Briarcliff and North Druid Hills Roads.   

I have been working on a special post about Tin Drum and hope to publish it soon.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The "coming soon" link for Tin Drum doesn't work. (Seems to point to the upcoming "special post".)

Theron Sapp said...

Not a shock; their evening business, at least, was slow. It's too bad - tasty food and a friendly staff, but a cold physical space and not cheap for order-at-the-counter noodles. I hope the kind staffers move on to better things.

Anonymous said...

and they keep changing their menu!!!

Anonymous said...

WHAT IS IT WITH THE RENOVATIONS RUSE?? Just admit failure! GAH!!!

I seriously don't get it. Does someone advise these idiots to say it's closed for renovations?

PyroATL said...

As a huge fan of TinDrum, this kinda upsets me. And this won't be the last of their closings either. I love the concept, but pricing and the ever changing menu is a big issue, at least for me. I hope they can find a balance because I'd hate to see this leave the market altogether.

Anonymous said...

Planet Sub just closed in Marietta - the same strip mall where a Tin Drum just opened - and their goodbye sign was honest. It read something like "We were not able to succeed financially and have had to close. Thanks to our customers for their support."

It's interesting that your commenters above are echoing the regular thoughts about the "cold" design and their stupid menu changes. This whole chain feels like failure.

G.G. said...

I didn't know Planet Sub closed! I was just over there Monday night.

That really is weird that you should write about a closing Tin Drum just as I wrote about the new one in Marietta. ( http://marieletseat.com/2014/02/05/tin-drum-asia-cafe-marietta-ga/ ) Their menu has been reformatted into something incoherent with hidden charges, and if the rest of the satellite stores look as slapdash as this one, I'd agree that cold is a good word to use. It's impersonal and cheap. Who knows? Maybe they really are renovating the Roswell/Wieuca store. Maybe they're adding a ceiling and some flooring, something they should've done before they opened.

I'm looking forward to your story about the chain. Something is clearly going wrong with his business plan for such really good food (both at Wonderful World and Tin Drum) to be falling apart. I hope he turns it around. Maybe my voice is raised in welcome and my hands raised in prayer, but perhaps a bright new beginning is in the offing? /reference for the owner to catch if he ever reads this

Anonymous said...

My hunch is the downfall of Tin Drum began when they received new funding or were bought by a PE shop (can't remember which one happened but it was one of them).

Can we just please get a Pei Wei to fix this fast casual mess?

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Tin Drum is expensive? The curries cost 8 bucks or so which is almost the same quality of an average Thai restaurant and definitely more quantity as they don't cheap out on the rice amount. The rest of the items are OK. The menu changes were for the worse. The noodles have declined in quality though.

I hope they do better. I enjoy going to their Dunwoody location.

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