Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Bits & Bites

Atlanta's newest Sprouts Farmers Market opened today on Piedmont Avenue in Morningside.  This marks the chain's tenth store in metro Atlanta and second opening this year following last month's opening in East Cobb.  Additional stores are planned for Marietta, Decatur, Duluth and Peachtree City.  

A new Bojangles' restaurant is planned for Woodstock near the corner of Eagle Drive and Putnam Ford Road.  Another new Bojangles' is planned for Kennesaw on Cherokee Street near Shiloh Road.  The property on which the Kennesaw Bojangles' will be built was previously planned to be a Flagstar Bank branch, but it was never built following the bank's 2012 departure from the Atlanta market.  (PNC which bought the existing branches, but apparently opted not to build on the parcel.) 

Also in Woodstock, community members have created a Change.org petition to pressure Publix to release their lease on a former Publix store.  The store, previously the 28,800 square foot anchor of the Shops at Buckhead Crossing shopping center on Towne Lake Parkway, is today occupied by a Tuesday Morning. The Publix, a small prototype location similar to the stores on Shallowford near Chamblee, and on LaVista Road near Lindbergh, was closed at the end of 2009 due to "low sales." Community members seem to believe Tuesday Morning will be willing to relocate elsewhere in the center and are calling on Publix management to release control of the lease, and allow for what they hope would be another grocer to open in the anchor space.  

KFC at Buford Highway and Clairmont Road in Brookhaven recently reopened after a significant interior renovation. 

Captain D's on Church Street in Decatur is also undergoing a full interior and exterior renovation that will bring the location in line with the brand's current updated image.  The restaurant remains open during the renovation, which is expected to continue for a few weeks.  

Waffle House on Chamblee Tucker Road just off I-85 is undergoing an even more significant renovation than its nearby Clairmont Road location.  The Waffle House on Chamblee Tucker is basically being rebuilt from the ground up and should reopen within the next couple of weeks.  

Zaxby's is officially open on Chamblee Tucker Road near Embry Village.  

The Pallookaville Fine Foods Food Truck has been sold. The main restaurant, Pallookaville Fine Foods, which opened in 2013 on North Avondale Road in Avondale Estates, is for sale and is closed until at least March.  A second location, "Pallookaville Junior," was to open in Little 5 Points at 1107 Euclid Avenue, but will not be opening.  (A well placed source indicates that the Avondale restaurant is in fact closed permanently)  

A new Advance Auto Parts is planned for for the 2,700 block of Hamilton Mill Road in Buford.  

Fire & Brimstone Tavern will open later this spring in the former Chadwick’s Tap Room located at 10595 Old Alabama Road in Alpharetta/Roswell. The 6,500 square foot restaurant features seating for 200.  

Press & Grind quietly opened this past weekend in Virginia Highland.  The new healthier concept from The Highland Bakery owner Stacey Eames opened in place of the old Aurora Coffee, near the intersection of North Highland and Virginia Avenues.
The new joint-less Uncle Maddio's logo 
Uncle Maddio's Pizza [Joint] seems to have dropped the "Joint" from its branding. A new logo, devoid of the word "joint," replaced the brand's previous logo on their various social media platforms as well as on their website.  

Auburn, Alabama based Guthrie's has closed its last remaining metro Atlanta location.  The friend chicken restaurant, located in a converted Donatos Pizza on Holcomb Bridge Road in Peachtree Corners, quietly closed sometime in the past month month or so and remains vacant.  Another Guthrie's location closed in 2013 on Chamblee Dunwoody Road in Chamblee and is today a location of Takorea.   According to their website, Guthrie's, which first opened in 1965, is home of the "original golden fried chicken tenders." Although it's quite possible that the nearby opening of a Zaxby's on Jimmy Carter Boulevard contributed to its closure, it's believed that Guthrie's was the inspiration for not only Zaxby's but Raising Cane's, another fried chicken tender joint.  Guthrie's locations continue to operate in Trenton and Ringgold, Georgia as well as a number of other southern markets.  

Oga's, a popular "home cooking" restaurant has closed its location on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Chamblee.   Owner Stanley Kim had been operating the restaurant for over forty years but decided to call it quits and sold the property.  The family-style diner will soon be demolished and will be incorporated into a future Hennessy Automobile Companies development. Hennessy paid $1.26 million for the property located at the corner of Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and North Peachtree Road.   Another Oga's location remains open on Windy Hill Road in Smyrna.  

Rising Roll has closed its location on Northside Drive in the Berkeley Heights shopping center with plans to reopen next month in Atlantic Station.  The shop closed recently, and according to the Rising Roll website, continues to offer catering services during the transition.  

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

The traffic in front of the Morningside Sprouts is horrible. Fuqua & Mill Creek have crippled Piedmont Ave.

Ham said...

I was surprised that Pallookaville opened in Avondale Estates. With the minor celebrity of the owner and the unique menu they might have done better in a more popular area.

Unknown said...

I just went to the Sprouts. Traffic in and out was a breeze.

Anonymous said...

Sad that Guthrie's is gone. Although that location was pathetic. It sometimes looked closed even when it was open. The last time I went there, the chicken fingers had shrunk to the point where you asked "are you for real?" I hear a popular burger chain was looking at that site.

Anonymous said...

We were actually planning to try Pallookaville this month, I'm sad to hear it closed!

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Zaxby's when is the one in Lilburn on Hwy 78 re-opening?

Anonymous said...

Pallookaville's fb page is insisting that they're just taking the month off (Feb is always slow) to fix some mechanical issues, clean up, etc. and then they'll re-open in March.

Although it does seem like no one ever really re-opens.

~mindspringyahoo

Anonymous said...

I have not been to the new Sprouts yet but I imagine it will have a nightmare effect on traffic. There go my weekday trips to Piedmont Park. Why only 1 in and out? And trying to make a right turn on Piedmont with all the traffic? And also adding another light so close to the other two just north and south. All it does is create more gridlock, more exhaust fumes and more anger. I'm surprised the Sprouts isn't set back from the street more. The whole development sits dangerously close to Piedmont, creating even slower traffic.

Anonymous said...

"Speaking of Zaxby's when is the one in Lilburn on Hwy 78 re-opening?"

Rumor has it that they are not and will probably replace it with a new one on Scenic Hwy 124. Interesting connection to the boys that tried to murder their parents, one of those boys worked at that Zaxby's and the incidents (fires) happened in a day or so of each other.

Anonymous said...

One thing is certain about traffic on Piedmont in front of the Mill Creek/Fuqua/Modera Morningside development... Our city planners dropped the ball in reviewing their lane closure plan during construction. Traffic was an absolute mess in that area for FAR too long just so that the developers could have the most convenient (to them) setup for storing their construction materials. They could have taken down the scooter store etc earlier and used that for their construction mess rather than using a lane on Piedmont. It would have sucked for the Scooter store folks but thousands of commuters were impacted every day.

Lady in ATL said...

I agree with the mess of traffic on Piedmont. I live in Morningside and have completely changed my commute patters because if it. The new light is terrible and if they had to put one in, why not at least it align it with the road that runs between Grindhouse and BP? And who on earth thought that parallel parking on Piedmont would be a good idea? It's just going to get worse :(

Anonymous said...

"Well placed source."
Which is not anyone involved with the restaurant.
No, Pallookaville is not closed permanently.
It will reopen in March just as we've stated.
Jim Stacy

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Chamblee-Tucker & I-85, any word yet on what might be going in at the former QT site across from the new Waffle House? McDonalds was mentioned here at one point, but no work appears to be forthcoming on the property.

Oga's has been around forever. They had a perpetual "Help Wanted" sign out front that was something of an institution itself.

Too bad about Guthrie's. The former Dunwoody location had a seriously bad case of "the slows" every time I went in. The old Baxter street location near UGA was legendary back in the day. Its since been replaced by Raising Canes...

Anonymous said...

The next Sprouts will be coming to the Leggett & Platt site in Reynoldstown. Hear me now and believe me later.

Anonymous said...

I think Tucker Meridian (at Northlake) is in the on-deck circle for Sprouts, according to variance requests. That area is finally getting much nicer.

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