Monday, July 17, 2017

Third Henri's Bakery to "Rise" on Atlanta's "Upper Westside"

Henri’s Bakery & CafĂ© is moving forward with plans to renovate a onetime church and reopen it as a commissary kitchen and retail operation.  The new Henri's, located at 2310 Coronet Way on Atlanta's burgeoning "Upper Westside," is expected to open later this fall.  The new Henri's will be about 4,200 square feet, about double the size of the planned location at Andrews Square in Buckhead and the existing Sandy Springs outpost at Sandy Springs Plaza on Roswell Road. 
Henri’s, in business since 1929, moved from what had been their most recent Buckhead home at the corner of Irby Avenue and Cains Hill Place,  just down Cains Hill to the Andrews Square shopping center this past May.  The bakery is in a small 1,000 square foot temporary location until its 2,000 square foot permanent space within the center is completed sometime next month.  The bakery's former home, a 5,500 square foot building, will be redeveloped into a mixed-use project by Alliance Residential Co., a Buckhead-based developer that bought the property a little over a year ago. 

Henri Ficus, a French immigrant, opened the business in Midtown before eventually moving it to Buckhead.  His granddaughter, Madeline Leonard, has run the restaurant since his death in 1974.  Her siblings Suzette DiNardo, Mimi Veerkamp, Michelle Teihaber and Henri Ray Bell co-own the cafe & bakery. The Buckhead location had been on Irby Avenue since 1969 while the Sandy Springs location has been open since 1984.  

Permits filed with the City of Atlanta over the past few months indicate the owners of Henri's will spend at least $250,000 to turn the former place of worship into the kitchen and bakery.  

Henri's is not alone in the up-and-coming "Upper Westside" neighborhood. 

Henri's new location will open across the street from Westside Village at Moores Mill, a new 70,000+ square foot mixed use project from Eden Rock Real Estate Partners.  The new project, which is expected to attract retailers and restaurants to the area, as well as be home to a number of townhomes, is expected to be completed during the first half of next year.  

Just west of the new Henri's, Edens completed their new Publix Super Market anchored center this past May. The rebuilt Moores Mill shopping center took about a decade to come to fruition, but sources say Edens is having difficultly leasing space in the center except for committed nail and dry cleaning businesses.  One likely contributing factor in their slow leasing efforts may be the awful odor from the nearby water treatment plan that is surely unappealing to would-be restaurant tenants, among others.  

East of Henri's, H&F Bread Co. opened a new 50,000 square foot facility at 1500 Marietta Boulevard, triple the size of the firm's former location on Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard last year. The bakery, which has plans for a push towards national distribution, eventually sees expanding to a 200,000+ square foot facility to meet what it hopes is tremendous demand.  The bakery, which is co-owned by chef Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene, first opened in a small Peachtree Road storefront in 2008, before moving to Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard in 2011.

Bacchanalia and sibling bakery/cafe Star Provisions, West Midtown mainstays since 1999,  moved to Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard earlier this spring from Howell Mill Road.  Bacchanalia and Star Provisions are less than three miles from the new Henri's.  

There are also plans to add new home and townhome communities to the area in the near term.  Some real estate sources have likened Atlanta's "Upper Westside" to what parts of central and west Brookhaven were 15-20 years ago in terms of available and economical residential housing opportunities.  

Are you excited for the new Henri's location?  What are your thoughts on the pipeline of projects on the "Upper Westside?"  What is your favorite bakery in Atlanta?  

Please share your thoughts below.   

5 comments:

Varucca said...

This is very exciting and we welcome Henri's to the neighborhood. In other news - There are a handful of grammatical errors in this article. Proofread before publishing.

Atlantan99 said...

Hi Varucca,

Thanks for pointing that out. Shame on me for publishing so late!

I appreciate your comments and readership!

kacharo said...

the rest of us buckhead folk were focused on the content and valuable informatjion. trying makin' an henri's po boy w/ your grammatical errors, sugar!

Unknown said...

If the wind blows in the right direction, there is no escaping the smell from the water treatment plant.

saneman said...

The Henri's in Sandy Springs is a mediocre excuse for a bakery. We are talking the Kroger of bakeries here in terms of quality.

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