Tuesday, May 28, 2019

[#SlowAF?] Gino's East Has Shuttered After Just Five Months in Poncey-Highland

Gino's East, a restaurant in Poncey Highland serving Chicago style [#DeepAF] deep dish pizza, has closed.  The restaurant, which replaced the short-lived Rize Artisan Pizza, opened this past December, and closed earlier today, according to sources close to the eatery.   Lasting less six months makes Gino's failure in Atlanta even worse when you consider the plagued Rize chain lasted almost nine months. 


It's unclear why the restaurant closed so soon after it opened and so abruptly.  The restaurant's phones are no longer being answered, the Atlanta location has been removed from the restaurant company's website, and the Atlanta specific Facebook page has been deleted.  

The restaurant was located in the street level retail of the 675 North Highland apartment complex.  Charleston-based CO, a sushi and noodle eatery, remains open in the project, as does Trashy Diva, a women's clothing boutique, among other tenants.  

The Chicago-based restaurant chain opened in Nashville's South of Broadway (SoBro) neighborhood earlier this year, but unlike their Atlanta outpost, teamed the pizzeria with fellow Chicagoan business, The Comedy Bar, a stand-up comedy venue.  

The Gino's East website indicates that the chain continues to operate eight locations in Illinois, and single locations in Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Texas.  

In metro Atlanta, local market partners of the Chicago-born Nancy's Pizza chain, another restaurant specializing in Chicago style deep dish, have opened a number of locations over the past several years.  In addition to the "flagship" Midtown location on Ponce de Leon Avenue, other Nancy's locations has popped up in Conyers, East Point, Dunwoody, Buckhead and Johns Creek.  

Are you surprised that Gino's East closed so soon after opening?  What is your favorite style of pizza?  What would you like to see open in place of Gino's East in Poncey-Highland?

Please share your thoughts below.  

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

You must have a lot of money to waste to open a restaurant and then pay all the costs it'd take to get out of a lease so early. What a waste of time and resources.

Greenwave said...

This was the closest thing to Giordano's that Atlanta had. I'm going to assume people did not want to wait 2+ hours on a Friday/Saturday night to be seated and then wait an additional 30-35 minutes for 1 deep dish pizza. Now we're stuck with Nancy's. Ugh.

Anonymous said...

I don't think restaurants with 2+ hour waits go out of business too often.

Anonymous said...

I had no idea that Atlanta had a Gino's East.

bharrier said...

Their opening last year kept getting delayed month after month ... until it finally opened in December. It must be almost a year since they started remodeling the location. I almost stopped there two weeks ago since I am a Gino's East fan having lived in Chicago 7 years. I have gone to Nancy's a few times. The wait is as long of 35-45 minutes depending on the pie size, but at least the John's Creek location has lacked in customer service. Nancy's is stuffed deep dish which is a bit different than deep dish. Sorry Gino's East could not make it in Atlanta.

Anonymous said...

I'm sad I never tried it out, location wasn't super convenient to me but I loved the sound of it.

We all know the restaurant business is very fickle and operates on a thin margin. For one to go out of business so quickly my suspicion is not enough capital to launch in the first place or a poor business model with respect to ordering supplies or staffing.

Anonymous said...

All this effort to open in the ATL market and they close after 5 months.
What a joke. Bad management, high prices. I don't know why their corporate offices in Chicago didn't have more hands on management here. This was in a great location and should have succeeded if not for bad management. I got a pizza on a Saturday morning there and it was fine, tasted like the Gino's in Chicago. I think it's tough for people here to adapt to an out of state chain. Perhaps if they had changed their name to Chick Fil A Gino's East, it would have worked

Alex said...

The had to close because they had a 2-hour wait for seating every night?

So it's what Yogi Berra said, "Nobody Goes There Anymore. It's Too Crowded"



On a related note, I had no idea this place existed.

Anonymous said...

Rosati’s off of Roswell Rd in Buckhead/Sandy Springs has fit in nicely. They’ve established themselves as a sports bar and it’s the best Chicago deep dish and double dough in town.

BK said...

You might say one of the reasons it failed may be because the writing WASN'T on the wall. Other than the fact the location wasn't very convenient to me part of why I never made much effort to get down there was because they weren't going to allow writing on the walls and booths like the other Gino's locations in Chicago do. Its part of the experience there and linked to their identity to many Chicagoans. It just irked me a little. Like others have said there are other options for deep dish in ATL, and there's always getting the real deal par-bakes shipped in from Lou Malnati's and baking it at home if you have to have the authentic taste, so it wasn't a MUST on my list. I would've gotten there eventually, and had planned to when my dad came to town next month, but wasn't going to go out of my way really.

Jonathan said...

2 hour waits? I live 5 blocks away and never saw more than a couple people there. I'm not a deep dish fan, so I never tried it. As for that being a good location, there's been nothing successful in that strip and I'm guessing it's because the spaces keep going to out of towners who are looking at Inman Quarter 6 blocks away and Carter Parkway and getting stuck with way too high rents for the parking/traffic inconvenience and lack of foot traffic.

Meanwhile, Fellinis, LaFonda, Manuel's and Atkins park have managed to stay in business for decades just a couple blocks away.

Anonymous said...

The 2 hour waits for your order were with the restaurant empty. The service was awful that is why it closed.

Unknown said...

Is Gino's West the place on Cheshire Bridge - because that has absolutely nothing to do with Chicago style pizza.

Anonymous said...

@ Jonathan:
I think the reason Fellinis, LaFonda, Manuel's and Atkins Park have all stayed in business is because they are good, quality restaurants that provide good service and reasonable prices.

Location is important to a restaurant but food, service and value is what really keeps the doors open. If anyone thinks location is everything how would you explain Eclipse de Luna? That place has to be the absolute worst location imaginable yet it has thrived for over two decades!

Anonymous said...

Huge fans of Gino's in Chicago, so went to the Atlanta location twice. Deep dish pizza was excellent, nearly as good as the Rush Street location. Service and employee attitude was beyond horrible. I am not the least bit surprised they closed. Maybe if they could re-open with better management, they would survive.

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