Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Downtown Carb Lovers Rejoice: FIGO Pasta Coming Soon!

Pasta restaurant opening downtown location.

Atlanta-based FIGO Pasta is planning to open a new location near Georgia State.  The new FIGO will open on Peachtree Street near Broad Street in the lobby level of the recently renovated historic Flatiron Building.  

The restaurant replaces Tin Drum Asiacafe, which closed last year.  FIGO Pasta joins Moe's Southwest Grill, NaanStop, Subway and Arby's, among others, as casual dining options near GSU's Aderhold Learning Center.  

Currently FIGO has six locations in metro Atlanta: West Midtown, Buckhead, Perimeter, Vinings, Decatur and Edgewood/Little 5 Points.  

FIGO moved its Westside Provisions District location to Howell Mill Road at the end of 2014.  The land their previous location occupied will be home to a giant new Design Within Reach next year.

FIGO has previously closed locations in Virginia Highland and Alpharetta.  

Current plans call for the new FIGO to open by mid-summer. 

Are you a current GSU student excited about this new option near campus?  What is your favorite downtown eatery? Where would you like to see FIGO open next?

Please share your thoughts below.    

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad that the area around Broad Street has some momentum but what about the rest of DOWNTOWN? Peachtree Center is hopping but the food options are mediocre for the most part and it's an indoor mall. I look around the rest of downtown and I see nothing but vacant empty spaces. It's depressing as hell. More people may be moving or working downtown lately, but that hasn't resulted in many new food or retail options. You've got nothing but parking lots between Peachtree St and Centennial Park and empty buildings even on Peachtree near Woodruff. It's embarrassing that such a major city has such an awful downtown.

Darin said...

The key to sustaining good retail options Downtown is in 1.) getting more non-student residential built there and in 2.) developing the ugly disused properties such as the surface parking lots and empty buildings.

Look at any major city's center and you'll see a much different ratio of activity than we have in Atlanta's Downtown. Here, there's way too heavy an emphasis on every BUT market rate residential. We've got massive areas dominated by GSU and events facilities and government-owned offices and properties. And just a tiny fraction of land devoted to residential.

GSU student residential is nice -- it's great to have the students living here. But their spending habits don't align with those of permanent, non-student residents, plus the students disappear between sessions. That can't sustain the kind of quality retail that's missing here.

Only non-student residents can do that. When we get more housing for those (demand is high as occupancy rates Downtown are about the highest in Atlanta), you'll see Downtown become a more attractive place for Atlantans from other neighborhoods to come and visit regularly and spend money on local biz.

Anonymous said...

FIGO is average at best. They are incredibly stingy with their portions, especially when you add meat like chicken to a pasta.

Anonymous said...

Darin, I see where you're coming from. The only way to make Atlanta more attractive for people to live is to clean it up once and for all. Why has that never been a priority for the city? Is the black city leadership afraid of being accused of reverse racism in trying to gentrify downtown? Because nothing will change as long as the city is not willing to deal with the homeless issue and the loitering issue and the drug issue and the trash issue. Just having Atlanta ambassadors and cops around to keep the homeless in line doesn't do a damn thing to solve the problem. If the city cleans up downtown, they have no need for ambassadors or cops. Maybe that's the problem right there. They want to keep the security jobs gravy train going where the ambassadors and cops just sit around and watch the homeless all day. I don't believe the city will ever be serious about cleaning things up. Even if they redevelop Underground, you still have the homeless and loitering issue.

Anonymous said...

really cool that you trash others for recycling news when several other sources finished reporting this months ago.

Atlantan99 said...

@Anon RE: Really cool,

Thank you for pointing out that this was covered previously elsewhere, I did not know. I make every effort possible to not simply recycle news and instead research my own stories and craft my own posts, in this case I failed to find the previous coverage and for that I apologize. You and the rest of my readers deserve better.

Thank you again for bringing this to my attention, I will work hard to prevent such occurrences in the future.

J. Carter said...

I actually live downtown and don't find it nearly as downtrodden and dirty as some commenters describe. I's it as vibrant as it could be certainly not, but it definitely keeps me and several of my neighbors entertained and fed most days. However I also don't travel to South downtown so my opinion is a little biased.

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