Monday, January 9, 2017

Toast! Tom + Chee Atlanta Has Closed

Eatery fails to meet expectations intown 

Tom + Chee, the grilled cheese and soup shop that shot to stardom on ABC's Shark Tank, has closed its Westside Atlanta location after barely a year in business.  The restaurant's last day was yesterday, Sunday, January 8th.  

The Westside location opened January 7th, 2016 and followed other Atlanta area locations in Buford, Alpharetta and Kennesaw.

Sources indicate the restaurant's owners made the decision to sell the restaurant after determining its location and the surrounding demographics were not as ideal as they had hoped.  

The remaining metro Atlanta Tom + Chee locations are open for now but there are reports that the Buford location (same owners as Westside) and the Alpharetta location are being marketed for sale.  The Kennesaw restaurant, as previously noted, is located in a better, more rent reasonable center and has been well received by the community.  

A new "lunch focused" eatery has reportedly inked a deal to take over the space and will open in the coming months.  Sources indicate that while there was a good deal of interest in the space, the property's landlord required the replacement be "lunch focused" given the realization that evening parking is a problem.  

Would a different location on the Westside have been more successful for the chain or is the concept flawed? What do you think will replace Tom + Chee on the Westside?  What is your favorite casual eatery on the Westside?

Please share your thoughts below  

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hoping for a Chicken Salad Chick! We need one close to intown.

jeff a. taylor said...

I never understood the concept. It was never going to be dinner fare, so it would always depend on foot traffic lunches. Speed it then a premium but some of the preps seemed needlessly complex. It is like it was invented assuming mall food courts were still a thing.

Anonymous said...

The rents are high in the area, and with so many great places to eat in the area, serving not so great food is a killer.

AJ said...

@Jeff - It's actually a successful concept. This location was just not the right location (i.e. high rent). It's a sandwich place that has soup. It's not just grilled cheese - it's just grilled cheese centric. Turkey with bacon and cheese, grilled. So it's a grilled cheese. The concept is relatively sound. They just need to focus on older shopping centers with lower rent because the food is quite tasty.

Ham said...

As I’ve said earlier they really need the lunch time office crowd to be successful. Maybe a few folks want a grill cheese for dinner, but if you do just whip out the frying pan and make your own.

Anonymous said...

I had eaten there twice and both times it was so horrifically slow I couldn't believe it. It took over 20 minutes to make a grilled cheese. I could have gone behind the counter and made the whole restaurant food in less time. The soup was good but the service was so bad I had vowed never to come back.

Sanni said...

I wanted to go because they have Vegan options guess I'll have to goto another location before they close for good.

Anonymous said...

Locations in St Louis MO and Lexington KY also closed up since the beginning of 2017.

Anonymous said...

This whole concept is failing. So far 7 stores closed since January 9th. The latest was the Alpharetta location. If you think this is a potentially good investment call every store owner that has been opened for longer than a year. And call the owners who closed their locations. Most, if not all will advise you to stay away from this franchise. I don't know how Barbara said on the last Shark Tank update that Tom & Chee was one of her best investments, even though she only put in $20,000.00 and not the $300,000.00 or $600,000.00 that is shown on the shark tank episode or stated on the internet. The last update stated the did $47 million in sales since being on Shark Tank. Some people took that as they are doing that in annual sales. That is not the case. Annual sales at each location is around $520,000.00. That is a break even number at best.

Unknown said...

Your right. It was also bad management at this location. The kennesaw location is much more amazing

Unknown said...

It's a lack for good management and execution. The location failed cause they didn't know what they were doing...

The Kennesaw location is going strong

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