Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Bits & Bites

The new Macy's Backstage at Cumberland Mall
Macy's Backstage, the new "off-price" offering from Macy's, opened its first Atlanta area location this past Friday at Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth. The store is located on the second floor of the existing Macy's store. Other Backstage stores are planned for The Mall at Stonecrest, Cumberland Mall, Mall of Georgia, and Town Center at Cobb, among others.  Although I was unable to obtain definitive planned openings, a Macy's representative at Cumberland Mall indicated that their Backstage store is expected to open this coming Friday April 28th.  

Regions Bank has signed on for the new 365 by Whole Foods Market anchored North Decatur Square shopping center near Decatur.  The bank will have both a branch and a standalone drive thru.  

Buckhead Pizza Co. has closed its location at the Cobb Galleria.  The restaurant reportedly closed about two weeks ago.  Previous closures have included locations in Cumming and Buford. The last remaining restaurant in the chain is in Buckhead, at the Realm condo building.  

Blue Agave Grill on Etris Road in Roswell has seemingly shut its doors for good.  A ToNeTo Atlanta reader reports that a sign on the restaurant's front door indicates that Blue Agave would be "closed on Easter and all Mondays forward." The restaurant's website has been taken down and their phone directs you to a recorded message from Verizon that the number is not in service. 

Sprouts Farmers Market opened their 15th Atlanta area location earlier today at the new Tucker Meridian shopping center in Tucker.  The Phoenix-based chain plans to open their next Atlanta location June 28th in Woodstock.  I am unaware of any additional stores the company has committed to in metro Atlanta.  Since entering the Atlanta market in 2014, Sprouts has opened stores from Peachtree City to Snellville and Peachtree Corners to Morningside.  


Women's retailer Bebe plans to close all of its roughly 170 stores nationwide as it shifts its focus exclusively to online sales.  All retail stores are expected to close by the end of May.  In metro Atlanta, Bebe has three locations: Lenox Square in Buckhead, Town Center at Cobb in Kennesaw and Mall of Georgia in Buford.  

Chick-fil-A will celebrate the grand opening of their new restaurant on Cascade Road in southwest Atlanta tomorrow morning at 6AM.  

Pike Nurseries plans to build a new 10,000 square foot store along with an approximately 40,000 square foot greenhouse in Milton.  The new store, which sits on about five acres, will be located near the intersection of Alpharetta Highway and Bethany Bend Road. Currently Pike has 15 stores in Georgia and two in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Taco Mac plans to open a new freestanding restaurant in the South Point development in McDonough next month. The new approximately 6,300 square foot restaurant is the first new restaurant for the Atlanta-based company in two years.  The restaurant will sport a brand new prototype. "The industrial chic-inspired design includes features that reflect the brand’s roots – sports and beer – and include elements like an exterior wall made from beer kegs and reclaimed barn wood finishes."  The location will also feature 72 HDTVs. Established in 1979, Taco Mac now has 20 locations throughout Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.  

Parkside District, a new restaurant opening soon on Duluth Highway in Lawrenceville,still plans to open later this summer despite suffering significant structural damage from a car that crashed into the building this past Sunday.  "This road bump won't keep us from launching in the Summer and we will make sure our grand opening will be a "smash."

Kaiser's Chophouse, the new steakhouse from Chef Peter Kaiser and Chef Kevin Rathbun, plans to open this coming Tuesday, May 2, in Sandy Springs.

Ann Taylor has closed its Mall of Georgia store.   The store closed within the past few days and comes on the heels of the retailer's closure at Atlantic Station.  At Mall of Georgia, local retailer Brooklynn's plans to open in its place later this summer. No tenant has been announced as a replacement at the former Ann Taylor in Atlantic Station . As I noted in an earlier post, Ann Taylor has closed locations in both Vinings and Perimeter Mall in recent years.  

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I swear I saw a Macy’s Backstage sign inside the Northpoint Mall location. I didn’t pay enough attention, but got the impression it was advertising one there.
Speaking of Northpoint Mall, I was there last Friday night and learned two things. Malls are no longer teen hangouts, because hardly any teens were there. And if you are at Northpoint Mall and want to get away from all the buying rush and noise of shoppers, step into Sears. You will be surrounded by silence, not humanity, or even sales people. I bet you could take a nice, quiet nap on one of the beds and no one would notice.

Anonymous said...

Re: Ann Taylor Initially surprised about the MOG closing but the click thru you provide and the Anon at 3:54 PM comment was an eye opener for why these retailers (stores) may be suffering so badly. Never considered that consumers (not customers) were buying wildly on the Internet and returning the majority of their purchases to brick and mortar.

Anonymous said...

IMHO having a Macy's Backstage inside on a different floor or in the same shopping mall as a traditional Macy's seems like a really bad move. For instance, dying Gwinnett Place should be off price / Backstage and thriving Mall Of Georgia should be a traditional Macy's.

skigator93 said...

@Anon 6:24AM : Malls are definitely still teen hangouts, just not North Point Mall because the teens in that area go to Avalon. My teens like to go there with their friends too and we live right next to Perimeter. Speaking of Perimeter, I am pretty sure there is still a Bebe store there.

I agree with the poster above about having a Backstage and a regular store in the same locale. I can't imagine that working well.

Finally, I'm glad that Taco Mac slowed its roll a bit. They were expanding really fast and quality seemed to not be keeping up. I like the chain though and McDonough makes a lot of sense.

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