Thursday, July 27, 2017

Adios! Cheeky to Shutter at The Forum in Norcross

Cheeky, a Mexican sports bar concept, will be closing their location at The Forum in Norcross after dinner service this coming Saturday.  The approximately 5,000 square foot restaurant opened in late 2014 and was the fourth location for the Suwanee-based chain.

This past September the chain did a "double switch" of sorts, closing their restaurant at The Avenue East Cobb and opened a new location at Gateway on Roswell Road in Sandy Springs.  The East Cobb location reopened soon afterward as Tin Lizzy's Cantina.   The Sandy Springs Cheeky location is reportedly struggling, likely due at least in part to the fact that there are two other Mexican restaurants in the Gateway project: Chipotle Mexican Grill and Verde Taqueria, not to mention over a half dozen others nearby.  

Earlier this year, Cheeky at The Forum was listed "for lease" by local commercial real estate firm The Shumacher Group.  While sources close to the situation tell me there is no deal done, "negotiations are in the works with a prospective tenant to take over the space."

According to the marketing materials, the "Lease term has almost ten years remaining on initial term with 2-5 year options." 

Aside from the Norcross and Sandy Springs locations, Cheeky's operates a pair of other locations in The Collection at Forsyth in Cumming and on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Suwanee.  The Suwanee location has been in business since 2007 while the Forsyth location opened in 2010.  

Cheeky's founder, Jose Hevia, is no stranger to sports bars, as he was a founder of Atlanta's popular Taco Mac.

Are you surprised Cheeky is closing at The Forum? Do you like the Cheeky concept? What would you most like to see open in its place?  

Please share your thoughts below.  

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like Cheeky but there's so much competition out there. Certainly don't need 3 Tex-Mex restaurants (granted they aren't exactly the same) at The Forum. The one at Collection is always slammed and appears to do a lot better than the Forum did. Moe's was the only soutwest restaurant in The Forum for a long time, then they let Chipotle in, then Cheeky. That's poor tenant mix for a center that size.

Anonymous said...

Not too surprising, that seems like a difficult location for a restaurant being essentially mid-center. Most of the other restaurants are either on the ends or front Peachtree Parkway with decent to good available parking. Its very difficult to park where it was located. We live in the area and never went even though we eat at the Forum all the time.

Ham said...

I wonder how the new development across the street will hurt the Forum? There is already a lot of competition in that area and the plan I saw calls for a lot of additional dining/retail in the new Peachtree Corners town center development. At the end of the day there are only so many diners/shoppers and I hope in their zeal to grow PC doesn't create a lot of empty boxes.

Imandy said...

All these restaurants are for the lunch crowd. I work in Peachtree Corners most people driving down Peachtree industrial and Peachtree Rd never get off and have no idea the huge office and O/w buildings and subdivisions back behind all those trees. Parking is always a long walk at the forum around lunch.

Laparilla and chipotle banks at the forumn. Cheeky is poo

Anonymous said...

Was Hevia really a founder of Taco Mac? From what I could find it looks like he simply operated a franchise or two in Duluth and Athens.

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