Monday, March 18, 2019

[CLOSURE ALERT] Food 101 Shutters in Sandy Springs

Food 101 at 4969 Roswell Road in south Sandy Springs closed Sunday after about 20 years in business.  The restaurantoccupied a corner suite near the intersection of East Belle Isle and Roswell Roads in Belle Isle Square.  Food 101 is the flagship restaurant of Atlanta-based 101 Concepts, operators of a half dozen other restaurants around Atlanta including Meehan's Public House in Sandy Springs, Downtown, Atlantic Station and Vinings.  


Business partners Steve Buero, Phil Roness and Chris Segal opened the original Food 101 in 1999, after which a second location opened in Morningside on North Highland Avenue in 2006.  Executive Chef Ron Eyester, aka @TheAngryChef, purchased the restaurant from 101 Concepts in 2009, renaming it Rosebud.  After a series of missteps, over-expansions and personal problems, Eyester's then mini-restaurant empire imploded, leading to the eventual closure of all of his restaurants, including Rosebud.  

Tom Murphy opened Morningisde Kitchen in the former Rosebud space in early 2016, after which Blaiss Nowak, son of Hal's on Old Ivy founder Hal Nowak, took over the space in 2018 and opened Nowak's Restaurant this past May.

After a stint at nearby Nancy G's where he was instrumental in ditching the restaurant's longstanding name, now Southern Bistro, and revamping the menu, Eyester returned to Food 101 in late 2017.  

Following Food 101's closure, 101 Concepts' Atlanta area concepts will include the four aforementioned Meehan's locations as well as Smoke Ring, a barbecue eatery in Castleberry Hill, Steak 101 in Vinings and Paradis in Rosemary Beach, Florida.  

The group had planned in 2012 to open another Meehan's in a former Old Hickory House in Decatur, but those plans fell apart for reasons never made public (Fox Bros. had earlier expressed interest in the same space, and they, too, pulled out at the last minute). There was also a Meehan's on Peachtree Road in Brookhaven, but it was sold a few years ago, and later operated as Pub 71 before becoming Hudson FC International Sports Pub in 2017.  A Meehan's location in Buckhead abruptly closed last April and was subsequently replaced by Irby's Tavern, an independent restaurant.  

Following the closure of Food 101, the center's primary attraction restaurant-wise will be Cibo e Bebe, an Italian restaurant owned by Chef Linda Harrell. (Cibo e Beve was originally opened in 2011 as a 101 Concepts restaurant but was purchased by Harrell and a business partner this past June.) Food 101's closure also leaves vacant both Roswell Road corner spaces as the former BB&T branch at the south end of the center has been vacant for about six years.  

Are you surprised that Food 101 closed in Sandy Springs?  What would you like to see open in place of Food 101 in Sandy Springs?  Do you think the restaurant got better or worse after Chef Eyester returned?

Please share your thoughts below   

4 comments:

"Tyrone" said...

Hmm, that explains why the Food 101 email bounced back to me when I emailed them about a question. And their Facebook messages "cannot be sent". When did Cibo e Beve leave the 101 Concepts group?

Theron Sapp said...

A real shame. Food 101 served the area really well for a long time. The change in chef and direction sank the place. Longtime servers left en masse, the food got pretty bad pretty fast, and that was that.

Anonymous said...

we had a big group there earlier this month and the food was fine. It was pretty crowded at brunch time. But maybe there wasn't much Monday through Friday business.

fbenario said...

"The group had planned in 2012 to open another Meehan's in a former Old Hickory House in Decatur, but those plans fell apart for reasons never made public (Fox Bros. had earlier expressed interest in the same space, and they, too, pulled out at the last minute)."

That building is likely not up to code, and appears far too small for anyone to sink money into for another restaurant. Also a poor parking situation.

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