Fresh To Order earlier this week became the latest restaurant to close at the beleaguered Emory Point development. The "fast-fine" restaurant, with a prime corner location with plenty of visibility from Clifton Road and the CDC, closed overnight Tuesday, reportedly without warning to patrons or staff. The 2,800 square foot restaurant opened as part of the Emory Point's first phase in January 2013.
"Due to circumstances beyond our control, this Fresh to Order location has permanently closed. We apologize for any inconvenience."
The sign suggested that patrons visit the other Fresh to Order on East Ponce de Leon Avenue in Decatur three miles away.
Fresh to Order follows the late March and early April Emory Point closures of Francesca's and Marlow's Tavern.
Pierre Panos opened the first Fresh To Order on Peachtree Street in Midtown in 2006, followed soon after by a second location on Medlock Bridge Road in Johns Creek. In the years that followed, the chain expanded to other parts of metro Atlanta as well as surrounding states, including North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida, among others, via franchising, which started in 2010.
Panos, a veteran fine-dining restaurateur, said in 2013 at the time of the opening at Emory Point that he expected to grow the chain "to 50 restaurants during the next five years."
The most recent Fresh To Order to open in metro Atlanta was on Satellite Boulevard in Duluth, not far from Infinite Energy. The restaurant opened last April, and was closed by this past March.
As of today, there are a total of ten Fresh To Order restaurants in business, eight in Georgia and two in Indiana. The pair of locations in Indiana, which opened in 2016 and 2017, were to be part of a ten unit development deal the company signed with Charles Hensley and his Acuity Restaurant Group.
The remaining Georgia locations include outposts in CNN Center in Downtown Atlanta and Concourse B of Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport as well as restaurants in Buckhead, Midtown, East Cobb, Johns Creek, Cumberland Mall and Downtown Decatur.
In late 2015, Fresh To Order was forced to close its location on Roswell Road in Sandy Springs as part of a redevelopment, but indicated it would reopen at Square One, a new apartment development nearby. Fresh To Order never reopened and the space in which it was to open was instead leased to this short-lived concept.
Among Fresh To Order's other former locations were restaurants in Chattanooga, where the restaurant closed in late 2017 after nearly a decade in operation, as well as those in Knoxville, Nashville, Pineville (Charlotte area), Greenville, North Carolina, and Orlando. The latter locations all opened between 2014 and 2015, with the Orlando location expected to be the first of many, as part of an eight unit development deal.
Back at Emory Point, Fresh To Order joins a long list of restaurant closures that includes the aforementioned Marlow's Tavern. In all, a total of nine eateries have closed in the two phases of Emory Point.
That said, some of the closures have allowed for existing and smaller, independent restaurants to open or expand.
The General Muir, widely considered the most successful eatery in the project, opened TGM Bread in place of the shuttered Sweet Monkey frozen yogurt & cupcakes in early 2016. Popular Ethiopian eatery Desta opened its second location at Emory Point this past December where BurgerFi previously closed.
In the coming months, Bryan Furman plans to open his popular B's Cracklin Barbecue in the former La Tagliatella/Marcello's space, opposite Fresh To Order. The original local outpost of B's Cracklin, in Atlanta's Riverside neighborhood, was destroyed in a fire this March and Furman plans to be at Emory Point only temporarily as he searches for a new location in the Riverside or surrounding areas.
Are you surprised that Fresh To Order closed at Emory Point? What would you like to see open in place of Fresh To Order at Emory Point? Why do you think so many restaurants have closed at Emory Point?
Please share your thoughts below
4 comments:
Oh, F2O I love their _____... Never solved for ____. It’s not a bad place, but it’s not good enough for the price and not a place I’d think of for dinner. Always felt like a lunch with coworkers place with a couple dollar premium over Panera or Corner Bakery.
Very sorry to see another biz close at Emory Point but most of the places were not unique and not worth going to other than lunch. Food places that are only supported by either surrounding businesses (lunch) or students will not survive. As a person living in the neighborhood, we didn't dinner at any of the closed food places. We are regulars at TGM. A good pizza or asian restaurant might fare well IF it is not a chain and has dinner appeal.
Why does everything seem to fail at Emory Point?
F2O is painfully generic. Went in for takeout one evening after a yoga class and there was one other person picking up their takeout. The trouble with these new developments is rent. Original concept don't get chosen as tenants due to the risk of failure. But I think we can see from the numerous closures over the years, chains are also doomed to fail in an insular locale. The Emory shuttle does not go there.
Just got news the yoga studio is closing for the summer. Not sure they will return in the Fall??
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