Friday, March 18, 2022

Bits & Bites

Wendy’s earlier this week celebrated the opening of its newest restaurant in Georgia.   The restaurant, a franchise owned by Genesis Restaurant Group, opened at 765 Dacula Road in Dacula and brings the Columbus, Ohio-based burger chain to 296 restaurants in Georgia and 7,000 globally.  The Dacula restaurant features the company's latest smart design with a Y-lane that offers Wendy’s customers a faster, more efficient drive-thru experience.

A new Tropical Smoothie Cafe is coming to Akers Mill Square.  The new smoothie franchise will open in the former Pinkberry frozen yogurt shop beside Aspen Dental, which itself replaced the former Vitamin Shoppe.  The smoothie shop is 934 square feet according to a property site plan.  The Atlanta-based smoothie franchise currently has more than forty locations in Georgia.  

The long vacant Firestone at 3369 Lenox Road across from Lenox Square in Buckhead will soon see new life as a familiar business.  City of Atlanta permits indicate that Mavis Tire will soon open in the roughly 15,000 square foot space and is spending about $300,000 on renovations and upgrades.  Among the changes planned are new garage doors, new front windows, new lifts, reinforcement of the floor, and updating restrooms to meet ADA requirements.   Mavis entered the Atlanta market in early 2018 with its acquisition of Atlanta-based Kauffman Tire.  The company has in the months and years since acquired several other divisions and companies including DeKalb Tire and 112 NTB stores including several in metro Atlanta.  Interestingly, after re-branding a former Kauffman on Peachtree Road in Brookhaven and a former NTB on the Northeast Expressway access road in Atlanta, Mavis later closed and sold both sites for redevelopment.  The Brookhaven site was paired with the former Hastings Garden Center to make way for the new Alta Porter apartment project from Atlanta-based Wood Partners.  The Northeast Expressway site was paired with Floor & Decor's first store ever to make way for a larger new flagship Floor & Decor that is expected to open later this year.  

Popular Buckhead florist Michal Evans Flora & Event Design plans by early April to relocate from Cains Hill Place in the Buckhead Village to Fountain Oaks shopping center in Sandy Springs.  The new Michal Evans will occupy a 1,500 square foot space between Frutta Bowls and Pig-N-Chick that was most recently home to a GNC.   According to Fulton County tax records, Evans purchased his property, which includes about .2 acres and a freestanding building at 3200 Cains Hills Place in 1998 for $200,000.  Tax records indicate that Evans sold his property in February 2020 to Edens Realty, a firm that already controls nearby Andrews Square and Buckhead Market Place and several other area parcels, for $2.5 million.  Edens also owns Fountain Oaks shopping center.

The former home of Nicola's Restaurant, for nearly three decades a popular Lebanese eatery in the Atlanta area before its August 2021 closure, will soon reopen as Coffee Bar Atlanta.  Local entrepreneur Amar Medatia has leased the roughly 3,000 square foot building along LaVista Road in what is now the City of Brookhaven, and plans to open his new coffee, pastry, beer, and wine cafe in the coming weeks. 

Dollar Tree is actively closing its store at Vista Grove shopping center on LaVista Road.  The 10,500 square foot store was for many years an Eckerd before becoming a Dollar General and later a Dollar Tree in 2016.  The store is slated to close by April 17 and is currently liquidating most perishable and fragile items for as little as 25 cents.  Dollar Tree still operates several locations in the area including locations in Briarcliff Village near Northlake Mall, North DeKalb Mall and at Brighten Park.  

The UPS Store at Cambridge Square in Brookhaven plans to close April 30.  The UPS store occupies a roughly 1,900 square foot space in the center at the corner of Ashford Duwnoody and Johnson Ferry Roads.  A Starbucks next door to the UPS store closed in 2021 while the center's former anchor Kroger closed in 2020.  There is ongoing speculation as to what plans property owner Regency Centers has for the vacant anchor space but no definitive confirmation as of yet.    

Best Buy closed its store at Acworth Crossing (3335 Cobb Parkway) in Acworth earlier this month.  The 30,000 square foot store opened in the center in 2006 and helped co-anchor the property also home to PetSmart and Dollar Tree, among others.  Michaels was also previously in the center but moved across the street to the Super Target-anchored Lakeside Marketplace in early 2020.   About eight miles away, Best Buy continues to operate both a full-line store as well as an outlet in Barrett Place and Barrett Pavilion, respectively.  Best Buy store closures in metro Atlanta are rare, with the most recent closings coming in 2012 when the company shuttered stores in Loganville and Fayetteville. 

Super Chix plans to open its first ever Atlanta area location Monday March 21 at The Avenue Peachtree City in Peachtree City.  ToNeTo Atlanta first reported on the planned restaurant opening this past August.   The restaurant will open at 11am and the first 100 guests in line will receive a free sandwich and fries! 

Sankranti Indian Kitchen celebrated the official grand opening of its first location Wednesday March 16 at Park Center in Duwnoody.  The restaurant is located near the intersection of Peachtree Dunwoody Road and Hammond Drive in the bottom of the State Farm office building.  The new quick-serve Indian eatery is to serve as the model for what company founder Srinivasa Nimmagadda hopes will soon be a chain of franchises.  The concept is similar to Atlanta-based NaanStop which currently operates locations Downtown, in Buckhead and at Atlantic Station.  

Luxury jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels plans to relocate to a new space within Neiman Marcus at Lenox Square in Buckhead.  According to a permit filed with the City of Atlanta, plans call for a new facade, ceilings, partitions, lighting and millwork. The permit indicates the company plans to spend an estimated $478,000 to complete the buildout.  

Memphis-based Hollywood Feed, LLC announced in late February that is entered into an agreement to purchase PetPeople Holdings, LLC.   "With this acquisition, Hollywood Feed increases its store count from 104 to 180, adding five new states to its roster, in addition to the 14 states in which it already has stores."  In metro Atlanta, Hollywood Feed currently operates 23 stores while PetPeople has three.  It remains to be seen whether any stores will be closed as part of the purchase given that some - such as the Hollywood Feed and PetPeople stores on Peachtree Road in Buckhead - are about a mile apart.  

Growing salad joint Chopt Creative Salad Co. has inked two new leases in metro Atlanta.  Already with locations in Toco Hills, Midtown and Chastain Park, and a Dunwoody outpost slated to debut in April, two new Chopt restaurants are to open late this year in East Cobb and Peachtree Corners.  The East Cobb outpost will occupy about 2,500 square feet of the former California Pizza Kitchen restaurant at the corner of Roswell and Johnson Ferry Roads in the Trader Joe's-anchored Pinestraw Place shopping center.  In Peachtree Corners, Chopt will open in a similarly sized space where it will occupy the majority of the former Atlanta Bread Company.  ToNeTo Atlanta has heard talk of the Peachtree Corners lease for upwards of four years with sources telling us recently that the deal has multiple times come back from the dead.    Rival salad shop Sweetgreen, which entered the Atlanta market in 2021, three years after Chopt, has thus far opened three stores locally including those at Ponce City Market Colony Square and Lenox Square with a new location slated to open March 22 at Star Metals in West Midtown.  Another Sweetgreen is planned for Ashford Lane (formerly Perimeter Place) in Dunwoody.  

A new Dunkin' is coming soon to Roswell.  The new doughnut and coffee shop will open in a 1,600 square foot space in Orchard Village where locally owned donut shop Donut Haven previously closed.  The endcap space, which was originally a Riverside Pizza,  provides Dunkin' an all important drive-thru and is among several in metro Atlanta the company has in the works.  

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for all the info. Tropical Smoothie Cafe is one of my favorite quick service restaueants. It is a shame the Dollar Tree at Vista Grove is closing. It has always been a nice clean and orderly store. I have to wonder if all the car breakins in that center are keeping people away. I know I haven't gone to that location as much as I used to go. I hate to see another Mavis tire location ooen. When they took over our local tire location in Tucker they ruined it.

Anonymous said...

Too bad many Wendy’s never reopened their dine-in areas…..drive through only.. Same for Krystals and Taco Bell’s up in the Sandy Springs-Roswell areas. They also lost my business until they reopen. I don’t do cold soggy take out food.

Anonymous said...

I quit Wendy's almost 40 years ago because I got tired of their miserably inconsistent food. Their new ad's are so annoying I don't see how anyone wants to patronize them now.

Unknown said...

I don't know about any others, but the 2 Mavis locations near Decatur both have terrible reputations. The former Kaufmann on Church St was pretty good and the former NTB on DeKalb Industrial was so-so. Now knowledgeable folks won't go to either one.

Anonymous said...

The sentiments of Unknown, above, are spot on: Mavis does indeed have a well deserved, terrible reputation. With the demise of Kauffman, the best place to get tires in the area now is Discount Tire in Chamblee.

Anonymous said...

I thought that old Firestone was being knocked down and redeveloped along with the empty lot next to it into a Ritz-Carlton hotel. Guess with all the crime in the area and at Lenox, they thought otherwise. Might as well open a rim and hydraulics shop next door.

Anonymous said...

The craft store Michaels is not spelled with an apostrophe. LEARN HOW TO SPELL RETAIL NAMES SINCE YOU'RE IN THE BUSINESS OF WRITING ABOUT THEM.

Anonymous said...

I agree with everyone else on Mavis - they are terrible. I have purchased my last three sets of tires at Costco and have been pretty happy there.

Atlantan99 said...

@Anon RE: Michaels,

You make an excellent point. I have corrected that typo and will do my best to ensure nothing like that ever happens again. Thank you for your continued readership and observations.

Eli

DaBigMotor said...

The Wendys at the corner of Peachtree Parkway and Spalding in Peachtree Corers/Norcross is closed and undergoing a major renovation. It's been totally gutted and is being built back out.

Anonymous said...

On the topic of Dunkin, there were plans to open a Dunkin at the corner of Haynes Bridge and Old Alabama Rd in Johns Creek. They got zoning approval but now there is a for-rent sign in the space. Any news there? Curious if the new Roswell Dunkin mentioned is a relocation of the expected Johns Creek location

Anonymous said...

When did Under Armour at Lenox Square Mall close?

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