[SMILE!] A Growing Dental Practice Has Georgia on its Mind

With Atlanta already saturated with burger joints, mattress shops and car washes, a Texas dental business is looking to cover the area with at least a dozen facilities.  MINT dentistry, created by Dr. Field Harrison in Dallas, Texas in 2009, currently has four Atlanta area locations open with at least seven, and potentially as many as eight more in various stages of development.  While we at ToNeTo Atlanta don't specialize in dental news, we found the volume and locations of the planned offices especially noteworthy.  

MINT's first Atlanta area location opened last June at 4014 Lawrenceville Highway (Lilburn) in a former PNC Bank.  Subsequent locations opened at 7155 Jonesboro Road (Morrow) in a former Wells Fargo, 3841 Main Street (College Park) in the former Urban Foodie Feed Store restaurant, and the one outlier, a first-generation space, opened at 1010 West Peachtree, at Tens on West (fka Hanover West Peachtree) in Midtown.  Thus far, the College Park facility is the only location in Atlanta that also offers orthodontic services.  

MINT joins a growing number of multi-unit dental practices in Atlanta including Aspen Dental, Sage Dental, Pacific Dental and locally owned DentFirst, among others. What sets MINT apart, though, aside from the decor and services on the interior (more on that later) is that they are leasing some incredibly high profile and also likely incredibly expensive freestanding buildings.  

In Kennesaw, MINT will open at 1911 Vaughn Road, just off Cobb Parkway, in a former Arby's.   

In Smyrna, MINT is opening at 3197 South Cobb Drive in a former Ruby Tuesday.

In Tucker, MINT is opening at 3840 LaVista Road in the former Georgia United Credit Union as they themselves moved to a former BB&T nearby.  

In Norcross, MINT is opening at 3374 Holcomb Bridge Road in a former Wells Fargo.  

In Fayetteville, MINT is opening at 655 North Jeff Davis Drive in a freestanding building that has been several banks, Community Capital Bank most recently.  

Also, in both Canton (130 Keith Drive) and Conyers (1610 Highway 138) MINT will open in former Chick-fil-A restaurants.  In both cases the older style Chick-fil-A restaurants were vacated by the Atlanta-based chain in favor of new, larger locations nearby.   

At a time when second generation drive-thru enabled restaurants are at a premium, it's nothing short of amazing to see a dental practice secure so many former restaurants where they will immediately decommission the drive-thrus.

MINT is definitely not your mama's dentist.  The company was reportedly one of the first to combine iPads with movies and leather massage chairs and also offer Pandora and Netflix options to its patients.  Through its "minterior design" the practice even includes an Instagram-worthy neon sign in each location with the repeating words "sexyteeth."  

According to the MINT Dentistry website, "...by the end of 2022, MINT dentistry will be in every major city throughout the U.S."  While reaching eleven locations in Atlanta is no small feat, especially when you consider that three are making use of highly desirable former quick-serve restaurants, it seems perhaps overly ambitious to claim the business will be in every major U.S. city by the end of the year.  

In late 2021, Dr. Harrison and his wife Sabrina launched AMEN Church at the "world-renowned" Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas.  The church, run separately from the dental practice, seems akin to Atlanta's Passion City Church or Buckhead Church, but is reportedly entirely volunteer run with all donations given to charitable causes in the community through what has been called "mintistry."   

MINT is not alone in its plans to expand in metro Atlanta.  DECA Dental, based in Dallas, Texas, has at least two intown locations opening (Buckhead and Chastain Park) with several others reportedly in the works.  Dr. Sulman Ahmed founded DECA Dental in 2008 and last August announced a strategic investment from funds managed by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities to expand the business. Today DECA has nearly 100 affiliated dental practices with a network of offices in Texas, Florida and Washington.  Aspen Dental, one of the largest dental practice operators in the country, has nearly 1,000 offices nationwide including 47 in Georgia, which puts the Peach State in a tie for its sixth largest market.  

Have you ever been to MINT dentistry?  What are your thoughts on MINT's planned Atlanta expansion?  Do you currently go to a traditional or "trendy" dentist? 

Please  share your thoughts below