Sunday, September 4, 2022

Bits & Bites

Postino WineCafĂ©, will officially open to the public in Buckhead on Monday, September 12.  The new restaurant is located in Tuxedo Festival and replaces the former Flip Burger Boutique that shuttered in late 2017 after seven years in business.  That the space was once a Blockbuster Video is not lost on its new occupant who created a wall honoring its former VHS-heavy home.   A second Postino is slated to join the growing roster at the Brickworks project in West Midtown in 2023. 

Clean Eatz is opening a second Atlanta area location, this one in Sandy Springs. The eatery is opening at The Prado at 5600 Roswell Road, just inside the perimeter.  The new healthy eatery is opening in place of GameStop which previously closed in the center.  Started in Wilmington, North Carolina in 2011, Clean Eatz has grown via franchising to now include some 70 locations.  The eatery offers a variety of healthy meals made for both on premise and home consumption.   In metro Atlanta the company has locations in Norcross and Roswell with others in Columbus, Savannah and Peachtree City.  In addition to the Sandy Springs franchise, other new Georgia locations are planned for Athens and Pooler, according to the Clean Eatz website.   

Storico Fresco update: We reported August 28 that Storico Fresco had eliminated the majority of their prepared foods from their market offerings.   We were subsequently provided with more details and clarity surrounding their decision to discontinue the popular offerings.  The specialty store made-to-go items were discontinued as of Wednesday, August 17. "We have worked very hard to attempt to fight the current labor scarcity, the difficulty in obtaining many packaging in a reliable and timely manner due to supply-chain issues, and as the economy is suffering its worst inflation in recent history, it has become unsustainable.  The advent of Covid-19 has changed many of our habits, whether it be when families vacation, working from home, the cost of third-party delivery companies, and, most of all, the unpredictability of sales which is causing us to waste more than ever.  The restaurant is keeping  "a select offering of dried retail goods" and will remain open for lunch and dinner every day of the week except for Sunday.

Buckhead Business Association (BBA) will host the 17th annual Taste of Buckhead October 6 at The Stave Room in Atlanta.  The event, which offers foodies unlimited samples of Buckhead’s best food and beverages, will raise funds for the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research.  Participating restaurants include Postino, Zunzi's, Five Church, Irby's Tavern, DaVinci's Donuts and Southern Baked Pie Company, among others.  'Early bird" standard and VIP tickets are on sale now and are priced at $50 and $100 plus fees, respectively, and are available until September 17, after which the ticket prices increase by $25.  

Taste Around Town Chamblee presented by Taste of Atlanta is coming to Chamblee this fall.  Joining fellow festivals in Alpharetta and Sandy Springs, the Chamblee event was to have taken place September 23 and 24, but due to construction delays at Chamblee's new City Hall has been moved to November 4 and 5th.  The two-day festival will be spread over three sessions - one Friday and two Saturday - and will offer attendees the opportunity to try food and drinks from Chamblee area restaurants as well as beverage brands. Tickets for the festival are available now and are priced at $70 (excluding taxes & fees).  

Grub Burger Bar will close its restaurant at Brighten Park in Brookhaven as of September 24 to complete its conversion to Hopdoddy, another burger concept that acquired Grub this past January.  The new Hopdoddy at Brighten Park is slated to make its debut October 4.  Grub also operates locations in Sandy Springs, Akers Mill and Cumming, all of which will be converted to the Hopdoddy brand in the months to come.  

Mr. Veg'n permanently closed Wednesday August 31 at Perimeter Mall in Dunwoody. The restaurant, owned by Kevin Brown, first opened this past January but had been closed for more than a month following a reported incident between Brown and a security officer with the mall.  The restaurant, even when open, operated with odd hours, making it difficult for anyone to reliably patronize the business.  Brown previously closed a separate restaurant, Vulgar Vegan, in Stockbridge.  Online postings suggest that Brown opened a second Mr. Veg'n at The Galleria, an upscale mall in Houston, Texas, in May 

The Johnson family announced Thursday that they have sold their Peachtree Corners restaurant Grace 1720.  The restaurant, located in The Forum on Peachtree Parkway, is in its 18th year and was sold to "Saltie Butter LLC" a local restaurant group that also owns Stäge Kitchen & Bar which debuted this past fall in place of Noble Fin in Peachtree Corners, as well as La Belle Vie Kitchen in Suwanee.   According to an announcement from the Johnsons, Grace 1720 will, after a short renovation, reopen as "a new restaurant concept with new ownership."  There is no word yet on how soon the new restaurant will open, what food it will offer or what it will be called.    

9 comments:

Alex said...

IDK. Converting those Grub Burgers into Hopdaddy sounds a bit questionable. Grub Burger is a fairly well-known name and business. Most people will think if failed and is being replaced by another "better" burger place. Also, judging by its name, is Hopdaddy a craft brew also? Their website isn't clear on that.

Anonymous said...

I checked out the website. They have an interesting concept. Their better burgers actually are much more unique and the ingredient combinations are very well thought through and complementary amongst the other ingredients within the burger stack. This is versus all the “carbon copy” better burgers that are out there. Definitely something a little different than Grub and the other better burger establishments around town. Here is one (amongst several others) that was interesting: Beef burger topped with fried bologna, muenster cheese, Vital Farms Pasture Raised egg, whole grain mustard aioli, onions & lettuce. There are others, plus a very interesting and unique alcohol program (the alcohol looks tasty and fun) plus boozy shakes which you can find at several other establishments these days. they seem to have a really great following throughout Texas. I am willing to give it a shot.

Anonymous said...

What's with all these taste of festivals? Whatever happened to the Taste of Atlanta? Another casualty of the pandemic? These neighborhood and small town taste festivals do nothing to bring this region together and further fracture it. We should have 1 taste festival, the taste of Atlanta. Bring it back and have it at Piedmont Park or Centennial Park? How hard is that?

Anonymous said...

The Atlanta restaurant scene is one of the lamest of all the large cities in the U.S. Overpriced food at overrated restaurants which cater to pretentious Instagram people.

Anonymous said...

Taste of Chamblee is $70?????? You can get a nice meal at a nice restaurant for that. Why would anyone choose to line up at a kiosk for a sample from a midrange or lower restaurant?

Anonymous said...

I think that Chamblee forgot that it’s Chamblee. The city organizers and neighborhood development and Chamber of Commerce folks think that Chamblee is the new Brookhaven or the new Buckhead or the new Dunwoody. When in fact they have done and continue to do some great things in Chamblee but Chamblee will never be the new Brookhaven, Buckhead or Dunwoody, Chamblee is simply the new Chamblee. They’ve done great to attract large business and new large scale apartment communities however what are they doing to encourage investment by very small business such as business services, restaurants and boutiques? There is a ton of retail inventory that is out priced for the small business owner.

Anonymous said...

Shocked to hear about my neighborhood Grub Burger Bar. Then I looked at Hopdoddy's menu. WOW... bring it on. There's like 6 different french fry choices! Tons of unique burgers. Looks like a possible upgrade.

Anonymous said...

Chamblee is nicer than the commercial parts of Buckhead now in my opinion. Better caliber of people living and shopping there, low crime, not littered with trash, no crazy homeless people and waterboys harassing you. Buckhead is so depressing and stressful to deal with. Plus it's looking old and run down these days.

Anonymous said...


I don’t know what to say, Chamblee does indeed have homeless everywhere…

waffle house, the public park/walking trail behind Walmart going underneath peachtree to keswick, Walmart itself inside and out, and famously at several different times throughout the years there were homeless taking up housing in the Walmart underground garage, there’s a large door with a large area as the cars come turning into the garage where the homeless used to take up residence, all the Marta train stations, all the bus shelters have homeless every night and often during the day… The Quiktrip at anytime day or night inside and outside, at Walgreens, McDonald’s, and hello… there is not one but two homeless shelter hotels funded by your tax dollars, the motel six next to Volvo and the suburban behind the old Pizza Hut, in theory many of the hotel residents are in turnaround situations, so God bless them may they have prosperity and strong mental health. homelessness is a crisis and by sheer size of buckhead and the number of Marta stations and bus stops up and down peachtree from downtown by default Buckhead is going to have more homeless.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...