[EXCLUSIVE] Breakfast Chain Looks to Supplant Longstanding Kennesaw Restaurant

First Watch (NASDAQ: FWRG) has a second new Cobb County location in the works.  The breakfast and lunch chain, which should open its new East Cobb restaurant later this month, also plans to open a new location in Kennesaw.  The new Kennesaw outpost would replace TGI Fridays at 840 Cobb Place Boulevard, just off Ernest Barrett Parkway in an outparcel of Cobb Place shopping center.     

Planning documents suggest that First Watch plans to make use of the existing roughly 5,200 square foot building and renovate it to suit its needs.  The Bradenton, Florida-based chain completed a similar renovation of a former Chili's that it opened this past December on Windward Parkway in Alpharetta.  Whereas in Alpharetta, the Chili's had closed in 2021, the Kennesaw outpost of TGI Friday's is amazingly still open.  

Established in New York City in 1965, TGI Friday's was once a hugely popular chain, but its popularity (and store count) has waned in recent decades.  Over the past decade or so the chain has shuttered Atlanta area locations in Buckhead, Doraville, Buford and on Powers Ferry Road not far from Truist Park, among others.  Following the impending closure in Kennesaw, few TGI Friday's remain open in metro Atlanta but include those on Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth, Camp Creek Parkway near East Point and near the Mall at Stonecrest in Lithonia, as well as an outpost at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, among others.  

For its part, First Watch has been especially active in their metro Atlanta expansion.  Over the past year, the company has added new outposts in Dunwoody and Tucker as well as the aforementioned opening in Alpharetta.  First Watch has an existing Kennesaw area location at Jiles Road and Cherokee Street.  

Overall, the company operates fourteen locations in metro Atlanta as well as a single unit in Columbus.

Maple Street Biscuit Company, owned since late 2019 by Cracker Barrel, opened a new location about a mile away from the upcoming First Watch this past September.  The fellow-Florida-born chain today operates Atlanta area locations in Alpharetta, West Midtown, Duluth, Kennesaw and Woodstock as well as a single unit in Savannah.  

What chain restaurant do you think does breakfast best?  What local or chain restaurant would you like to see expand in metro Atlanta?  What is your favorite breakfast food?

Please share your thoughts below.