Just seventeen months after making its debut, Superica West Midtown has closed. The trendy Tex-Mex restaurant, located at 930 Howell Mill Road (street level of The Brady apartments), was the sixth in Atlanta from locally based Ford Fry Restaurants. Sources tell ToNeTo Atlanta the restaurant closed "within the past week" with its location already marked "permanently closed" on Google and wiped from the Ford Fry website.
Superica's closure is significant for several reasons, not the least of which is that it marks the first time in Atlanta that Ford Fry has permanently closed a restaurant (before its lease expiration) without plans to re-concept. Fry previously re-concepted two Atlanta locations of The El Felix (Avalon and The Battery Atlanta) into Superica and made a similar move in West Midtown when he opened Little Sparrow and Bar Blanc in place of JCT Kitchen. ToNeTo Atlanta exclusively reported last May on the closure of Buckhead's King+Duke at the completion of its ten-year lease. Fares Kargar plans to open his popular Middle Eastern eatery Delbar in its place.
Worth noting, too, is that Superica was located between several other successful and established Ford Fry restaurants including The Optimist (est. May 2012), Marcel (est. July 2015) and the aforementioned Little Sparrow and Bar Blanc (est. October 2023), which replaced JCT Kitchen, Fry's original, that had opened January 2007.
Following its closure, five locations of Superica remain open in metro Atlanta: Buckhead, Krog Street Market, The Battery Atlanta, Ashford Lane in Dunwoody and Avalon in Alpharetta. There are also six other locations spread between North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Texas. (The Ashford Lane location opened in February 2023, just a few weeks ahead of West Midtown.)
With eleven locations, Superica is Ford Fry's largest multi-unit concept across his thirteen concept restaurant portfolio.
That said, as we mentioned in our May 2024 post regarding Torchy's Tacos imminent (delayed from July to TBD) West Midtown arrival, the West Midtown sub-market has turned from red hot to incredibly challenging, as restaurants vie for market share.
ToNeTo Atlanta exclusively reported this past January on the abrupt closure of Wagamama at Star Metals. The Asian restaurant opened at the new project in June 2022 and closed in January for what it claimed were "technical difficulties," but never reopened.
"There are too darn many restaurants over there," one restaurant industry insider told us in May.
Several other multi-unit operators including Bartaco, Postino, and Culinary Dropout, among others sold on the excitement and growth of the area are now said to be "under pressure" as diners, already in short supply, are further reining in their spending amidst inflation and increases in the cost of dining out.
Are you surprised by the closure of Superica in West Midtown? Have you changed your dining out habits in recent months? Do you think West Midtown has too many restaurants?
Please share your thoughts below.
20 comments:
Too many restaurants, too much traffic, and no Parking...
Parking and crime = y'all see those elephants in here?
Didn't even know this was a location.
Too much cheese in the burrito
Entering an apartment complex, finding parking, etc. makes access to redtail businesses of any type disadvantaged in my opinion.
Agreed with Anon @ 9:14, mixed use stuff like this is not a good idea. Not sure why that has not yet come to light with developers and other business owners. I refuse to shop at Sprouts on Piedmont for this very same reason.
The mixed-use development concept is such a failure, eyesore, and a blight. I hope I live long enough to see these torn down in favor of single family homes.
That’s what she said
Always found the food much too salty and very average at best.
Called it when they first opened. As regulars for years at the Krog location and having been to the buckhead superica a few times, they missed the mark here. Ambiance was more Applebees than anything. Throw in the wildly inconsistent food and service that Krog (at least) is known to have and it was game over.
I actually think it didn’t have enough salt. If you put salt you should taste it: 🧂
Nailed it! You win! A bowl of cheese dip up your hooter
To all those mentioning parking, busy area, etc - when I still lived next to Superica, I had the impression it was always busy. And that holds for many restaurants in that area - it doesn’t seem to bother enough people for it being an issue?
There must be more to it ?
Too much chili powder taste in most everything!
They put just enough salt on everything. Their biggest issue is not enough chili powder. Definitely needs more chili powder.
The superica at perimeter does not appear to be doing well either. Folks are tired of eating way overpriced mediocre food when they can get authentic mexican food at locally family owned mexican places that charge far less and have tastier food.
I like making Old El Passo at home.
Place isn't that good. Also, no TV's in the restaurant. Food is decent but nothing special. Prices are high as well
🤣
I like the krog st. location. I went to this location once. The food took easily 45 minutes for a simple order and the place wasn't slow. The food tasted off. The decor in the place felt cheap. Then there were the prices, everything felt 25% more than what it should be. I'm not sure how the prices compared to krog st but $12+ for queso was a shocker.
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