Yumbii Taco Shop has closed at Brookwood Village in South Buckhead. Carson Young launched the Asian-Mexican-Southern eatery as a food truck in 2010 before going brick & mortar with the Brookwood Hills restaurant in 2017.
According to a Yumbii employee at one of the group's remaining Atlanta restaurants, the Brookwood Hills closure was precipitated by the sale of the Brookwood Village shopping center to Piedmont Hospital. In response to that claim, however, Sommer Hixson, Public Relations Director for Brookwood Village owner EDENS, told ToNeTo Atlanta: "The information you have is false. EDENS is the current owner of Brookwood Village."
Several Atlanta area real estate sources tell ToNeTo Atlanta that Piedmont Hospital was previously in discussions to purchase the roughly the 29,000 square foot strip center - also home to the original Gusto, Black Bear Tavern, and CVS - but those plans failed to materialize. EDENS has owned the center since its 2014 acquisition of Houston-based AmREIT.
ToNeTo Atlanta reported in January that Yumbii had quietly closed its location on Old Milton Parkway across from Avalon after less than a year in business.
Young, along with his wife Katy, also opened locations in Toco Hills (August 2020), Moores Mill (October 2022), and Midtown Promenade (October 2023). A location was announced for Chamblee Plaza in 2019 but was canceled in 2020. The Youngs also launched a sibling concept, The Queso Shop, with locations in Toco Hills and Moores Mill, and a third planned for Midtown Promenade, but all of those have since closed.
EDENS is the restaurant's landlord at Toco Hills and was also previously their landlord at Moores Mill, but the center is now owned by InvenTrust following their April acquisition of the property for $28 million. Asana Partners, a firm birthed by former EDENS CEO Terry Brown, is the Youngs' landlord in Midtown Promenade.
The three remaining Yumbii locations in Toco Hills, Moores Mill and Midtown Promenade remain open...for now.
Have you been to Yumbii? Is Yumbii past its prime? Are its locations the problem, or is it something else?
Please share your thoughts below.
22 comments:
They should have been fine with all of the foot traffic from hospital people, but Yumbii still has roughly the same menu from, what, a decade ago? Still some of my favorite fries around, but the menu is otherwise stagnant.
It was odd hours and not being open all the time when they were supposed to be.
They keep closing stores because they don’t pay their bills, they steal the employees wages and tips, mistreat the staff, the food is getting people sick from the cooks using their bare hands, and I could go on forever on all the issues surrounding the Young’s. If you can’t run a business without hurting those working for you and not caring about the quality of the rest, you don’t get to have a business last. It could be great if it had other owners, but as long as the Young’s own it, it will be a disaster. The turnover from staff alone could end the remaining stores because of how toxic the environment is.
I never knew - are they affiliated with Hankook?
The fabric store? Interesting
Pretty sure that the Ponce Gusto was the original, was it not?
Nope, it was Brookwood, as we reported now... and then.
https://www.tonetoatl.com/2014/07/former-nfl-player-launching-gusto-wood.html
Tacos just aren't that good. Tons of competition in that segment, not surprised.
Gusto is very good. Good quality fresh food. Clean restaurants. They are tight and buttoned up in their operations. Into a couple locations. Chamblee location is my homebase for Gusto. I’m good with some of the exotic flavors, but also wish in addition they would have somewhat milder offerings. I like that occasionally they will introduce a new base or a new protein however, they are always for limited time only. They won’t go wrong with couscous or salmon, shrimp or cod; they just need to give it some time to percolate.
Yeah, can’t you read it? Duh
Not at all surprised this place closed. The service there was absolutely terrible. Staff acted like they were annoyed by you simply being there. I liked the fries and one of the taco varieties, so I went for lunch several times between 2022 and recently this summer. Each time seemed to be a bit worse than before and the last time I told myself I'd never go back. Folks working behind the counter were down right rude to guests - consistently.
I recently visited the Toco Hills location. The beef in the Asian Ribeye taco was substandard, no way they can compete with many of the excellent tacos in the city. Fries are good but can't sustain them.
I ate at the location in the toco hills shopping center area. And I had tacos and they lacked like any kind of seasoning. In the meat that would make it unique to the other restaurants in that vicinity.They would make me want to come back. The store was very clean people were very courteous and the atmosphere was pretty good it's just that the food was not as good as I would anticipated to be.
Yumbii so whack
The chef at the midtown location harassed us for having “too complicated” of an order… sorry I don’t like onions ma’am (I think she was a woman but honestly… not sure), so I’m not too surprised to hear this. If it weren’t for the front of house staff I never would have come back after that one time. After they all quit due to their work conditions (I mean with how the chef treated us guests I can only imagine what it was like) I stopped going, but this feels like justice served.
“Chef”
Hankook taqueria off Chattahoochee
They don’t pay their vendors and the owners are dishonest. The tacos were always average at best. Large portions of slop.
Can confirm this company does not pay its vendors. Tried collecting payment for services at several of their locations and was never paid. Always new managers and staff who were fed up with the company as well. I hope the other locations follow shortly in closing.
That’s because the owners treat customers and employees like garbage. They steal wages until the staff leave, then replace them with people that don’t know what’s going on, don’t train them properly, then steal their wages as well. They keep the cycle going to fill their pockets and without caring about the business or people at all. I work at the same shopping area as one of the shops, and I’ve heard of nightmare scenarios of the owners- like chilling. At one of their properties an employee ended up passing out at work because she hadn’t been paid in over a month. This is how they treat everyone. Do NOT support this business.
She harassed me too!! I said I didn’t receive part of my order, and when the staff told her she came out and went through my take out bag and accused me of stealing and hiding the food I didn’t receive. I was humiliated. Then she went through the staff’s belongings in front of me to see if they stole it! I decided just to get a refund cause I didn’t trust eating food she made after that, and I will NEVER return to Yumbii again!! I’ve never been so mistreated as a customer in my life!
Spoiled brat owners that think they are gods and their customers and employees are peasants. They also stole everything from Hankook Taqueria. Good riddance, maybe they'll learn something and be better humans.
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