Friday, January 31, 2025

[ALERT] Low-Carb, Gluten-Free Bakery to Shutter in Saturday in Sandy Springs

Zambawango, a bakery and cafe specializing in surprisingly tasty gluten-free, low-carb, and sugar-free baked goods, is closing.  Entrepreneur George Coundouriotis opened the niche bakery in Sandy Springs October 10, 2018 and will close the retail bakery as of close of business on Saturday February 1.

Zambawango at the time of its 2018 opening 

According to the bakery's website, limited online sales and shipping will continue for now, but will cease for good soon.  

Coundouriotis, a former purchasing executive with Ford Motor Company, Georgia Pacific, and Home Depot, started to explore with low carb foods in 2017 as he himself was looking to get healthy and cut carbs while still enjoying food.  Atlanta native Kathleen McDaniel has been Zambawango's Pastry Director and Executive Corporate Executive Pastry Chef since its opening.  McDaniel, a 20 year pastry veteran, previously worked in senior pastry roles with The Indigo Road Restaurant Group, Davio's Northern Italian Steakhouse, and at Buckhead Life's Pano's & Paul's   She also competed against Bobby Flay, and won, on his Food Network show "Beat Bobby Flay" in Season 24, Episode 8.  

The baked goods were better than you'd expect and the coffee, provided by Batdorf & Bronson, was solid.  The cafe's reviews, some 500+ on Google were largely positive with an overall rating of 4.5.  They even set up a separate page offering franchising.   So, what went wrong?

In a "fireside chat" Coundouriotis posted to Instagram, he seemed to say it all boiled it down to there simply not being enough customers.  He also urged people to support small businesses that have positively impacted their lives.  

Ultimately, Coundouriotis, who holds an MBA from Georgetown University, seems to have banked on his solid product making up for what is a less than optimal location for a food business.

Situated in the street level of the Serrano Condos at 901 Abernathy Road, Zambawango had a storefront you would see as you traveled down Abernathy towards GA-400 or Dunwoody, but visibility does not equal sales, given the congestion of the area.  The DOT's addition of a "diverging diamond" in front of the restaurant in April 2023 likely did not help attract patrons.   

Worth noting, too, is the fact that Zambawango was the only food business in the project and as a result, would have to be the reason people visited, as there no complementary food establishments to create a halo effect of awareness and traffic.  

ToNeTo Atlanta has spoken to several local and chain restaurant operators over the years who have sworn off ever opening [another] unit in a multifamily or condo project given how difficult they are to operate and how challenging it is for them to attract non-residents. 

Were you a fan of Zambawango?  Why do you think Zambawango failed to attract a large enough following to remain in business?  What is your favorite spot in metro Atlanta for gluten free foods?

Please share your thoughts below. 

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Right before the pandemic, I lived and worked around the corner from this place and I happened to be doing the keto diet so I bought some desserts. They were indeed better than expected because low carb is not easy to do for baked goods. I moved to Gwinnett County during the pandemic and I honestly thought they might have been closed already, just thinking on how niche it is and the fact that so many businesses did not make it. There is a ton of housing around there but some of the business coming from the nearby office buildings changed for several years due to remote work. I do know that people who wanted gluten free and keto baked goods would travel a good distance to visit here, but I'm not surprised they couldn't sustain. And yes the traffic at that exit got so much worse due to the construction. It's not easy to get in and out. Maybe they could partner with a restaurant or ship their products, but it might be cost prohibitive.

Anonymous said...

What a shame ... I never knew they existed. It is all about location. Do they even have parking? They should have moved up to East Cobb. Oh well 😥

Anonymous said...

I would drive by it all the time, but never made it in. Like Bruxie--it had that walkable look, but very few areas of Atlanta are dense with walking traffic. Food entrepreneurs need to be able to detect: can people get in and out easily? is it obvious where to park? A nice looking storefront just isn't enough. It sounds like it was a good product and would have done better in pretty much any other location in Dunwoody or Sandy Springs.

Anonymous said...

I went in years ago and it was pretty good...but not dedicated GF and I believe they continued to use erythritol as a sweetener even after negative health studies came out. No erythritol for me after I read about it.....

jgw said...

They made great products and were very welcoming; but it was certainly a pain to get there. If they were in restaurant row in old Roswell, Decatur, Tucker or Marietta they would probably become an institution.
Please re-open in a better location!

Anonymous said...

The location is terrible. I went a few times, I wish they were in an easier accessible area.

Anonymous said...

Not changing with the times will cause businesses to collapse internally and externally. I've seen it happen before.

Anonymous said...

The name! Zambawango??? That’s terrible and could not have helped.

Anonymous said...

The location is completely horrendous for a retail shop, especially a specialty Retail
that could depend on walk in traffic for at least some percentage of sales. Reminds me of the Bluff city soap in Chamblee, very strategically they are in a very high traffic shopping center with parking out front just steps away and other stores that draw people in, the center itself is walkable from store store and again very teacher. They’re located next to HomeGoods where people go so buy candles and gifts and stuff like that so the folks plan for that small business has done extremely well and made extremely intelligent decisions separately the gluten-free bakery has none of what I mentioned and last year like throwing a birthday party and you know someone’s gonna need gluten-free then you can go there or maybe you get a couple of pieces or something as a walk-in gift to a dinner party I cannot see frequency being on their side and then with the without the traffic diamond the entrance is removed from any street that is widely reversed. I really do wish them all the best.

Anonymous said...

I concur. I think that just randomly picking 5 or 6 letters from the alphabet would have made for a better name. But mostly it's about the location. And I'm guessing that unless this type of place has some contracts in place to provide pastries/cake to several restaurants, it's really hard to stay in business at all. I think that the better known bakeries around town get much of their business from restaurants and similar.

Anonymous said...

They should have called it “diet pastries!” It would still be open and have too much business to handle!

John P said...

The location was right next to my eye doctor, so I went near it at least yearly. There was no issues parking, as there was a deck behind the building that allowed for plenty of free spots. The construction probably didn't help, but you'd think the Mercedes Benz corp offices across the street would've brought some additional traffic.

Anonymous said...

For pretty much ANY small retail business, if the target patrons can't park within eyesight and 100 feet of the doors, the business will have low traffic.

Anonymous said...

Not true. Malls are filled with successful small retail stores and restaurants that are inside the building with no visibility outside and parking more than 100 feet from their doors.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn’t really use malls as an example of success these days.

Anonymous said...

But there are successful small businesses that don’t have parking out front, and malls are an example. Or we could just say all small businesses should be closed down and keep only large chains open.

Jan Statham said...

I am heart broken. I knew if I couldn't get to the bakery in Sandy Springs, I could always order online. I freeze as much as I can just to always have something. George, if you ever reopen a location, let me know. Also, I loved the name. So sorry to see this happening!!

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