A new Whataburger is being planned in place of a former bank in Sandy Springs. The new Whataburger is planned for the former Wells Fargo (originally a First Union) bank branch in an outparcel of the Publix-anchored Dunwoody Place shopping center (8725 Roswell Road).
According to Fulton County tax records, MTO purchased the 1.36 acre bank site October 22, 2024 for $2.8 million. The MTO websites indicates the group currently operates nine Whataburger restaurants throughout Georgia.
Texas-based Made to Order Holdings is controlled by Travis Goff of Goff Capital, a family office. Through his company Crescent Real Estate, LLC, Goff's father, billionaire John C. Goff, owns more than a dozen hotels across the country, including The Hotel at Avalon, Home2 Suites by Hilton in Alpharetta, and the Kimpton Brice Hotel in Savannah. The firm previously held a controlling interest in the Westin Atlanta Perimeter North.
According to planning materials, MTO is looking to replace the roughly 4,700 square foot bank building with a new roughly 3,700 square foot restaurant that would be situated parallel with Roswell Road similar to the Sonic that opened in the 5900 block of Roswell Road in place of a former Boston Market.
The group recently applied to the City of Sandy Springs for a Conditional Use Permit to allow for an all important drive-thru. The city hosted "Community Meeting I" Tuesday, March 25 at Rivercliff Lutheran Church (8750 Roswell Road). Two more community meetings are planned (but not yet scheduled) before the case is to be heard before the Planning Commission and eventually the City Council.
If successful, Whataburger would join existing locations of burger rival McDonald's, Smoothie King, and Chipotle, which joined the center in 2023 when it converted a former Arby's.
Among MTO's Atlanta area units are Whataburger restaurants in Covington, Conyers, McDonough, Fayetteville, on Woodstock Road in Roswell which the company debuted this past October, and at The Bridges at Jodeco in Stockbridge which opened this past December. The Roswell restaurant, which replaced a shuttered Steak 'n Shake, and the Stockbridge restaurant have some of the worst reviews we've seen for restaurants as eagerly anticipated and new as they are.
The Stockbridge restaurant has an overall 2.2 star rating (262 reviews) on Google and an even more embarrassing 1.5 (24 reviews) on Yelp. In Roswell, the restaurant has an overall 2.8 star rating (143 reviews) on Google and 2.1 (15 reviews) on Yelp.
Through both corporate and franchisee expansion, Whataburger today has more than 30 restaurants open in Georgia, with more, including those on Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth and Sandy Plains Road in East Cobb, coming soon.
Are you excited to see Whataburger opening in Sandy Springs? Have you been to any of the local Whataburger restaurants and had a good... or bad experience? Do you think the Whataburger food and experience are different in Atlanta than they are in Texas?
Please share your thoughts below.
7 comments:
Seems like a stupid idea. The Woodstock and two Kennesaw locations seem to have dropped pretty significantly in both the amount of business they do as well as online ratings. Whataburger is expanding too fast in this area while not caring about the quality of already open stores. Personally, I thought they started off pretty good, but after about 6 months they went way downhill. If you try to go to the drive through, it's an incredibly slow experience.
The difference between the ones here and the ones in Texas is huge. Service and food quality are all worse here, disappointing.
I'm not venturing that far OTP to try it. I guess they, like everything else "new" in town doesn't want to venture inside the city limits and pay the criminally sky-high property taxes/rent.
we were contemplating a visit to Whataburger many months ago, and went to Yelp to see what it was all about. We were also surprised by the low ratings by actual customers who are supposed to have been part of a so-called “following”. looking closer at photographs uploaded by customers, it looked to me like the food was the type and quality of a 70s era bowling alley snack bar. we ended up going to Shake shack, which is very consistent in food quality and Service, albeit regardless of their perceived disorganization, which is due to having too many employees working together on top of each other at the same time. nevertheless shake Shack is consistent in their product and service. perhaps when they open in Sandy Springs, we will give it a try but based on what we’ve seen, it’s not worth the trip to any of the current locations. I sure do wish the In-N-Out story was real and that if not in Buckhead, they would open in place of the Whataburger in Sandy Springs.
LOL - no, just don't want to pay the price of crime.
Albeit and nevertheless the perceived notion or organizational discombobulating is due to vocabularistic extrapolations of a kind that conjures wealth beyond the machinations of avarice. So we ate at home.
The Roswell location on Woodstock has the slowest service I have ever had in a fast food place. I spent 15 years in Houston and grew to like Whataburger, but they aren't going to survive here if the service doesn't pick up.
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