[EXCLUSIVE] Fancy New Restaurant Planned for Downtown Atlanta's "The Center"

Just over a month after we revealed news that hospitality company Landry's was replacing their Midtown Atlanta seafood restaurant The Oceanaire with Dos Caminos, an upscale Mexican restaurant, comes news that the company is also replacing its McCormick & Schmick's Seafood & Steakhouse restaurant in Downtown Atlanta with a new concept.  

Mastro's Ocean Club, an upscale restaurant from Landry's with twenty-five locations across the country, will open in place of McCormick & Schmick's in the coming months.  Although a timetable for the closure of McCormick's and the opening of Mastro's has not been revealed, sources close to the project suggest that, like other efforts in the area, the goal is to be open in time for the World Cup games next June.  

We have yet to visit a Mastro's, but the upscale seafood and steak chain does have a pair of locations in South Florida in Fort Lauderdale and Miami.  When it opens in downtown Atlanta, Mastro's will easily become the most upscale restaurant in the area.  

Judging from the Fort Lauderdale menu, the pricing of Mastro's is definitely more elevated than McCormick's, with appetizers ranging from $22 for fried calamari to $55 for chilled crab cocktail and entrees ranging from $43 for a 24 ounce herb herb-roasted chicken to $250 for a 40 oz tomahawk chop.  The restaurant also offers several potato options, such as lobster mashed potatoes ($45) and a 1 pound baked potato ($15).  Bread service is also available for $5.   

The roughly 7,000 square foot McCormick & Schmick's space is situated on the ground floor of The Center (formerly "CNN Center") at 190 Marietta Street at its intersection with Centennial Olympic Park Drive.  

Mastro's Ocean Club in Las Vegas 

Landry's previously closed metro Atlanta's other McCormick & Schmick's in Dunwoody in 2018.  The restaurant, along with neighboring eateries P.F. Chang's and Brio, was closed and cleared to make way for the development of the Publix-anchored Perimeter Marketplace shopping center.  

The Texas-based hospitality firm has also in recent years closed their Del Frisco's Grille in Buckhead (08/2023) and Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse in Dunwoody (12/2024).    

CP Group, a Boca Raton-based real estate firm, acquired CNN Center July 1, 2021 and recently revealed renderings of its plans for reimagining the landmark 1.2 million square foot property.  Those plans include adding access to the lobby floor businesses to the outside to better activate the space and make it more inviting to the thousands of concert goers, conventioneers, and sports fans who pass through the area yearly.  

The few remaining food court establishments including Great Wraps and TJ's Sandwiches (formerly Gorin's) closed as of July 31, to make way for the planned initial redevelopment ahead of the World Cup.  

Have you been to Mastro's Ocean Club?  Are you excited for the changes planned for The Center?  What other shops or restaurants would you like to see open as part of the development of The Center? 

Please share your thoughts below.