Live For Buzz

A lot of East Atlantans were fans of the now-closed Le Cafe Hinds, an out-of-the-way French restaurant tucked away on Stokeswood Avenue on the edge of EAV. Problem was, if you didn’t live in East Atlanta, you probably didn’t know the place existed, and despite generally good reviews, ultimately the restaurant failed.

Rumors have been circulating for a little while that Anderson Hinds may be looking to bring a new concept to the cafe space he still controls, and today Buzzer Kevy Duty ran into Mr. Hinds and confirmed that barbecue will be the concept for the restaurant’s rebirth.

Barbecue is a tough business - you gotta be really good to build an audience, and a bunch of Buzzers are fans of Fox Bros. BBQ up on DeKalb Avenue. But we’re all fans of non-empty storefronts, so this is good news for the neighborhood.

On EAV Buzz: BBQ is happening!

You have to have been around East Atlanta a good while to remember The Village, a very small, very dingy, red-windowed bar next door to what is now Kasan Red. Somehow they managed to squeeze blues bands into the place, and it was a rockin’ joint. It shut down a few years ago and the space has sat vacant.

But that may soon change. Buzzer Not Fred’s Nate got some good “on the street” details about plans to re-open the place sometime “soon” (soon being a relative term when dealing with the city of Atlanta). From the early intel, it sounds like the owners may be trying to focus on music and plan to really upgrade the space. Not much they can do about the size, but EAV has enough big spaces already. Buzzer Joe Brown’s Beard says one of the owners may be involved with Yin/Yang in Midtown.

On EAV Buzz: The Village - I heard a rumor

So hot on the heels of yesterday’s news about East Atlanta Antiques closing up shop comes word that the building was actually sold last Monday for $1.4 million. DeKalb County online property records are notoriously slow to be updated, but a little bit of informed sleuthing showed the buyer to be an LLC controlled by Jeff Notrica, the head honcho at Inman Park Properties.

I’ve written a lot about Notrica and Inman Park Properties over at Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom, but a quick primer for those who may not be familiar.

Inman Park Properties is a large “developer” of commercial property here in Atlanta. The company has a reputation for buying up properties and sitting on them for a long, long time. And often, the properties they own are left vacant and allowed to rot away, affecting the character of their neighborhoods surrounding them. Here in East Atlanta, Jeff Notrica’s most infamous property is the John B. Gordon School, a former Atlanta Public School that Inman Park Properties purchased a decade ago with promises to turn it into fabulous intown lofts.

Here’s a look at their progress on the Gordon School:

Also in Notrica’s decaying-property portfolio are the former B&W Market and East Atlanta Lock & Key right in the heart of EAV. While Inman Park Properties does have most of their properties in East Atlanta leased (they are landlord to Village Hardware, The Glenwood, My Sister’s Room, Holy Taco, the new Midway Pub and several other businesses), the company’s willingness to leave properties sitting vacant and decaying is a big concern.

So when it’s revealed the Notrica purchased the Antiques Store property last month and I stumble across the fact that an LLC of his purchased the property where the East Atlanta Post Office sits late last year; well, it’s concerning.

The map below shows which EAV properties are owned by the major landlords here. Inman Park Properties is in red.

View Larger Map

Knowing that so much of EAV is owned by a guy who’s willing to let properties sit vacant and rotting if that meets his long-term business goals is unsettling, and the fact that Notrica seems to quietly buy up every property that becomes available is more than unsettling.

Buzzers see a day when Notrica owns the entire Village, kicks everybody out, tears the place down and builds some new, faux-authentic condos-above-stores development.

On EAV Buzz: RE: East Atlanta Antiques, Inman Park Properties owns the post office and Updated map of EAV property owners

Once upon a time (that time ended about four years ago), East Atlanta had its own little grocery store - Best Buy Foodstore. Problem is, Best Buy was a pretty crappy store. It would do in a pinch for grabbing some half and half or other missing ingredients, but it just wasn’t in step with the revitalization of the neighborhood.

Then Best Buy went away and was replaced by the East Atlanta Arts & Antiques Bazaar (EAAAB, they call it), which has always been a so-so little rent-a-booth antiques / flea market place. A good place to kill a few minutes on a Village stroll, and on occasion you might find something interesting there. But on the whole, it was hard to see the pressing need EAAAB was filling in East Atlanta Village.

So word has come down now that EAAAB is closing up shop this month. That drew disappointment and concern from the Buzz crowd - stores moving out is rarely a good thing. But it also opened a glimmer of hope that what should have happened four years ago might happen now.

East Atlanta is begging for a small neighborhood grocery store (that doesn’t suck). With the fanaticism Buzzers show toward Trader Joe’s (there is finally one in Atlanta, and a lot of people are willing to drive to Midtown to do their shopping with TJs) and good food & drink in general, I think a quality little grocery would do just fine here in EAV.

We live in a neighborhood where we can walk our dogs to the vet and shop at a neighborhood hardware store. We’re a great market for a great market (as it were). In fact, though the EAAAB space is a bit small for a Trader Joe’s (8,520 square feet compared to about 10,000 to 12,000 square feet in a typical TJs), I think the company would be wise to at least check into the possibility.

We’re waiting.

On EAV Buzz: East Atlanta Antiques

The neighborhood is gearing up for what’s become a huge annual event for EAV - the East Atlanta Beer Festival. Moved this year to May 31, the Beer Fest offers both a sampling of 120 craft beers and a tour of the grounds of The John B. Gordon School, the fabulous Inman Park Properties loft project set to open in 1999 2002 2005 2007 the future.

Those buying tickets before April 10 can save $5; those who are broke but energetic can wait a couple of days and volunteer to work the festival. Working it gets your free admission.

On EAV Buzz: Beer Fest tickets on sale tomorrow

They guys opening the old Echo Lounge space as the East Atlanta Icehouse have been busily at work, and their placeholder website says they’ll be opening in May. Good news for a space that used to be a big driver for EAV nightlife and has sat vacant for too long.

A Buzz topic this week started off with complaints about construction workers at the Icehouse parking on the sidewalk, meandered into speculation that their target audience is “Skin/Oi/Meathead” and that said crowd will terrorize EAV and wound up with talk about gay skinheads. Believe it or not, such topic wandering is not unusual at the Buzz.

On EAV Buzz: Echo now Ice House or Box or Irish Pub or Whatever

Some Buzzers love it, other Buzzers are scared to death of it, but the fat shack known as Burger Win (actual name should be something like “Burgers / Wings” except for some signage errors) has closed up shop for “renovations”.

Big question is - what will it be called when it reopens?

On EAVBuzz: Burger(s) Win(gs) - Closing for renovations!

It’s been a long, hard road to turn the old Tucker Auto Electric building into yet another EAV restaurant/bar, but soon the doors will swing wide for the opening of The Midway Pub in East Atlanta. Apparently held back by the city permitting problems and other roadblocks that are all too familiar trying to do business in Atlanta, the outward signs of the pending opening have emerged over the past couple of weeks.

A giant patio, new trees planted (a “streetscape” requirement) and a new sidewalk poured, the Midway is quite a transformation from the old Tucker Auto Electric building that sat vacant for years.

Buzzer Hollywood stopped by to chat with the owners this week, and he came away impressed. Other Buzzers, reacting to the word “sandwiches” rumored to have been spoken by the Midway chef, cast typical Buzzer doubt over The Midway’s prospects.

And I’ll give a little advanced link love to the Midway, though their site is nothing more than a parked page as I’m writing this.

On EAV Buzz: The Midway … 10-9-8 …

TV viewers probably don’t realize what happens in a neighborhood when a house-flipping show like Flip This House sets up shop. East Atlanta has become the setting for a series of Flip This House episodes following the adventures of Peter Pasternack and Brian Trow of Foundations Investment Group. So far, the group has “flipped” four houses in East Atlanta and are working on their fifth.

In each case, there are Buzzers living nearby. And we get an unfiltered, up-close look at what you don’t see on TV. One Buzzer is shown briefly on Foundation’s first episode - they accidentally ripped up her fence. Two Foundations houses are on the same block of Van Vleck Avenue close by several Buzzers, and I was among several Buzzers who took the opportunity to tour the long-on-the-market Van Epps house during and open house last summer.

That was an amazing experience. I’ve never been in an open house for an unfinished house … especially one that they pretended to finish for a TV show. Here’s the guest bath as it existed during the open house:

So, anyway, Pasternack and Trow have started on their fifth East Atlanta house, no doubt for another episode of Flip This House (at the time of this writing, only one of their previous four “flips” here has sold). It’s on Monument Avenue, which is a bit of a narrow street, and Foundations decided to drop their construction dumpster right there in the street. Atlanta city ordinances would appear to show this to be illegal, but the Buzzer next door is just hoping to both get the dumpster off the street and not have contractors tearing up his yard to get to the Foundations house.

On EAV Buzz: Permits for dumpsters on the street?

Buzzer reaction to the tornado that came through Atlanta on March 14 was impassioned to say the least. From swinging into action with chainsaws and muscle Sunday morning to drumming up support for EAV businesses and residents affected by the storm, the Buzz community showed how it can come together and make things happen.

But almost lost in our efforts to help out in East Atlanta was the fact that a lot of people (with a lot of power) didn’t seem to realize we got hit by the tornado, too.

For those of you who don’t know, East Atlanta is part of the City of Atlanta, but we lie in DeKalb County. Almost all of the city is in Fulton County, so when the governor reached out for FEMA help, all of the requests were specific to Fulton. To make matters worse, DeKalb County officials did not seem to know that part of their county was hit by the tornado and that officially we were not being included in the disaster declaration.

Buzzer SteveD led a charge to make sure nobody forgot about East Atlanta. He and other Buzzers hounded county and state officials to get DeKalb added to the tornado damage map and to get FEMA recognition for East Atlanta.

Now, in the end DeKalb County was made eligible for FEMA assistance, and the official NWS storm path map shows the F1 and F0 touchdowns here. And I think it’s likely those things would have happened without Buzzer involvement. But it damned sure happened with Buzzer involvement.

On EAV Buzz: Tornado Cleanup Board