Restaurants

About six months ago, the story went around that we'd soon be getting an Atlanta branch of Big Apple Inn, the Mississippi institution that has been serving up pig ear sandwiches and tamales for the past 70 years. About a month ago, April Patton, granddaughter of Big Apple's founder, opened the doors to the new location on Ralph David Abernathy near the West End. An old friend and I dropped in for lunch yesterday and Patton was there behind counter, taking our orders and making them herself.

Son of Concentrics Restaurants founder Bob Amick and advanced sommelier Justin Amick is leaving his position as general manager and wine director at the Spence to break away from his family’s business and start his own.

As famed French chef Jacques Pepin once exclaimed in our presence at the Georgian Terrace when he learned the duck breast he was sawing through had just been microwaved: "Oh my!"

Atlanta’s restaurant industry is grieving the passing of Ria Pell, owner of Ria’s Blue Bird in Grant Park. She reportedly died of a heart attack yesterday. Pell worked in several local restaurants around town before opening Ria’s in 2000. Her place immediately became neighborhood favorite, and it helped pave the way for the area’s now-booming dining scene. Below, some social-media remembrances from the community:

Cruzado owner Grace Lee has leased the recently shuttered Cru Urban Lounge in the Old Fourth Ward and is turning the space into a hookah and small plates hideaway called Hookah Cru. Opening on Friday, Lee says Hookah Cru will have the “same coziness and intimacy that our [Cruzado] regulars love, just a half mile down the road.”

What started as a dream in 2009 is about to become reality this year. Staplehouse, a restaurant helmed by chef Ryan Smith (previously of Empire State South), will open in the Old Fourth Ward in "the very foreseeable future," according to co-owner Jen Hidinger.

Maybe you’re too tired to haul a turkey from the store and into your oven or you don’t want to dirty the kitchen before Black Friday. Either way, you have choices this coming Thanksgiving. Below are seven restaurants that will be open next week. Reservations are highly recommended.

Ian Jones, proprietor of Victory Sandwich Bar and Paper Plane, is frustrated. Originally, he had a May opening in mind for Victory Sandwich Bar’s new Inman Park location (913 Bernina Avenue, the space formerly home to Park’s Edge). Then he figured July. Now, due to a seemingly endless series of meetings and reviews with the city permitting department, it’s looking more like August or September, he says.

On Wednesday night, Greg Best and Regan Smith announced to their staff that they are moving on from Holeman and Finch Public House. It’s no overstatement to say that Best and Smith, along with partners Gina and Linton Hopkins and Andy Minchow (the latter moved on from the business last year), were the catalysts for Atlanta’s now-booming cocktail culture. When Holeman and Finch opened in 2008, it brought Atlanta up to speed on the booze renaissance happening in cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.

In a rather strange turn of events, executive chef and restaurateur Ford Fry—the man behind St. Cecilia, King Duke, the Optimist, No. 246, and JCT Kitchen—has signed on as Justin Bieber’s personal chef for the next three months.