Courtesy of Eats
After 32 years, meat-and-three spot Eats is closing. Known for its jerk chicken and affordable prices, this unassuming restaurant on Ponce opened in 1993 and has been one of the few old-time holdouts amid the development of the Beltline and Ponce City Market.
Its last day of service will be October 18. Owner Bob Hatcher announced the closure last week via a social media post, and the restaurant has been packed ever since.
“It’s a crazy experience. It’s just like an onslaught of memories—all these people coming in, saying, I ate here when I was pregnant. This is my adult son. People who went to college here, people I haven’t seen in forever. I had one ex-employee show up today. I hadn’t seen him since the ‘90s. He drove all the way from just north of Nashville,” Hatcher says.
Below, he reminisces about the origin of Eats and shares insight into his future.
How did Eats get started?
There used to be a burrito joint on the same side of Ponce toward Decatur called Tortillas. It was just a one-off, great place. It was the darling of the local critics, all musician kids working there, a great neighborhood joint. The owner was Charlie Kerns. We were both army grads. We both went to high school in Germany. In the 70s, we both ended up in San Francisco. After moving back to Atlanta, he opened Tortillas after this place we used to go in San Francisco.
I moved to Atlanta in 1981 for a job as manager of a little independent record pressing plant. After nine years, CDs were invented, and the place went out of business. Charlie was in his golden years of Tortillas. He said, “Why don’t you come work for me and learn the business, and if you like it and can come up with some money, we’ll open another Tortillas?” I worked there for two years, loved it, and we started looking for locations. A real estate friend of his said we could get the Eats location cheap. It had been a swinger’s club and a strip club. I think the landlord was a retired mafioso in Florida. He was just glad to have a tenant. But it was too close to Tortillas to be the same concept.
How has the food evolved?
We always had jerk chicken. The vegetables are all southern vegetables, but we don’t put the animal fat in them, so the vegetarians could come and eat. We had six pastas and six sauces that we made, and a flat grill where if you wanted peppers and mushrooms and sausage, you could add it. A college kid could eat marinara and spaghetti with a piece of garlic bread for three bucks.
After it was up and running, Charlie went back to Tortillas and left me with Eats. [Kerns officially sold his portion of Eats in the mid-2000s.] Somehow, Eats took off. We opened in 1993. By 1997, there were lines through the door every lunch. It just became a neighborhood hangout. It was every layer of society: homeless guys that panhandled enough money to get a jerk special, college students, businessmen from City Hall East, firemen and police. It was the golden years into the 2000s.
When did things change?
Covid changed everything for people. A lot of restaurants didn’t make it. Eats wouldn’t have reopened except for the fact that I made the last payment on the property during Covid. Like a lot of places, we cut the hours and the menu. Instead of having, a day shift and an evening shift, we just have one long shift—partly because I couldn’t find entry-level workers. Everything’s so expensive around there now.
Then [they] tore up all the sidewalks and driveways from Freedom Parkway to Boulevard. Traffic’s horrible. When they started that, our business went down noticeably. It got to a point where it was not making money, it was losing money.
What do people love about Eats?
It’s a funky little place, just like an old-school neighborhood joint. All the regulars get to know each other, and it’s just like a community kind of hangout. It was always known as inexpensive place. It’s very simple recipes and stuff, but we get fresh vegetables from the farmers market five days a week.
How have you kept the prices low?
I’d raise them up a little bit occasionally. If I was 40 years old again, I could go to some college town or even more rural and find a spot, and I could redo it somewhere else, or if I had a place on the Beltline where parking and traffic weren’t an issue . . . but I’m 73—I’m done. It was great run. I got great memories, and I’ll miss my employees, and the customers.
How did Eats progress through the years?
It really didn’t. It grew. People are happy that it never changed. It’s the same OG place. The food’s the same. Every once in a while, we added a couple things—we started doing chicken lasagna.
In those formative years, we figured out a better process. At the beginning, you would go up to the counter and just tell the guy, “I want tortellini with pesto, peppers, and mushrooms,” and then you went to the cash register. People started putting their trays on their table and conveniently “forgetting” to tell you some of the items they got. So now the setup is more like McDonald’s.
Do you have anything planned for the final day?
No, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m just a dud. We’ve never had a party for our anniversary. I’ve never even had an employee meeting.
Are you going to sell the building?
Selling that property will be my retirement. It’s a very small piece of property, but I’ve got several real estate people interested.
What are you going to do with your time after Eats closes?
I have a lot of interests. I was always a musician. I played in bands til I was 30. I probably have 40 vintage instruments here, mostly guitars, but acoustic and electric and mandolins and lap steels and pedal steels, and recording equipment in this little bedroom. I like to do a little woodworking. I build guitar amps.
What else should we know?
I’m grateful to everyone who supported us throughout the years. I got three employees that have been there for 25 years. If you knew me in my twenties, you’d think I’d be the last person to own a business. I’m not a businessman. I’m a college dropout. The only thing that saved me was my work ethic. It’s been a good run.
