Courtesy of Hal's
Hal’s “The Steakhouse,” the Buckhead institution known for New Orleans-style cuisine, martinis, live music, and a dining room that feels like old Atlanta, is expanding to Midtown with a third location inside the historic Patterson House at Spring Quarter, a former funeral home. Owner Sammy Jimenez plans to open the restaurant in spring 2027, along with a European-inspired café and a fine art gallery that broaden the Hal’s experience without changing the food, drinks, or hospitality that have defined the brand for more than three decades.
The Midtown location will be the third Hal’s, following the original on Old Ivy Road and a Nashville outpost that opened in 2024. A Roswell restaurant complete with a rooftop patio and valet parking is expected to follow Midtown.
Founder Hal Nowak retired June 4, after more than three decades of shaping one of Atlanta’s most enduring restaurants. Now at the reigns, Jimenez says the goal is not to modernize Hal’s into something unrecognizable. Instead, he wants to carry the restaurant’s rituals into new neighborhoods while keeping the experience fundamentally intact.
“Mr. Hal and I started working together 30 years ago,” Jimenez says. “I follow all his teachings, and I will never change that.”
Courtesy of Portman Holdings
That means the Hal’s signatures will stay put. The same menu will be served at every location, with the same drinks, dark woods, green accents, piano music, and emphasis on hospitality. Each restaurant will also include a portrait of Nowak behind the piano.
“Every restaurant will have his soul in there,” Jimenez says.
However, the Patterson House setting will make this Hal’s distinct. Originally designed by Philip T. Shutze in 1928, the 24,000-square-foot building has the kind of architectural character Jimenez says can’t be replicated. The Midtown restaurant will be larger than Buckhead, with about 400 seats across the steakhouse, café, private rooms, and patios, targeting Midtown’s corporate crowd.
The unnamed European-style café will function as a more casual, all-day companion to the steakhouse. Jimenez envisions quick-serve morning coffee and bakery items such as croissants and bagels, followed by table-service breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The menu will feature sandwiches, burgers, a few smaller steaks, and other bistro-style dishes.
“We cook with love, not with complications,” Jimenez says. “It’ll be like a French bistro.”
Courtesy of the Spring Quarter
Upstairs, Jimenez will introduce a fine art gallery tied to another business he runs with childhood friends from Mexico. Called Six by Four, the business focuses on secondary-market works by established artists, including Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso. The gallery, which does not have a name yet, will span about 4,000 square feet, with rotating exhibitions by three or four artists at a time and quarterly events devoted to a single artist. Curated by Alex Soto and Andres Rodriguez, it will also double as a cocktail-hour and private-event space.
Located on Spring Street near 10th, Spring Quarter is also home to Fuyuhiko Ito’s Ishin omakase, Celestia small plates lounge, and Sozou Japanese. Habaneros Mexican recently opened in the development, and Pataaka Indian is slated to start serving in the coming months.
