Ones to Watch: The new guard shaping Atlanta’s food scene in 2018

The Cocktail Mavens: Missy and Kristin Koefod

Photograph by Ben Rollins

Missy and Kristin Koefod started selling bitters, tonics, shrubs, syrups—all sorts of ingredients to upgrade your cocktails at home—at Ponce City Market in September 2015. Since then, GQ, Vogue, and Vanity Fair have taken note of the married couple’s company, 18.21 Bitters. So when the Koefods announced that they would open a bar along the BeltLine, Atlanta drinkers paid special attention. Called the James Room and set to open this spring in a prime spot along the Eastside Trail’s extension, between Krog Street Market and Studioplex, it will offer coffee and pastries in the morning and cocktails and small plates at night. “The liquor industry, in general, doesn’t have a ton of women—but it sure does have some awesome women!” Missy says.