A Ponce de Leon staple that fed generations is serving its final plates October 18.
🍽️ Why It Matters: Eats Restaurant shaped Atlanta’s dining culture for more than three decades — a rare kind of longevity in a city where restaurants come and go like seasons.
📅 What’s Happening: The restaurant announced on social media it will close Saturday, October 18th, ending a run that started in 1992.
🏙️ The Backdrop: Eats opened when Atlanta looked different — before the BeltLine, before the Olympics reshaped downtown, before Ponce became the kind of corridor where old spots get priced out or swallowed by development.
It survived all of it. Until now.
The restaurant became known for its jerk chicken, its regulars, and the kind of vibe that doesn’t get replicated easily. The kind of place where conversations stretched long after the plates were cleared.
🕰️ The Long Run: 33 years is a lifetime in the restaurant business. Most don’t make it past five. Eats made it through recessions, a pandemic, and the churn of a city that keeps remaking itself.
The Sources: Eats Restaurant.
B.T. Clark
B.T. Clark is an award-winning journalist and the Publisher of The Georgia Sun. He has 25 years of experience in journalism and served as Managing Editor of Neighbor Newspapers in metro Atlanta for 15 years and Digital Director at Times-Journal Inc. for 8 years. His work has appeared in several newspapers throughout the state including Neighbor Newspapers, The Cherokee Tribune and The Marietta Daily Journal. He is a Georgia native and a fifth-generation Georgian.
