Roswell is Dismantling Historic Doc’s Café

To save a landmark, Roswell is taking it apart.

City officials announced they’ve begun “careful deconstruction” of Doc’s Café, a longtime Groveway fixture and a touchstone of Black community life in Roswell. The plan,according to city officials, is to dismantle the building piece by piece, document what matters, and store it for a future still to be decided.

The language is deliberate: not demolition, but deconstruction. Not disposal, but cataloging. The city says experts in architecture and cultural history are using 3D laser scans and CAD drawings to document the structure and identify which materials carry “the most historical and cultural significance.” Those pieces will be preserved. The rest isn’t promised a second life.

“Doc’s Café is more than a building—it’s a symbol of our community’s history and culture,” Mayor Kurt Wilson said. “By carefully documenting and cataloging its elements, we are honoring the past and planning for a future where the stories of this landmark can continue to be shared.”

The city acknowledges the building has seen modern renovations and that some of it is in poor shape. The alternative, officials say, would have been demolition. Instead, the city is setting up a four-part process—Preservation Planning, Deconstruction, Catalog & Storage, and Community Design Intent—guided by a stakeholder committee of residents, historians, and city partners. A permanent location for what survives—and in what form—will be announced later.

The promise is that Doc’s will “continue to serve as a physical marker” of Black culture and heritage in Roswell. The plan, at least for now, is to remove it from where it stands.

Roswell has hired Prime Construction and Columbia Engineering for the work. The total budget: $112,279.84, funded through the city’s Capital Project Fund.

On paper, the city is threading a needle: honor the building’s past, acknowledge its condition, and promise a future. The tools; laser scans, CAD drawings, a catalog; suggest meticulousness. The uncertainty—no permanent site yet, no public design—leaves the community to trust the process while the café comes down.