It must be January.  The closings continue.

Dave wrote in late this afternoon…

Quizno’s has up and gone. There is a sign on the door thanking their customers and explaining that their rent was increased. It appears that all the kitchen equipment has been removed.

The clothing store, Signature Revolutions, which opened in the old Eviva space at 335 West Ponce de Leon Ave has closed it’s doors for good after just a month and a half in business.

Jennifer, who works next door, reported the news to DM via Twitter yesterday.

I’m not sure of the reason for such a quick close, but the strangeness of it reminded me of an odd experience a reader reported a couple weeks ago…

I walked in [to Signature Revolutions] the other day, and it was a really odd experience. While the storefront is stark and the decor reflects remnants of the holiday season, the owners were sitting back relaxing and playing cards. And if the sparse selection and quality of their stock wasn’t enough of a red flag, the conversation I had with them left me speechless.

How could a business come and go in just 45 days?

As the DNO noted on Facebook, the city commission is scheduled to approve a liquor license for Chingchai Choomaug “Garlic Thai Cuisine & Sushi Bar” at 340 West Ponce de Leon Avenue at Monday’s city commission meeting.

Word on the street has been that the Harry & Sons folks were looking at this space.  Since this is also Thai food, I’m going to assume this is them.

Decatur’s latest business trend seems to be Thai food and heathcare.

Update II: More on the name “Marlay” HERE.  (Thanks CB!) Pretty great suggestion by the three parties that submitted it!

Update: The mayor just unveiled the name. CBS news also in the house.  See pic below.

The Grange is making the best of a bad situation and turning its forced renaming into an event. Mayor Floyd will announce the new name tonight at the “Rename the Grange” party at 8:30p.

You can’t see it from my crappy photo, but the foot of the first letter is sticking out of the left side of the brown paper. Looks to me like an “A”.

Doing what he does better than almost anyone out in the Atlanta news-sphere, Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered digs into Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton’s past and unveils all kinds of financial weirdness.

Here’s a sampling of a few of the strange details uncovered by Walls…

• During her campaign for county commissioner, Sutton somehow managed to loan herself $69,000, even though she had a history of unpaid debts and made just $43,000 a year in the DeKalb County School system.
• While Sutton told the AJC that the root of her financial difficulties stemmed from a dispute with a contractor and her mortgage company, Walls notes that two cases Sutton brought against the aforementioned parties were dismissed by the Fulton County Court System for “lack of prosecution.”

Also, make sure you check out Walls’ excellent time-line of Sutton’s legal problems – which stretch back to 1995 – at the bottom of his article.

AJC: I hope you can use Walls’ new info to go back to the commissioner and demand some ACTUAL answers to your questions.  It also would be nice to give Walls props for his efforts with a mention AND a link!

Down a place from last year, Decatur’s Brick Store Pub ranked as the 6th best beer bar in the world for 2010 on RateBeer’s annual list.  Amongst U.S. beer bars, BSP was second only to Redlight Redlight in Orlando (#4 in the world) for the second year in a row.

The other Atlantan on the list is HopCity Craft Beer & Wine at 1000 Marietta Street, which ranked 23rd in the world among beer retailers.

Amongst the best brewers in the “world” – from an American perspective – Three Floyds came out on top, while new-to-Georgia Founders came in 4th, a place ahead of another relatively Georgia newbie Bell’s.

The best individual beers list for 2010 can be found here.  I won’t even pretend to know what I’m taking about with that list.

h/t: Dirty South Beer Club (via Lain)

Photo courtesy of the City of Decatur

The restaurant in Decatur’s saved historic icon is up for sale.  “SalMonela” points to the ad on The Schumaker Group’s website.

Decatur Freestanding 4300/sf Restaurant w/2 bars and Stage-Fully Equipped Turnkey -$1,000,000 Renovation & Build Out for $99K OBO! SEE ALL NEW PHOTO’S!

The Depeaux is located at 303 East Howard Avenue, Decatur, GA 30030. This Tavern restaurant is located by the Decatur Square….Over $1,000,000 was spent ground up on raw space of historic building with incredible character. This space was gutted completely and replaced with all brand new HVAC, electrical, plumbing, grease traps, and all new furniture, fixtures, equipment, bar, etc. Space is 4300/sf with seating for 100 with 15 seat bar plus outdoor seating for 80 with second bar and additional seating area. Owner has secured parking for over 70 cars.Long term sublease at $7,850 including all extras. Any concept works or keep as is. Priced at $99,000 with Owner Financing options. Seller lives out of state and is willing to lower price with some percentage of new business.

Note: this sounds like it’s the business that’s for sale, not the building.

Revenue & Technology Manager for the City of Decatur, Russ Madison, reports on the Decatur Tax Blog he’s finally gained some traction in getting Bank of America to resolve this “lost escrow check” issue…

After several phone calls between my office and Bank of America yesterday and today, I was able to open a formal “research request” with Bank of America’s tax department this morning.

One of their tax specialists informed me that he was submitting the request to higher levels within his department to research and reissue payment for the affected customers, with an estimated completion date of February 3. Bank of America should pay the penalties and interest, and the late payment would not affect their customers’ escrow accounts.

Thank goodness it’s FFAF!

Use this post to make comments and ask questions about local issues not discussed here in the past week.

Comments are closed on Monday.

A new bike advocacy group in the city of Decatur, “Bike Decatur“, recently sent a list to the Decatur city commission of ten action items they hope to see funding for in the 2010/2011 city budget.  According to member Thomas Stuart, membership is open to all Decatur residents with completion of a short survey, which can be found on their Google group site.

1. Church Street Bike Lanes – Install bike lanes on Church Street from downtown to city limits.
2. Gateway Signs – Install “Decatur Supports Bicycling” or similar signs at city limits on major arterials (e.g., Columbia, Candler, Ponce/Scott, Clairemont, Church, College, etc.).
3. Ponce de Leon Ave Bike Lanes – Completion of Ponce de Leon & W. Trinity bicycle lanes with TE grant funding.
4. Bicycle Parking – Install 25 city-funded bicycle racks throughout commercial districts;
5. Shared-Lane Markings (also known as “sharrows”) Implement a Shared-Lane Marking (“sharrows”) pilot project along a central artery used regularly by bicyclists Read the rest of this entry »