Free-For-All Friday 5/25/18

Feel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local issues not yet discussed here over the past week.

14 thoughts on “Free-For-All Friday 5/25/18”


  2. Anyone know anything about the po’ boy shop opening in the shopping center with Community Q and those other restaurants? I’m looking forward to it.

    2. Was intrigued by that as well. But most cajun/creole places in the ATL are a disappointment, with the notable exceptions of Crawfish Shack on BuHi and Gumbeaux’s way out in Douglasville, so not getting my hopes up. I’ll be shocked if they can generate a po boy anywhere close to Crawfish Shack’s, but will certainly give them a shot.

  4. Just wanted to brag on Max Tirouvanziam, a Decatur High student I commissioned to do our year-end sports review for Decaturish. He did a great job with it. Check it out:

    http://decaturish.com/2018/05/decatur-high-athletes-chased-championships-throughout-2018/

  6. Let’s try to identify a good spot for the Bagel Palace to relocate to. It needs to be about the size of the old one, with a dining area, but rent needs to be closer to $4000/month, rather than the unaffordable $10,000/month. Ideas? Any recently vacated restaurant spots of the appropriate size?

    1. Is Bagel Palace looking to relocate – Are they gone? Have not been over there in a while. Decatur really needs a synagogue. Decatur has an anti semitic history though. From 1900 or so into the 1930’s the school system held classes from Tuesday-Saturday to discourage Jews from moving here. Crazy.

      1. I think if the demand were there, Decatur would have a synagogue. I have several friends of the Jewish faith who live in Decatur who are quite happy with the congregations they attend.
        And, while what you say about the past may be true, the Bagel Palace was nowhere near the City of Decatur. If you haven’t been for a while and didn’t know they closed, that may be part of why they closed.

      2. I may be totally off on this but I could swear, at least for a while in the early 2000s (?) that a synagogue congregation met at the Friends Meeting House at Howard and Adair. Anyone remember this?

        1. Yes, Scott, Congregation Bet Haverim met at the Friends House for a number of years. I occasionally attended services there in the late 90s and early 2000s. From their website, it looks like they now meet very near Toco Hill. Quite close to where Bagel Palace was!

          1. As someone often guilty of Monday morning quarterbacking closed businesses around here, I just wanted to express how glad I am to have Savi Market in the ‘hood. Checked them out over the weekend and was impressed with how well chosen the stock was. They carried a surprising number of the products we rely on and often have to drive to Publix, YDFM, or beyond to obtain. And lots of enticing local produce, eggs (these were fantastic quality), bread, and milk. Prepared foods look good too. Prices, while not cheap, are quite reasonable, especially for the type of fill-in, “just need one thing” type shopping I expect to do there. Long have we lamented, say, the absence of organic milk at CVS. Now I can just walk a block and a half to Savi and get what we need without hopping in the car. A measurable quality-of-life improvement when a house full of young kids often makes full-on grocery shopping trips difficult.

      3. They’re gone. They closed last week. A friend of mine is quoted in the AJC article: https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt–politics/bagel-palace-metro-atlanta-institution-closes-its-doors-sunday/Ke1ET8RlRxJ7IwZqoAmVQK/

        I’ll be honest: I wasn’t really a fan (and I say that as the son of a NY Jew who knows from bagels). Their product was fine, but I just was never impressed the several times I ate there.

      4. Not Jewish but I’ve lived all over the country and have always felt that the City of Decatur had an unusually low Jewish presence compared to other highly educated, progressive communities. I imagine that proximity to a synagogue makes a difference in where observant Jews decide to buy a home. Nonetheless, I’ve always felt that a really good bagel place could make a killing in Downtown Decatur. (But are the claims true that NYC water results in the best bagels? I have to admit that the bagels in Los Angeles never seemed as good as those in NYC.)

        1. Not sure I accept this premise on its face, because how exactly are you measuring the “Jewishness” of Decatur beyond a dearth of synagogues in 30030? But for the sake of debate, I honestly think if you’re an observant Jew and you’re choosing an Atlanta neighborhood, why would you choose Decatur when Toco Hills, arguably the most vibrant Hebraic community in the city, is just a stone’s throw away? Similarly, if you’re in Decatur and you’re Jewish, chances are you’re going to opt for one of the many options in Toco Hills rather than seeking to found a whole new congregation just a couple miles down the road.

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