Darren, one of the owner’s of “The Grange Public House”, was good enough to shoot me an email yesterday and give out a few more firsthand details about our city’s latest pub.

“…The owners are my siblings, and myself, all hailing from Ireland and aiming to bring a bit of Dublin to Decatur. At The Grange, what you won’t find is the American version of an “Irish Pub,” you’ll find a “Dublin Pub,” with the feeling and experience you’d get walking into a pub in the heart of contemporary Dublin, today. [ I subsequently asked Darren about the differences between the two and he told me that the best contemporary comparison (without going to Dublin) would probably be Tom Cruise's "Far and Away" vs. the recent Oscar-winner "Once". - The Grange will be much more like the later]

The name “The Grange” is really the intersection of our lives in Ireland and our lives here in Atlanta. Back in medieval Ireland, The Grange, located in the town monastery, was where food and beer was produced and stored. It was also a popular gathering place for the community. That’s what we want The Grange Public House to be for Decatur. We all grew up beside a well known Grange in the foothills of the Dublin mountains.

The Grange will be owner operated and serve pub-style food along with an international beer & wine list, all at a reasonable price. [he also stated later that the menu will start out with a few staples and evolve over time] It’ll be a place where friends & family can go for a nice drink and meal as well as good conversation.

We’ve been busy with minor renovations: brightening up the interior and refreshing the exterior, grafting toward an early September opening. We’ll keep you posted.”

Best of all, Darren’s gonna let me come take a look around and snap a few photos some time next week! So look forward to that!

Here’s the rundown for Night 1 of Wordsmiths’ fundraiser to save itself from extinction…

Additionally, InDecatur notes that a blurb was published in Publishers Weekly regarding the campaign. Also an AJC posting says that the rent at the Old Post Office on Trinity was three times that of the store’s current location. (THREE times!? umm…why?)

Full release after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

OK…I completely admit that I’m a full month late on this.

I totally missed this when I read through the July/August Focus online a month ago. And I give complete credit to my wife for uncovering this big change in our recycling program.

Actually, I’m not sure why the city sort of buried this announcement. Someone could run for city commission purely based on making this change! So what the heck am I talking about? (Well…those of you that carefully read your Focus [which JUST showed up in hard copy yesterday - only a month late!] will already know)

Under the headline that we’ve got a new sanitation company handling our recycling, we find this HUGE change in little print…

• The program will now accept plastics numbered “1″ through “7″ as well as plastic bags

Whhaaa! That’s right! So start throwing (almost) all your plastics in the bin! No more swearing at huge “5″ and “6″ bottles and then attempting to cram them into an already bursting yellow Decatur garbage bag! And no more hauling your plastic bags to Publix for “recycling”.

…And before someone else says it, especially regarding plastic bags…its better not to use them at all. (There are unanswered questions about whether many of them are actually recycled – perhaps a question for our new sanitation company?) Its better to use reusable bags, which are already much more popular than they were six months ago.