Only the best for my readers!

Here’s a press release about the coming “no. 246″ restaurant, that apparently everyone else received.  But no problem!  I’ll just lift it from our good friend John Kessler‘s blog.  (Interior photo of the restaurant space courtesy of Andisheh)

“Drew and I share a passion for locally sourced ingredients, simple preparations and wood-fired cooking and are both really excited to bring Italian-inspired dishes with Californian influences to Decatur,” says Fry. “I think Decatur is the perfect neighborhood for us to create this cool yet comfortable dining establishment that we both envision,” he adds.

“Lately the culinary trends in the Southeast have been very meat-centric, but we’re trying to make the food at no. 246 more about vegetables and dishes that guests can eat every day,” says Belline. “The menu will be driven by what local producers have to offer.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Health Watch: Decatur Kids Getting Fit: MyFoxATLANTA.com

Thanks to Susan for sending along this link!

UPDATE: Steve reports in the comments that news orgs are now reporting that the armored car driver has died.

North Druid Hills Patch is reporting that an armed robber shot and critically injured an armored car driver at the Toco Hills Shopping Center early this afternoon.  Patch’s Jonathan Cribbs reports that the robber “shot several times without warning at the armored car parked in front of the Kroger grocery store at 2205 Lavista Road at about noon”.  The amount of money taken from the armored car has not been disclosed.

The report notes that this is the seventh in a recent string of armored car robberies around Atlanta.

The AJC’s write-up about the incident says that the gunman jumped into a waiting car and that Kroger’s surveillance cameras captured the whole event.

Some of the biggest changes yet are about to be implemented at Emory’s North Decatur intersection as construction of the Emory Village roundabout continues. Kathy sends in this email just sent out by Emory…

To the Emory Community:

The next phase of DeKalb County’s construction for the roundabout in Emory Village is scheduled to begin this Thursday, March 17 and will have several traffic implications.

· Dowman Drive will re-open to traffic entering Emory’s campus.

· South Oxford Road (near Everybody’s Pizza) will close for approximately 60 days as construction crews work on that section of the roundabout. (North Oxford Road near the Chevron station and Emory’s campus will remain open.)

· Traffic lights in the North Decatur Road intersection of Emory Village will be permanently removed and replaced with stop signs. This three-way stop intersection will remain in place until South Oxford is opened to traffic again. At that point, the intersection will operate as a four-way stop until the roundabout is completed.

· Pedestrian crosswalks will continue to allow access through Emory Village, including Everybody’s Pizza and Saba on South Oxford Road.

Drivers, pedestrians and cyclists should continue to use caution during the construction. The entire Emory Village roundabout and streetscape improvement project is expected to be completed this summer. For updates, visit www.emoryvillage.org.

Love it!  ZBA member Kyle Williams writes in about last night’s approval of a new community garden tucked behind Northern Ave and Oakland Street residences…

Last night the Zoning Board of Appeals approved plans for Tanyard Community Garden (see Agenda Item No. 1 on the…agenda materials). The proposed garden is a tremendous community-led initiative to create useable greenspace in city-owned stream buffer areas that will “build strong communities” as you highlight in your post from yesterday Are Environmentalists Just “Fiddling While Rome Burns?” Our approval might also be the first official action on the new Strategic Plan:

The Tanyard Community Garden is consistent with the goals outlined in the Strategic Plan under Goal #8, which recommends that the city develop a “necklace” of planted bicycle and pedestrian linkages connecting the major green spaces of the city. The connection of the various green spaces will result in multiple benefits: I) easier, safer and more aesthetically pleasing access to existing green space, 2) “new” green space on existing public land, and 3) traffic volume and speed reductions. The City believes that the project will promote a more healthy and active community.

Tanyard Community Garden comes on the heels of ZBA’s approval of Sugar Creek Garden and is part of a citywide effort to identify and create useable community greenspace in these pockets of flood, detention and stream buffer areas.