RIP Just Loaf’n in Grant Park
I always hate to see retail vacancies, particularly a restaurant such as Just Loaf’n on Boulevard that offered something different.
A notice posted a few weeks back on the Cajun restaurant’s front door seemed to indicate problems with leased equipment. Without doing any reporting (caveat), I surmised that the equipment leasing company may have filed for bankruptcy, making its leased equipment collateral. But that’s purely conjecture on my part.
Just Loaf’n was one of the few bright commercial spots on that stretch of Boulevard, which is such an important North-South thoroughfare and yet seems neglected in so many spots.
Less than a half-mile from Just Loaf’n sits the empty spot that Zocalo, occupied until about a year ago. There’s a sign in the window that says a new restaurant is coming, but we’ll see. Commercial real estate folks have said there’s just not enough foot traffic there to sustain a lunch spot.
(As an aside, I personally think the spot is ripe for a Chinese restaurant, with eat-in and take-out options).
In addition to Zocalo, the large second-floor space that housed Fine Line Gallery is also in flux.
Fine Line appears to be on its way out, or greatly reducing its space. Either way, a martial arts school is moving into some of the space (until now it was located in Inman Park).
Perhaps it’s just the normal retail grind, slightly exacerbated by the current economic crisis.
But I wonder: when do we transform Boulevard into an actual boulevard (not when do we talk about it, I mean when do we DO it)?
If you walk up Boulevard, at a certain point, you catch sight of the red-brick tower at the majestic Cotton Mill lofts in Cabbagetown, and sometimes a MARTA train will go by, seeming to snake between the old mill buildings, and it’s kind of cool! But right now, I’m guessing not too many people are strolling up Boulevard.
To be sure, the retail spot on Boulevard seems to work fine for the dentist, the dry cleaner and the tax office, which are certainly good tenants, and I think a martial arts school will make a good addition. It looks like it will occupy a second-floor space that’s visible to the street; it might be fun catching a glimpse of folks doing karate (or whatever)!
But you’re certainly not going to window-shop, even though there is a nice boutique there, and the strip mall is not laid out to allow pleasant outdoor seating at an eatery.
So I suppose it’s functional as far as office space goes, but I guess it would be nice if it were the type of place you might include in an evening stroll.
What I’m saying applies way beyond this one neighborhood. Boulevard is like so many places in Atlanta — whole stretches of DeKalb Avenue, Moreland Avenue, Piedmont Avenue, I could go on — that we’ve essentially forfeited.
How many roads can we forfeit and still make the city a nice place to live?
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Comments
7 Comments on RIP Just Loaf’n in Grant Park
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Lauren on
Thu, 24th Sep 2009 10:13 am
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Lauren on
Thu, 24th Sep 2009 10:56 am
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Jonathan Peterson on
Thu, 24th Sep 2009 10:59 am
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Chris Murphy on
Thu, 24th Sep 2009 9:30 pm
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Jack Stenger on
Fri, 25th Sep 2009 10:57 am
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Jeanne Bonner on
Fri, 25th Sep 2009 12:42 pm
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Jack Stenger on
Fri, 25th Sep 2009 4:25 pm
Thought you’d appreciate two positive things I see on my commute from Candler Park to downtown each morning – wish I had taken pictures for you:
–Corner of Krog Street and DeKalb Ave. – they are finally cleaning out all the kudzu and overgrowth that covered the sidewalks!
–Corner of Edgewood and Boulevard – great new restaurant coming in there called Croaker’s Spot. Very well-loved place from Richmond, Virginia serving “the soul of seafood.”
Video below about the move in. Don’t know anything about Java Jazz, but I ate at Croaker’s in Richmond and it was delicious.
Two more things to add – two fascinating projects in NYC transforming empty public spaces:
“Pavement to Parks” in NY Times about transforming currently unused parking spots into parks:
http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/pavement-to-parks/?emc=eta1
“No Longer Empty” in Wired about artists painting over abandoned storefronts to help deal with the empty windows people see every day:
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/07/no-longer-empty-art-in-abandoned-storefronts/
Boulevard and Dekalb have both been getting better for years. Dekalb used to ALL look like a demilitarized zone and now has big stretches of condos, restaurants, shops.
As far as I can tell the good stretches are growing and not shrinking.
Just Loaf’n had good food coupled with some of the worst service ever rendered on the planet. And to top it off, it only had maybe 4 parking paces, of which 2 would always be full (presumably by employees). Sign said to park in the lot across Boulevard- a trash strewn, broken-glass filled uneven bare dirt lot, acros four busy lanes.
I’m surprised they lasted a month. But they managed that because so many restaurants on the Southside are just so sub-standard, people were willing to put up with the idiocy.
Never went there (never had any desire, for that matter …) but this place — and any other that goes there — is actually doomed because of the built up landscape that surrounds it. This part of Boulevard is a staging area for I-20 and little else. Cars going by this woebegone commercial site are whizzing by with the sole intent to enter into the concrete canyon that has bisected our city since it was first built (at the behest of road-developers and their accomplices at the state DOT). So … if we want to get really philosophical, we can say that the long-gone Tom Moreland (or someone like him) killed Just Loaf’n. Now, I’m gonna tie this into another thread, and to something equally “hot” these days. John Oxendine’s cynical trial balloon — his proferred notion that an urban-grid decimating “parallel connector” is the best way to solve the “metro transportation problem” — would also wreak havoc on future city retail. Not to get all Jane Jacobs here, but retail thrives in the right context. This section of Boulevard just doesn’t have it. Thank you Tom Moreland!
First off, Lauren thanks for your two comments! I will take a look at the NY Times piece and the Wired one, too. I also appreciate the updates on those two key corners. I had seen the sign for Java Jazz but not Croakers. It’s great that you can already say that’s a good addition! If it’s good in Richmond, it should be good here, too.
Jonathan, you are right that these two streets are getting better. In fact, I guess I comment on them because I see potential.
Jack, the stretch of Boulevard I’m talking about IS forlorn, and I often think I-20 really screwed the neighborhood. Some of the nicest houses face the sound barrier by the highway! So I definitely see what you’re saying. Much of Boulevard is such a jumble of development; Just Loafn is a little house, now in the shadow of a condo building, and down the block from a sketchy gas station.
But I think we forfeit so many roads. Take DeKalb Avenue. People I respect have argued that it’s a pass-through street and it’s simply not meant for pedestrians and pedestrian-friendly development, because of the freight train line along the road and the traffic.
Yet there are a slew of apartments and condos along the road. So let me get this straight: it’s okay for me to live and sleep in a room that’s a stone’s throw from a freight train and speeding motorists, but I can’t sit at a cafe next to these things?
Thanks everyone for your thoughts.
“… but I can’t sit at a cafe next to these things?” You can, but your subconscious self and your intuition tells you not to. Jane Jacobs was right. If you build crap, they will not come (and eat your po’ boy).
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