Beltline opens lunch-stop possibilities

Heather Hussey-Coker points to a chain-link fence behind which a weed-choked embankment leads down to a railroad line. The empty tracks carve their way through their narrow gulch, off into the distance.

“That’s the Beltline,” Hussey-Coker says for what must have been the 30th time that day. It doesn’t look like much, but this is one stop along the 22-mile loop of proposed transit, parks and trails that gets this graduate student in urban planning really excited.

Hussey-Coker, 31, knows the twists and turns of the Beltline like none other, after having led more than 4,000 curious souls on bumpy bus rides through the shifting landscapes of decay and renewal, blight and preservation, through which these old rail lines define Atlanta. She is the face and reasoned voice for the BeltLine Partnership, the entity charged with raising community awareness. She’s the one who folds public policy, imagination and cold, hard topography into a digestible vision.

And speaking of “digestible,” where do you —- or will you —- eat along the Beltline?

There are some obvious answers: the Highland Avenue corridor of the Old Fourth Ward and the new urbanist community of Glenwood Park across I-20. The patio at Kevin Rathbun Steak spills onto the proposed strip of green space, light rail and jogging paths.

But I wanted to find a place where Hussey-Coker saw the future, which is why I invited her to lunch and how we ended up at Fried Rice King.

“This intersection has so much potential,” Hussey-Coker says of the crossing of Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard and Cascade Avenue in Southwest Atlanta, where the West End and Westview neighborhoods come to a juncture. “That orangey building may have been the old trolley barn, and the white building next to it was one of Atlanta’s first firehouses.”

Pretty old Victorian homes with kids playing out front, a curving bank of storefronts and Fried Rice King completed the picture. Just out of view one of the first completed Beltline projects, a section of the West End Trail, hugged the tracks.

Fried Rice King stood sentry along the tracks, a neighborhood fixture. Inside, the tiled dining room is clean and fresh smelling and a large sign announces, “We serve homestyle Chinese food with a full menu and steam table for your convenience since 1978.” Like many intown Chinese restaurants, this place offers a lengthy list of chicken wings every which way in addition to a full Chinese menu.

Hussey-Coker and I settle into a plate of tasty shrimp fried rice and braised chicken wings, scooped right from the steam table. She tells me how she first read about the Beltline in 2004, before starting grad school, how that vision for the future influenced her choice. She worries about the recent move by the Georgia Department of Transportation and Amtrak to preserve a section of the Beltline for high-speed rail, but thinks neighbors will keep Amtrak out. She holds onto the vision.

Before long a woman named Martha at the next table joins us in conversation, and tells us about other good restaurants nearby. Most offer simple Southern dishes, she says, but one “serves nice middle-class food.”

After lunch, we follow the road north along the tracks into the heart of Westview. We pass a church ministry and the A-1 Tire Mart, and soon we’ve reached a newly renovated block of storefronts with “coming soon” banners over every window.

One is for a restaurant called the Crazy Cajun. Will it be good? Will Atlantans in coming years be able to ride a light rail train here? Po’ boys at the Crazy Cajun, then drinks on the patio at Kevin Rathbun Steak? Will people who have no idea that Westview exists come biking through one day and stop for lunch?

“So many people start waking up to the idea of the Beltline,” said Hussey-Coker, “when they start waking up to the city.”

> Fried Rice King, 1373 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd. S.W., Atlanta. 404-753-4250

jkessler@ajc.com