South African-inspired bar and restaurant Biltong Bar will close in Ponce City Market after nearly eight years in business, according to an Instagram post. The restaurant’s final day of service will be Dec. 31.
Restaurateur Justin Anthony opened Biltong Bar in Ponce City Market in early 2016 with a menu of South African-style beef jerky (biltong), cheese, charcuterie, South African wines and craft cocktails. He opened a second location in the Buckhead Village development in 2018 but closed that in early 2022.
The eatery is part of Anthony’s restaurant group True Story Brands, which includes 10 Degrees South, his flagship South African restaurant that is also set to close due to the forthcoming retirement of his parents, who have helped him run the restaurant since it opened 26 years ago. The closing date is tentatively planned for the end of the year, he said. His other concepts, Yebo Beach Haus in Buckhead and The Cape Restaurant & Beach Bar in the Avalon in Alpharetta, will remain open.
Anthony told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the decision to close came as Biltong Bar’s Ponce City Market lease is ending. As of now, there are no plans to reopen elsewhere, but the eatery may pop up somewhere in the future, he said.
“It kind of happened really fast,” Anthony said. “As a company we just want to focus on what we’re doing very well right now.”
Biltong Bar specializes in craft cocktails and biltong, a South African dried meat, both of which appear on the menus in his other concepts. While he wasn’t expecting to close two restaurants within such a close time frame, “everything happens for a reason,” Anthony said.
“It’s been a great eight years and, you know, it’s time,” he said. “It was a wonderful run that we had.”
Next year, a “new Spanish tapas concept” is set to take over Biltong Bar’s space, according to a statement from a Ponce City Market representative. The new eatery will come from Atlanta chef Hector Santiago, who runs El Super Pan, a sandwich bar with a location in Ponce City Market.
Biltong Bar is one of several metro Atlanta restaurants set to close this month, including Ammazza Pizza, Casa Robles and Biggerstaff Brewing Company.
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