Power breakfast eatery OK Cafe quietly re-opened Monday, 10 months after it was gutted by fire.
Richard Lewis, co-owner of the Buckhead spot that’s popular with business people and politicos, said instead of hosting a grand re-opening with pomp and circumstance, the idea was to start up almost under the radar so staff could get back into the groove.
“I didn’t want to open with a lot of people that would make it hard for us to do a good job,” Lewis said Monday.
The decor is the same — including a carved wood rendering of the old state flag that featured the Confederate battle emblem. An ex-chief of staff to former Gov. Roy Barnes, who led the effort to scrap that flag, suggested last summer that it should have been removed during the rehab.
Asked why the carving was rehung, Lewis said, “Why wouldn’t I? This is something that we had carved 25 years ago.”
Almost all of the cafe’s 80 workers have returned, Lewis said. “It’s almost like a love fest around here. Everybody had stories of what they did while they were gone.”
Lewis and partner Susan DeRose had hoped to open the eatery earlier this year, but were delayed by building permits and other requirements in its rehabilitation.
The building was destroyed by fire in early December. Some reports blamed the blaze on a faulty water heater.
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