Time to move the props to a new set.
Biggar Antiques, the Chamblee institution that has memorably outfitted homes, restaurants and retail establishments and movie and TV productions here for over 40 years, is relocating.
Where to?
Well, that's not entirely clear yet.
"We're moving into a warehouse for awhile," said Billy Biggar, whose father, Alex, started selling unique fixtures and furnishings in a Buffalo, N.Y. suburb in the early 1950s, before moving his family and business to Chamblee in 1973. "We're looking for our next great location."
They're not leaving Atlanta. Heck no, not with all the filming going on here. In fact, it's largely because of all the TV shows and movies being shot here — 248 productions in the last fiscal year alone, according to the state's film office — that they're having to move Biggar Antiques out of the quaint Chamblee house its long occupied. The props they provide to "dress" everything from movie sets and music videos to restaurants and theme parks accounts for "well over half" of their business now.
"It worked well when we were just (doing the bulk of their business) on the retail side," said Biggar. "Now that we do more on the props and commercial side, there's no room for everything and for the big trucks to in here."
The list of sets they've "dressed" stretches back three decades to "Driving Miss Daisy," "Fried Green Tomatoes" and TV's "In the Heat of the Night." More recently it reads like a "Who's Who" of every major studio production that's filmed here, from "Ant Man" and "Barbershop 3" to "Vacation" and "The Birth of a Nation" — "just to name a few," the Biggar Antiques web site modestly proclaims. Its "Prop House Inventory" stretches to two pages of categories, starting with "Appliances" and ending with "Western," with stops along the way for things like "Pews," "Fake Food" and just plain "Unusual" (that's where you'll find photos of a large Humpty Dumpty figurine, mannequin parts and the back end of a pickup truck).
Biggar Antiques also provides restaurant decor and design — "We did the first Applebee's and Longhorn (Steakhouse) out of this location," Billy Biggar said. "A lot of people don't realize those chains started here." And they've always been a retail operation, where a person not connected to the film business could walk in and buy things like old books and furniture, barbershop poles and more.
Operating out of the warehouse at 2135 American Industrial Way in Chamblee will temporarily halt that last part. "We will get back to retail at some point," Biggar vowed.
That point will come when they settle on a new location in Atlanta. Somewhere.
"It's a big change, but the warehouse location is close by and we can set up there while we're looking for our next home," he said. "Actually, we'd love to reach out to the people of Atlanta and get their suggestions on where our next location should be."
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