Eats on Ponce to close this month after three decades of operation
Legacy comfort food restaurant Eats on Ponce de Leon Avenue will close Oct. 18 after 32 years of business.
Owner Bob Hatcher told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he decided to close the restaurant because “it’s been losing money.”
“There’s lots of reasons, but the main one is there’s not enough people coming through the door,” he said. “Nothing was the same after COVID.”
Hatcher said had he not owned the property, which he purchased in 1998, he likely wouldn’t have been able to reopen after the COVID-19 pandemic. He continued on despite new challenges in staffing the restaurant and rising food costs.
But the situation grew worse in 2023 when frequent construction projects in the surrounding area impacted traffic and accessibility to the restaurant. Lanes would frequently close, and Hatcher saw a notable drop in customers.
“If I was really a businessman … I should have closed it months ago,” he said.
The restaurant has been located at 600 Ponce De Leon Ave. NE since 1993, when Hatcher opened it alongside business partner Charlie Kerns.
The eatery is known for offering an affordable menu of comfort food dishes like jerk chicken, collard greens, sweet potatoes and chicken lasagna, with prices hovering around $6.50 for meat, $3 for sides and $10 for a plate with protein, black beans, rice and cornbread.
Hatcher, now 73 years old, has been the sole owner of Eats since about the mid-2000s, he said.
The surrounding area has grown significantly busier over the years with the Beltline’s Eastside Trail, Ponce City Market and multiple attempts at redevelopment, including delayed plans from developer Portman Holdings to add a mixed-use development across from Ponce City Market.
Looking back to 32 years ago when Hatcher and Kerns first opened the restaurant, Hatcher recalls how little money they had to start and “how much easier it was” to open a restaurant.
Now, he can’t imagine opening a little mom-and-pop shop like Eats on Ponce de Leon.
“It’s been a hell of an experience,” he said. “But I just think its time just came and went.”
Longtime staffers understood that business was declining, Hatcher said, including his own son, who’s only ever worked at Eats other than a brief stint at Wendy’s in high school.
While Hatcher said he doesn’t exactly grieve the end of the restaurant, it‘s meaningful to know how special it was to so many. Hatcher appreciates seeing people wearing Eats T-shirts, or running into people outside of Georgia who used to go to Eats, he said.
“I was lucky as hell. I mean, opening a restaurant at all is a crap shoot, and it turned out as good as it ever could have been for me,” he said. “I’ve got nothing but to feel grateful about the whole history of it.”
With three decades of history, it’s built a consistent group of regular diners, like Karcheik Sims-Alvarado, who has a doctorate in philosophy in history and is a professor at Morehouse College.
“I have been going to Eats as long as I’ve been in love with my husband,” she said.
Her then-boyfriend said ‘I love you’ for the first time in that restaurant -- she still remembers which table it was. She also wrote her dissertation and two books there.
Since then, she’s been visiting Eats almost every day for 28 years.
The restaurant even has a special meal for her, “the Karcheik Special,” with grilled broccoli, peppers and mushrooms. Sims-Alvarado would sometimes fast all day so she’d be hungry enough for Eats. She would budget about $12 a day for it.
“We’re definitely losing a community asset,” she said.
For those who will miss Eats’ menu of meat and threes, Hatcher assures diners that the recipes aren’t particularly difficult. They use fresh produce from the farmers market, but other than that it’s all the “simplest recipes,” he said, even the jerk chicken.
After taking a break from running the restaurant’s day-to-day operations several years ago due to health issues, Hatcher hasn’t been working in the restaurant as much. But in the final weeks of operation, he will try to spend more time at Eats, especially because he anticipates a rush before it closes.
He said he has no plans to reopen the restaurant and expects to sell the property, though he did not provide a timeline or details about a sale.
“To know that (Eats) means that much to people, it can’t make you feel anything other than great,” he said.
About the Author
Olivia Wakim is a digital content producer on the food and dining team. She joined the AJC as an intern in 2023 after graduating from the University of Georgia with a journalism degree. While in school, she reported for The Red & Black, Grady Newsource and the Marietta Daily Journal.
