Ponce City Market food hall turnover is strategic, developer says
The final days of 2025 brought news of four restaurants exiting the Ponce City Market Central Food Hall, though two replacements are already set to open this year.
The closures included Ton Ton Ramen & Yakitori and Miso Ko from restaurateur Guy Wong; Spanish tapas stall La Metro from Hector Santiago; and cookie shop Sugar Shane’s.
But soon after those restaurants shuttered, Ponce City Market announced that two of the vacated spaces had found new tenants. Okiboru, a ramen and tsukemen spot, and sushi restaurant NoriFish, both from Atlanta-based chef Sean Park and co-owner Justin Lim, will open in the spring.
By mid-January, only one space in the food hall remained vacant, Adam Schwegman, head of retail leasing for Jamestown, Ponce City Market’s developer, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“We have over 30 food vendors, all shapes and sizes at Ponce, from full-service restaurants down to a popsicle stand, so there’s always bound to be change,” Schwegman said. “A lot of our leases are on 10-year terms, so some of them were natural expirations, and I would say in any major food environment, turnover is healthy.”
Ponce City Market’s food hall officially opened in 2015, one of the first to join the food hall boom that ensued in metro Atlanta.
The team behind Ton Ton Ramen & Yakitori, which opened at Ponce City Market in 2015, told the AJC they had hoped to stay in the food hall and believed their lease would be renewed if they took steps to refresh the restaurant concept.
After hiring a design firm and developing plans for a facelift, “we were unexpectedly told the space would not move forward,” the restaurant group’s statement said. “After months of operating under the belief that renewal was still on the table, the decision came as a shock.”
In a follow-up statement to the AJC, Schwegman said that maintaining “an element of discovery” for guests in the 10-year-old food hall means “introducing new concepts — and striking the right balance between new and legacy offerings can be challenging.”
“While we explored renewal options with Ton Ton throughout 2025, we ultimately could not agree on a new concept,” Schwegman said in the statement. “We value the role long-standing tenants play in shaping the identity of our properties and are grateful for the years of partnership with Ton Ton.”
Okiboru and NoriFish will move into Ton Ton Ramen and Miso Ko’s spaces.
Schwegman pointed to some of the retail additions Ponce has made this year as an evolution in tenant strategy, like French clothing brand Sezane, New York-based perfumery Olfactory and New York-based ice cream shop Van Leeuwen.
Okiboru and NoriFish seemed like a good fit because of both restaurants’ success with their other locations in Georgia and New York, combined with the accolades they’ve received, like a Michelin Bib Gourmand award recognizing exceptional food at a moderate price, Schwegman said.
“We want to keep bringing in tenants that are super unique, that we feel fit Ponce’s unique culture and ultimately keep building on that,” he said in an interview with the AJC.
In 2025, Ponce City Market saw other food and beverage changes including the loss of W.H. Stiles Fish Camp, a seafood restaurant from Anne Quatrano which closed its doors after a decade. It will be replaced by Terminal 26, a Thai street food eatery from the 26 Thai team. Necessary Purveyor, a restaurant with a location in Miami, also opened on the bottom of the new Scout Living building.
Market East, a new wing that was added to the Central Food Hall, debuted last year with three Asian concepts from the Vietvana owners.
La Cueva, a cave-themed speakeasy, is set to open on the second floor in the back of the forthcoming Commodore barbershop, and Three Taverns Brewery will open a taproom along Ponce City Market’s stretch of the Eastside Beltline with food from Das BBQ. Comedy club Whiplash from former Laughing Skull Lounge operator Marshall Chiles was also recently announced for Ponce City Market.
Schwegman said when Jamestown is exploring restaurant lease deals, the first thing they consider is the “strength of the operator.”
“We love the combination of culinary creativity with strong business acumen,” he said.
Roughly half the original food and beverage tenants are still operating at Ponce City Market, according to a spokesperson, including Dale Donchey’s coffee shop Spiller Park.
Donchey has borne witness to more than a decade of fluctuations in Atlanta’s restaurant scene, from Ponce City Market’s exciting early start, to the fraught era of the COVID-19 pandemic, whose effects he said still continue to impact the restaurant environment on top of the present-day economic conditions.
But the latest set of closures don’t specifically worry him.
“If you can look at your numbers and go, this is still working, and somebody else closes, I don’t think that should necessarily be a red flag. I think that there is some individuality to all of this,” Donchey said.
Sugar Shane’s owner Shane Quillin said in a social media video, “Part of being a responsible founder is when something isn’t working the way it once did, making the tough but right call for the future of the brand.”
He declined the AJC’s request for more information.
The team behind Miso Ko and Ton Ton were left frustrated with what they felt to be a sudden flip in their relationship with Ponce City Market.
“We know big developments can be very complex, but moments like this really reminded us what makes Atlanta’s food scene special. It thrives when hospitality is about people first, when the goal is win-wins and when the community is part of the conversation. That’s how restaurant groups like us last, and that’s how cities grow,” the statement from Wong’s team said.
Donchey has closed businesses before, so he knows how painful it is. But he hopes Atlantans will consider showing up for their local operators, celebrating the restaurants they love and spreading the word about their favorite spots.
“You don’t have to always do it with your dollars,” Donchey said. “You could literally just tell people.”
This year’s incoming food and beverage tenants to Ponce City Market include Terminal 26, La Cueva, Okiboru, NoriFish and Three Taverns Brew Terminal.
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.
