Regulars approach Agave’s closure with tears, reflection and faint hope
They came to their favorite restaurant to mourn, reminisce and grasp at desperate hopes for some last-minute saving grace.
Regulars of Agave, the Southwestern restaurant rooted on a prominent corner in Cabbagetown for the past 25 years, literally lined up in the dining room one evening in January to share their feelings about its imminent closure with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Tears glittered in the eyes of several patrons as they reflected on the occasions celebrated within Agave’s adobe walls and the relationships they had built with the restaurant’s staff over more than two decades.
In October, Agave announced on social media that it would close Jan. 31. The restaurant’s Facebook post attributed the closure to “the current economic climate and unsustainable conditions.”
“Cabbagetown doesn’t have businesses. We have neighbors and family,” said John Dirga, a community organizer and director of the Cabbagetown Initiative, the nonprofit community development corporation behind the popular Chomp and Stomp festival. “So this is like losing Uncle Jack.”
Dirga referred to Agave’s chef and owner Jack Sobel, the man at the heart of the restaurant whose resilience and generosity consistently left his neighbors in awe. Looking back on Agave’s history, it’s a minor miracle Sobel has kept it open until now.
Cabbagetown resident Celine Bufkin, a former AJC reporter, said she moved to the neighborhood in 2000, just before Agave opened. In the ensuing quarter-century, she regularly visited the restaurant and became friends with Sobel. She marveled at the challenges he’s overcome.
“It feels like he’s got a bit of a Job thing going on,” Bufkin said, comparing Sobel to the biblical figure beset by a series of disasters that tested his faith. “It seems like it’s one thing after another; it’s kind of a little treasure that we feel like we’re losing.”
“He’s done everything right,” she continued. “He’s such a sweet soul, and he’s been stolen from, he’s been burgled a few times, he’s had cars crash into the building …”
Additionally, Agave has had persistent issues with flooding which required costly repairs. In the last five years, Sobel said, the restaurant weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, rent increases and rising food costs. Before Agave’s closure was announced, the restaurant also suffered from slow business that sapped its financial viability.
Despite these near-constant challenges, Sobel was nothing but magnanimous to his neighbors, according to several Agave regulars who spoke to the AJC. He repeatedly donated his time, food and money to local causes, even as the restaurant faced serious financial distress. Sobel estimates that he’s given hundreds of thousands of dollars to local causes in the past two decades, he told the AJC.
Dian Huff, a Cabbagetown neighbor who said she’s visited Agave nearly every week for more than 20 years, lives in a house directly next to the restaurant’s property. When her husband died in 2022, Huff said that Sobel made a significant contribution to her fundraiser for funeral expenses.
“He gave me a lot of money to bury my husband,” Huff said. “He always has been there for anybody that needed help.”
Dirga, director of the Cabbagetown Initiative, said Sobel continuously supported the neighborhood’s local news bulletin, the Cabbagetown Neighbor, by purchasing ads for the restaurant.
Married couple Nick and Cindy Carpentier said they frequently used the coupon from Agave’s Cabbagetown Neighbor ad during their years visiting the restaurant. Cindy, like Sobel, is originally from New Mexico and said that when her parents visit for a long weekend, they like to visit Agave three nights in a row.
When Cindy ran the New York City Marathon in 2018, she said she used the effort to raise money for the Atlanta Track Club’s free youth running program, Kilometer Kids. Agave hosted a fundraising night on her behalf, and she said Sobel and his team donated about $700 toward her goal.
With Agave’s closure looming, Sobel remains focused on helping others, specifically the restaurant’s employees. After announcing that Agave would close, the restaurant has seen a huge influx of business, similar to the crowds that descended on Eats, the long-running soul food restaurant on Ponce de Leon Avenue that shuttered late last year (thought it will reopen in a new form in March).
Sobel hopes to harness the surge in business to raise money for his staff. He created a GoFundMe page and set a goal of $50,000 so that he could supply each of the more than 30 staffers at least $1,000 to help them make ends meet after the business shuts down.
“A hundred percent of the GoFundMe will go to the whole staff,” Sobel told his crew during the restaurant’s lineup meeting before a dinner service in January, three weeks before the expected closure. “Nothing to me, nothing to the landlords.”
Many Agave regulars expressed hope that a friendly buyer would swoop in to rescue the restaurant at the 11th hour. Sobel, however, is not optimistic. He said he’s already working to find a new space.
At 55 years old, Sobel is active and energetic, showing no signs of slowing down as he directs Agave’s open kitchen and keeps a watchful eye on the dining room. The chef also seems buoyed by the apprenticeship of his 21-year-old son, Jacob Sobel, who grew up in the restaurant and now works as its general manager. The elder Sobel said he once hoped Jacob could eventually take over Agave, a dream that will now need to take another shape.
The Sobels both said they plan to take a short hiatus after Agave closes its doors, especially after what amounts to an all-out sprint to the finish line. The intensity of serving a packed restaurant every night, the outpouring of emotions and the additional labor of tying up loose ends and setting up a support system for their employees has left everyone at the restaurant exhausted.
Once Jack and Jacob Sobel recover, they hope to reopen Agave in a new location, once again following Eats’ example. Earlier this month, Wild Heaven Beer announced it would resurrect the soul food restaurant — with many of the same employees and old decor — at its West End location.
With such a strong community behind them, and their creative Southwestern concept, the Sobels think a new version of Agave could be successful, especially if they can find a more favorable cost structure.
But the restaurant’s fans will still mourn its unique location and the one-of-a-kind building, where multiple additions to the floor plan were largely built by Jack Sobel himself.
“The value is in this building,” said Lisa Oakley, an Agave regular who said she lives about 7 miles away.
“There’s not another location. The value for the community and everyone that’s so close to it — this is like ‘Cheers,’” she continued, echoing several other regulars who referenced the long-running TV show.
“There’s so much love here,” Oakley said.
About the Author
Henri Hollis is a reporter and restaurant critic for the Food & Dining team. Formerly a freelance writer and photographer with a focus on food and restaurants, he joined the AJC full-time in January 2021, first covering breaking news. He is a lifelong Atlantan and a graduate of Georgia Tech.
