7 Atlanta pop-ups you can’t miss this week
Each week, Punk Foodie highlights Atlanta pop-ups worth catching before they disappear, helping readers find the city’s most interesting chef-driven dining concepts, food trucks, supper clubs and limited-time food events. The independent chef scene often reveals how immigrant traditions, first-generation entrepreneurship and local ingredients are merging into a new Southern food identity. Atlanta offers a unique laboratory where chefs test ideas to determine if temporary kitchens can transform into revolutionary restaurants.
Globally inspired, farm-to-table slow food from Ry’s Table
Who: Ry’s Table (@rystable) from Ryanne Rothenberg
When/Where: Saturday, May 16, 8:30 a.m.-noon. Freedom Farmers Market (@freedomfarmersmkt). 453 John Lewis Freedom Parkway NE, Poncey-Highland.
Why go: Rothenberg brings a lifetime of farm-to-table immersion to Ry’s Table, a farmstead garden event space in Southwest Atlanta. Growing up, she assisted her classically trained father with large-scale catering. Rothenberg later spent years traveling and cooking throughout Southeast Asia, including Thailand. These global influences, combined with time spent coordinating nutrition workshops in Uganda, inform her “globally inspired slow food” philosophy. A 2024 Slow Food Snail of Approval recipient, Rothenberg views food as medicine, applying Ayurvedic principles to menus that prioritize hyper-local sourcing from partners like Woodland Gardens and Love is Love Farm, as well as produce grown in her own farmstead.
What to get: Because Rothenberg uses seasonal produce and the freshest ingredients from her garden and local farm partners, offerings at her pop-ups change frequently and the menu was not finalized at the time of publication. However, a recent menu showcased dishes like a cacao chia pudding bowl topped with honey-roasted coconut granola and cashew cream, and coconut pork shoulder served with jasmine rice and Hakurei turnips. For smaller bites, she offered chive dumplings with chile crisp or dolmas served with fresh tzatziki.
Rothenberg does not pop up often outside of her own space, so this is a good chance to grab her cooking. Check out her website to see the events she holds at her farmstead.
Jamaican Chinese fusion at Smorgasburg AAPI night market
Who: Yaardie Eats (@Yaardie.Eats) from Carrie Demessa
When/Where: Saturday, May 16, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Smorgasburg Atlanta (@smorgasburgatlanta). 140 Forsyth St. SW, South Downtown.
Why go: Yaardie Eats is one of the only food trucks in Atlanta offering Jamaican Chinese food, a cuisine created in the 19th century when Chinese immigrants brought Cantonese cooking techniques to Jamaica.
What to get: Patties, which were commercialized by Chinese Jamaican entrepreneurs in the 1960s and ’70s. Options include beef, curry chicken and vegetable. Also look for the coco bread served with fried fish, fried shrimp, jerk chicken or oxtail and the fried red snapper with escovitch vegetables and oxtail gravy on rice.
Dhaba BBQ’s Indian-style riff on a Chicago beef sandwich
Who: Dhaba BBQ (@thedhaba_bbq) from Jay Patel
When/Where: Saturday, May 16, 11 a.m. until sold out. Stout Brothers Smyrna (@smyrnastoutbrothers). 1265 W. Spring St., Smyrna.
Why go: Self-taught pitmaster Patel brings together Indian heritage cuisine and Texas-style craft barbecue. Named after India’s roadside food stalls, Dhaba BBQ specializes in handhelds that reimagine traditional Indian flavors. Patel’s obsession with technical precision, including 24-hour marinades and wood-fired smoke, has made him a fixture in the local pop-up scene, from brewery pop-ups to high-end supper clubs. He has a deep pipeline of new concepts in development and typically debuts at least one new item at each pop-up.
What to get: The new tandoori pulled beef sandwich, Patel’s riff on his hometown Chicago beef sandwich. The beef is seasoned with tandoori spices, black pepper and salt, then smoked low and slow until tender, pulled apart and served on soft bread with masala onions and Dhaba’s cilantro giardiniera aioli. The rest of the menu includes butter chicken wings, lemon pepper chicken sandos and Bombay masala Impossible sliders.
Southern meets Sichuan chiles in fried chicken from New York’s Pecking House
Who: Pecking House (@pecking_house) from Eric Huang
When/Where: Sunday, May 17, 5-9 p.m. or until sold out. Minhwa Spirits (@minhwaspirits). 2421 Van Fleet Circle, Doraville.
Why go: Visiting from New York this week, Huang brings a serious pedigree from Cafe Boulud, Gramercy Tavern and a stint as a sous chef at Eleven Madison Park during its tenure as the “Best Restaurant in the World.” But his Pecking House fare isn’t served on white tablecloths. It’s a Nashville-hot-meets-Sichuan-pepper fried chicken mashup that was born in his family’s Queens Chinese restaurant and, at one point during the COVID-19 pandemic, commanded a waitlist of over 10,000 orders.
What to get: The chile fried chicken sandwich. The chicken is buttermilk-brined, country-fried and finished with Sichuan peppercorns, Tianjin chiles and five-spice. Naked tenders and chicken salt fries are also on the menu. The event is first-come, first-served and we suggest getting there early. You can also get it at Sweet Auburn’s Smoke Show on May 20 (see below).
Polish and Korean collaboration from Beksa Lala and Lino Yi
Who: Beksa Lala (@beksa_atl) from Basia Piechoczek and Lino Yi (@linlinsdindin)
When/Where: Monday, May 18, 5-9 p.m. Breaker Breaker (@breakerbreaker_atl). 921 Wylie St. SE, Reynoldstown.
Why go: For the final installment of her collaboration series at Breaker Breaker, Beksa Lala’s Piechoczek teams up with Yi for a unique cross-cultural exploration of Polish and Korean comfort food. Piechoczek’s concept is rooted in the traditional techniques of her grandmother’s kitchen, while Minhwa Spirits’ Yi, the chef behind the viral TKO stall at Southern Feedstore and a former Lazy Betty sous chef, brings high-end culinary precision and approachability to Korean cuisine.
What to get: The full menu was not finalized at the time of publication but Piechoczek says to expect creative Polish-Korean fusion, including a smoked duck and plum gochujang sando with red cabbage and caraway kimchi, and a version of zurek rye broth soup with a soft egg, kielbasa, fermented greens and gochugaru. Chef Lino will also bring his eggroll taquitos and volcano nachos.
Peruvian street food from Tio Lucho’s Hermanita
Who: Hermanita (@hermanita_atl) from Arnaldo Castillo
When/Where: Mondays, 5-10 p.m. Tio Lucho’s (@tioluchos). 675 N. Highland Ave. NE, Poncey-Highland.
Why go: Before opening Tio Lucho’s, Castillo used a pop-up called La Chingana to test the flavors that now define his brick-and-mortar restaurant. Hermanita, his current pop-up, explores Peruvian street food. Could this be the start of his next big thing?
What to get: The star of the show and a national dish of Peru: the pollo a la brasa grilled on a Big Green Egg. Filling out the menu: beef sirloin, chicken thigh or grouper anticuchos (traditional Peruvian skewers); griddled potatoes with herbs and Huancaina sauce; a salad with huacatay-ranch dressing and collard greens with red peas, red beans with rice and jasmine rice topped with fried garlic and fresh herbs.
17 Asian all-star chefs at annual Good Luck Smoke Show
Who: Good Luck Smoke Show food festival hosted by Sweet Auburn Barbecue’s Howard and Anita Hsu
When/Where: Wednesday, May 20, 5-9 p.m. Sweet Auburn Barbecue (@sweetauburnbbq). 656 N. Highland Ave. NE, Poncey-Highland.
Why go: The second annual Good Luck Smoke Show transforms the block around Sweet Auburn into a wood-and-fire celebration of Asian American culture. Timed with AAPI Heritage Month, it is a tasting event, street festival and cultural celebration featuring unlimited bites alongside live DJs and traditional Chinese Lion dances. A portion of the proceeds will go to We Love Buford Highway, a charity dedicated to preserving the cultural vibrance and small businesses along the Buford Highway corridor.
The stacked roster of 17 nationally and locally recognized chefs includes Huang from New York’s Pecking House (@pecking_house); Doron Wong of New York’s Cha Cha Tang (@chachatangnyc); Vish Mayekar from ELEM in Vancouver (@elemvancouver); Ron Hsu of Lazy Betty (@lazybettyatl); Parnass Savang from Talat Market (@talatmarketatl); Jiyeon Lee and Cody Taylor of Heirloom Market BBQ (@heirloommarketbbq); Vivian Lee from Leftie Lee’s (@leftielees); and many more.
What to get: While the full menu was not available at the time of publication, we have confirmed Peking duck cannoli — which features a “shell” made out of crispy duck skin — from Concept Luna (@concept.luna), tandoori chicken sandwiches from Dhaba BBQ and chile fried chicken from Pecking House.
Get tickets here.
On our radar
- From May 14: Under Pressure Wine, a wine bar opening in late 2026, will hold wine pop-ups at Brush Sushi for four Thursdays.
- May 16: Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q and Chicheria Mexican Kitchen will host a block party at the Works featuring smoked meats, Mexican food, a DJ and live music.
- May 18: Georgia Organics will host a Seeds & Soil Society Supper at Madeira Park with a collaborative menu from Madeira Park’s chef Ollie Honderd along with The Deer & the Dove, Little Bear, Talat Market, Some Luck and Tio Lucho, with bread from Colette and dessert from Little Tart and Big Softie.
- From June 3: Misfitsss BBQ will pop up the first Wednesday of every month at Minhwa Spirits.
- Beksa Lala’s ongoing residency at Breaker Breaker continues in June with a backyard cookout-style menu featuring dishes from the Małopolska region of Poland.
Note: By their very nature, pop-ups are fluid and subject to the whims of weather. For the latest schedule and information, consult the pop-ups’ Instagram feeds.
About the Author
The Punk Foodie project from Sam Flemming covers Atlanta’s independent chef scene with a focus on the city’s growing world of pop-ups, residencies, and chef-driven dining events. He covers the entrepreneurs and immigrant foodways helping redefine Southern food today. Email sam@punkfoodie.com.
