6 Atlanta food pop-ups this week, including craft barbecue and World Fest
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.
Late-summer muscadine ‘Pop-Tarts’ and savory pastries from Le Soir
Who: Le Soir from Ashley Thomas, Morgan Perkins and El Westover.
When/Where: Friday, Sept. 4, 5:30-8 p.m. Galette (@galetteatl). 110 N. Avondale Road, Avondale Estates.
Why you should check them out: Galette lead baker Westover is spearheading Le Soir’s latest evening menu of savory and sweet bites in Avondale Estates. Her kitchen pedigree includes serving as executive chef at Full Commission and executive pastry chef at Ink & Elm, alongside roles at Kimball House, Golden Eagle and Atmosphere. Hosted monthly by Galette co-owners Thomas and Perkins, the series uses the bakery space during off-hours to engage the neighborhood and give Westover an opportunity to experiment creatively with sweets and complex, savory dinner bites.
For this iteration, Westover is focusing on late-summer local ingredients, highlighting the menu with a dessert similar to a Pop-Tart that uses local Georgia muscadines for the sweet jam filling. The rest of the a la carte menu features a balance of savory pastries and rich desserts, including her signature pimento cheese profiteroles served with bacon jam or caramelized onions, seasoned ricotta with butternut squash on a baguette, duck-fat-poached potatoes with gremolata, chocolate mousse entremets, cheesecake cream puffs and butterscotch pot de creme.
Chinese street food from Ronlaire
Who: Ronlaire (@ronlaire) from Claire Li.
When/Where: Sundays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Avondale Estates Farmers Market (@aefarmersmarket). 64 N. Avondale Road, Avondale Estates.
Why you should check them out: Born in Guiyang in the southwest of China, Li tweaks traditional Chinese street food by bringing regional Chinese taste profiles into familiar scratch-made dumplings and baos. A prime example of this approach is her beef shumai infused with Sichuan spices, a unique creation not found on standard Chinese restaurant menus. She serves this spicy Sichuan beef shumai alongside classic pork and shrimp options in mix-and-match orders. The menu also centers on her fluffy steamed bao, including Cantonese-style barbecue pork char siu bao, traditional green onion pork and a vegan tofu bao filled with tofu, carrots, bell peppers, cabbage and a newly added vegan spicy mapo tofu cauliflower version. Beyond the steamed buns and shumai, the lineup also features pork potstickers served with garlic soy sauce.
Sunday brunch collab from Buen Provecho and Loko Eatz
Who: Buen Provecho (@buenprovechoatl) from Teresa Martinez and Loko Eatz (@loko_eatz) from Damarkus Hubbard.
When/Where: Sunday, Sept. 6 and Sunday, Sept. 13, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Boggs Social & Supply (@boggssocial). 1310 White St. SW, West End.
Why you should check them out: Martinez and Hubbard are joining forces for a couple of collaborative Sunday brunches at their West End pop-up home base, Boggs Social & Supply. Martinez’s Buen Provecho concept reimagines the traditional Mexican recipes of her Southern California upbringing as contemporary street food, while Hubbard’s Loko Eatz, specializes in fusing American comfort foods with global flavors powered by his 15 years in Illinois, Minnesota and Georgia kitchens.
The joint brunch menu features a concha breakfast smash burger built on an At Heart Panaderia (@atheartpanaderia) hibiscus concha (which we previously profiled here), a griddled tres leches French toast on thick brioche and crispy chicken and waffles topped with sticky jalapeno hot honey on a cornbread waffle. Pop-up diners can also browse the Goth Flea Market, which takes over the West End venue from 11:30 a.m.-7 p.m.
Craft barbecue from Springfield BBQ during Labor Day weekend
Who: Springfield BBQ Co. (@springfieldbbqco) from Mark Springfield.
When/Where: Sunday, Sept. 6, 2-5 p.m. Deep Roots Wine Market (@deeprootswinemkt). 1055 Canton St., Roswell.
Why you should check them out: While Springfield typically sets up at Deep Roots for a recurring third-Thursday residency during the Alive Roswell street festival, he is returning to the Northside wine market for this standalone Sunday holiday block party. Instead of his usual massive classic barbecue platters, Springfield will cook up a special menu featuring pork belly burnt ends, smoked chicken sliders with Alabama white sauce, summer sausage with barbecue crackers and mini wedge salads. The event will also have live acoustic music from Heavyn Leigh and Steve Ward, and beer and frosé specials.
A night celebrating El Tardeo with Saberico
Who: Saberico (@saberico.us) from Pedro Porras.
When/Where: Thursday, Sept. 10, 6–10 p.m. Trade & Tempo (@tradeandtempo). 552 Decatur St. SE, Old Fourth Ward.
Why you should check them out: Spanish chef Porras brings a culinary pedigree to Saberico, drawing on more than 20 years of professional kitchen experience including stints at Madrid’s one-Michelin-star Corral de la Moreria and the Michelin-recommended El Senor Martin. For this ticketed event, he is offering a nighttime version of “el tardeo,” the traditional late-afternoon-into-early-evening Spanish ritual of lingering over wine, food and music at Trade & Tempo, an open-air plaza and community space in Old Fourth Ward. Taking advantage of the venue’s covered patio setup, the evening features chicken paella cooked on-site, Spanish wines and tinto de verano cocktails, with music from DJ Chanda. Options include a classic package with the paella, pan con tomate and a glass of wine, or a limited-seating omakase experience that adds salmorejo con jamon (chilled tomato soup topped with ham), tortilla de patatas (Spanish potato omelet) and crema Catalana (custard dessert) paired with three Spanish wines.
Reserve a spot.
Halal pizza, pot stickers and tacos
How World Fest is redefining the halal culinary experience in metro Atlanta
Who: Halal World Festival Atlanta (@atlworldfestival) from Suhoor Festival (@suhoorfestival).
When/where: Saturday, Sept. 5 and Sunday, Sept. 6, 4–11 p.m. Gwinnett Place Mall. 2100 Pleasant Hill Road, Duluth.
Buy a ticket.
When you think of halal food, you might not immediately picture pepperoni pizza or tacos. The founders of Halal World Festival Atlanta are actively challenging the preconception that halal dining is limited to traditional Middle Eastern or South Asian fare by hosting crossover food vendors like Buford’s Cuzco Peruvian Cuisine, Pretty Little Tacos, Abuelita Oaxaquena, Sunnyside Pizzeria and Wong’s Wok.
Far from a restrictive diet, co-founder Nageeb Alghoul explains that halal is “just the technique of making sure that the meat remains pure.” In practice, this involves a verbal blessing pronouncing the name of God at the moment of slaughter, alongside strict physical and humane standards: Handlers must raise the animals healthily, treat them humanely and ensure a swift, painless death. Alghoul said that draining the blood prevents cortisol from spiking in the meat, a stress hormone surge that can tense muscle fibers and make the meat tough, providing the added benefit of keeping the cut tender.
The festival is riding on what seems to be a growing interest in halal across metro Atlanta. World Fest co-founders and brothers Nageeb and Nour Alghoul’s first event, Suhoor Fest, designed to share suhoor, the pre-dawn Ramadan meal typically eaten privately at home, as a community, drew 5,000 attendees in 2024. Under their direction, turnout tripled in 2025 to 15,000 guests, before reaching more than 20,000 visitors at Gwinnett Place Mall earlier this year. With World Fest, the Alghouls are creating a new halal festival highlighting global food, crafts and cultural shows, with afternoon and evening hours to reach a broader audience. The growth of these events coincides with the launch of other halal-centered gatherings in the city, including the overnight Atlanta Ramadan Food Festival in Norcross, the Feast of Eid al-Adha and the outdoor Atlanta Summer Halal Food Festival.
Echoing this growth, Alghoul said that a number of Halal Fest participating restaurants plan to keep halal options on their permanent menus. They want to do this, he said, because halal menus “kind of work as like a marketing tool.” He noted that on “festival day, a lot of these businesses are able for the first time ever to actually reach new customers and engage with them,” a first step toward making them inclusive of a greater community.
At World Fest, beyond the Western, Asian and Latin crossover options, guests will find quite a few cuisines that are not readily available in the Atlanta area. Bangladeshi cuisine is represented by Char Kingz pitmaster Nasrul Alam, who charcoal-grills 24-hour-marinated Bihari beef kabobs, while Umm Israa Kitchen serves ancient Mesopotamian Iraqi comforts like masgouf, a butterflied whole fish slow-roasted beside an open fire. Guests can also explore Vietnamese-Persian “pho-risian” skewers from Saffron Wok, Chinese pot stickers from Bun & Bites, Jordanian fusion Tex-Mex wraps from Shawarma Press and Palestinian ground lamb and beef kabobs from Master Butcher Halal Meat. For dessert, WowBooza pulls stretchy Turkish booza (mastic-gum ice cream) and Khaas fuses Pakistani gulab jamun with Italian cannoli shells.
All told, the festival at Gwinnett Place Mall will host 34 savory vendors, 12 dessert spots and eight drink makers, alongside nine clothing vendors and five art and jewelry booths. To navigate the event, guests can use the festival’s mobile app to check the live map, buy premium passes to skip the lines and preorder food.
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.