French Broad Chocolate opening at Ponce City Market and more restaurant news from the week

Bonbons from French Broad Chocolate.

Credit: French Broad Chocolate

Credit: French Broad Chocolate

Bonbons from French Broad Chocolate.

Popular Asheville craft chocolate shop French Broad Chocolate is bringing its sweets to Atlanta.

The business will open a location on the first floor of Ponce City Market’s Central Food Hall this fall, in a space that was most recently home to Batter Cookie Dough.

The shop will feature favorites from the Asheville location including bonbons with flavors like Salted Honey Caramel, Raspberry, and Lavender and Honey, and chocolate bars with flavors including Sea Salt, Brown Butter Milk and Chai Masala, plus a collection of single-origin dark chocolates.

Other offerings will include baked goods like salted caramel brownies with cacao nibs, and sipping chocolate, as well as a variety of retail items.

French Broad Chocolate was founded in 2006 by Jael Skeffington and Dan Rattigan, who first owned a café and dessert shop in Costa Rica. After moving to Asheville, the pair operated a farmers market stand before opening their first retail shop in 2008 and a chocolate factory in 2012.

After outgrowing their original location, they built a new factory along the French Broad River in 2018, where guests can take tours and learn about cacao and the chocolate-making process firsthand. The business is a certified B corporation, a “certification demonstrating a commitment to social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability,” according to a press release.

French Broad will join recently-opened concepts in the Central Food Hall including Umbrella Bar, Buenos Dias Cafe, Nani’s Piri Piri Chicken, Vietvana, Cake Culture, and Excuse My French. Spicewalla is set to open in the coming weeks, and later this year, Pizza Jeans will move to the first floor from the second.

Existing Ponce City Market food and beverage concepts include Atrium, Sweetgreen, Bar Vegan and Eleven TLC as well as longer-term tenants like H&F Burger, Biltong Bar and Ton Ton.

675 Ponce de Leon Ave. NE, Atlanta. umbrellabaratl.com

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A longtime Stone Mountain bakery is closing next week.

Apple Butter Bakery & Custom Cake Shoppe, located at 5370 Stone Mountain Hwy, announced its June 18 closure on its Instagram account:

Owner Shellane Brown, who opened the business nine years ago, said in the post that the bakery “wasn’t given another choice,” and looked forward to “bigger and better things down the road.”

Apple Butter Bakery offers a variety of custom cakes, pies and other baked goods.

Brown also opened Woodstone Bakery & Cafe in late 2021 in the Fayetteville development Trilith, serving baked goods in addition to charcuterie and coffee drinks developed by Brown’s husband Daniel, the co-owner of Gilly Brew Bar in Stone Mountain.

Brown did not immediately respond to the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s request for more information.

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Cajun seafood restaurant Cap’t Loui is set to open at 319 West Ponce de Leon Ave. in Decatur, taking over the former Highland Bakery space, Tomorrow’s News Today reports. Cap’t Loui has one location in Duluth.

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West Midtown restaurant Juniper Cafe is now serving all-day Sunday brunch from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

The menu features Vietnamese takes on brunch dishes including Hot Fried Chicken and a Biscuit made with spicy and crispy chicken, chili crisp, jicama-cabbage slaw and a biscuit with jam; Grilled Steak & Eggs, a marinated grilled skirt steak served with two wok-fried sunny side up eggs and petit diamond city green salad; and Bacon, Egg and Veggie Fried Rice.

Other options include small plates, breakfast pastries and dessert, and brunch beverages like bottomless mimosas and Day at the Beach, a cocktail with spiced rum, pineapple, coconut, rosé, thai basil cardamom and dark rum float.

The eatery, which opened in 2021 at 2260 Marietta Blvd. NW, comes from chefs Ron Hsu and Aaron Phillips of Lazy Betty and beverage director Carl Van Tyle Gilbert. The trio also plan to open Humble Pie in the Midtown development the Interlock later this year.

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Florida-based Foxtail Coffee Co. is set to open its first Atlanta location in the Prominence Apartments building at 3699 Lenox Road NE, What Now Atlanta reports. It will join the first Georgia location in Newnan.

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Szechuan restaurant Wok Provisions has opened at 2750 Buford Highway in Duluth, Tomorrow’s News Today reports. The restaurant comes from Gary Lin, who is also a partner in Wei Authentic Chinese in Buford and Marietta, Hai Chinese in Decatur and Alpharetta, Urban Wu in Buckhead and Hao Chinese at Camp Creek. He also has plans to open Urban Hai this summer in Midtown.

More dining news:

Starbucks at Howell Mill first Atlanta-area store to approve union

Bene Korean Steakhouse coming to Uptown Atlanta

Restaurant, cocktail lounge set for Kimpton Wade Hotel

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