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Social Restaurant and Wine Bar closes Downtown
By caleb j. spivak+ on July 27, 2011
Restaurant.com informs certificate holders the restaurant is no longer in business.
Social Restaurant and Wine Bar is closed.
Bill Addison with Atlanta Magazine first broke the news on Twitter Wednesday.
Restaurant.com, a website that offers deals for dining out, sent patrons who had unused certificates to Social an email notifying them the restaurant had closed.
“Our records indicate you have not used certificate number 5XXXXX purchased for Social Resto Cafe Bar,” an email to a What Now Atlanta reader said. “We are contacting you to inform you that this restaurant is no longer in business.”
For other certificate holders, the value remains and can be exchanged for another restaurant, according to the email.
Several attempts to reach Social Restaurant and Wine Bar via telephone Wednesday went unanswered.
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Chris
July 27, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Sad, another downtown restaurant goes down. It’s a bad location surrounded by a sea of parking lots.
Dimitri
July 27, 2011 at 2:53 pm
why is it sad? that’s the nature of the beast. everyone is sad but those same people never went to support it. the food was mediocre, drinks were weak, location terrible (you got homeless sleeping in the doorway next door), but the owners were nice though. it was not exactly the first place that pops up into people’s heads for a night out on the town.
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Urbanist
July 27, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Sucks…this was a great place
396
July 27, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Sucks indeed. I liked being able to direct out-of-towners over there when they asked me about restaurants downtown.
Chris
July 27, 2011 at 5:17 pm
@Dimitri, it’s sad because it’s another downtown restaurant failing. Downtown just seems to have a tough time holding onto places, more than other areas of town. And it doesn’t help that downtown does not get that much “local” support.
However this part of downtown sucks as you said because of the massive amount of homeless. Bum central.
Mark
July 27, 2011 at 6:21 pm
It’s a shame, as I work down town, and it could be SO much more than it is. A vibrant, busy, area that attracts tourists and locals alike is not inconceivable, but the city just continually puts its head in the sand about the basic quality of life issues. It is a bummer; Social had very good food and a very cool, unique atmosphere. Atlanta needs more places like Social, not less, but until the city realizes that continually being asked for money and having the opportunity to appreciate the smell of fresh urine really aren’t all that fun, I think the places not lasting long trend will, unfortunately, continue.
Jason
July 27, 2011 at 7:34 pm
It’s bum central because bums love parking lots. Very few people sticking around to hassle you but enough coming and going to their cars to hit up for money. Plus some people leave CDs, money, laptops and other easy to fence items on their seats, ready to be stolen.
Replace the surface parking lots with actively used buildings and the bums will drift away for the most part. Having lived a few blocks from Social for almost a decade I can tell you that the bum count is much lower than it was before the building of Twelve, the W Hotel, Ernst & Young, and the Southern Company HQ. Hopefully someone buys the poorly conceived Allen Plaza properties from Barry Development and makes productive use of them.
Darin
July 27, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Very sad about this. Social was my favorite. I live downtown and visited here about 2 or 3 times a month since they opened. What a special place — unlike anything else in Atlanta, much less downtown.
Homeless people regularly sleep in front of the clinic at the end of West Peachtree Place, though I never personally encountered panhandlers or urine smells (as reported above) on my many visits here. But I will agree with Chris in that the massive amount of surface parking near here does drag the area down significantly. Parking lots are not good neighbors — and they certainly aren’t catalysts for the kind of foot traffic needed for downtown businesses.
Jason
July 27, 2011 at 10:33 pm
I blame Park Atlanta for this
Jason
July 27, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Given the large number of super cheap parking lots next to Social, there is no way Park Atlanta had anything to do with this.
Mark
July 28, 2011 at 10:13 am
@ Darin: was speaking to downtown area as a whole, not just specifically the area around Social. In the midst of seeing customers yesterday in the 5 Points area, for example, I was hit up for money roughly 10 times, and smelled piss at least 5. Hardly an atypical day in that regard either. What’s really ironic there is the very visible APD prescence on the roads in the area. I saw, in that time, at least 7 cars pulled over for traffic violations. The City would clearly rather generate some additional revenue via traffic tickets than do anything to address the bums. The morons that run this city are really holding it back…
jason
July 29, 2011 at 7:51 pm
I blame Park Atlanta because most people do not want to have to pay for parking when they can go somewhere else and dine without the extra hassle
Mike
July 31, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Social should have been in Midtown… or Castleberry Hill… I bet it would still be open if it was.
Joe
August 1, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Sad news, the Social was really the best restaurant in town. Consistently good and inventive food, very friendly staff and management, and in my opinion a hold-out location on a quiet street in a great old building.
But the real treat at the Social was the atmosphere–always conducive to conviviality and friendly exchange. I spent many a fine night there and will truly miss this, home away from home, like no other restaurant in Atlanta.
My best to Ray, Yann, Joelle, Stefan, and the rest of the crew as they move on…
Isa Blumi
August 1, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Another reason to leave Atlanta for good. My brothers and sisters of Social, you were my home in this other wise “homeless” city. Si vous plais, je suis en Geneve, il faux me trouve la bas!
allez ikhwani, shukran li kull
Carrel
December 1, 2011 at 6:56 am
may by im joint for this…