Azalea Fresh Market, the full-service grocery store that opened inside the historic Olympia Building at 25 Peachtree Street last fall, has rung up its 150,000th customer. For a downtown that spent the better part of a decade classified as a food desert, the milestone is more than a marketing number — it’s evidence that the demand was always here, waiting for someone to stock the shelves.
The store is the product of a public-private partnership between the City of Atlanta, Invest Atlanta, Buckhead-based grocer Savi Provisions, and the Independent Grocers Alliance, with CEO Paul Nair running day-to-day operations. The footprint leans into the realities of downtown shopping: fresh produce and pantry staples for residents at Centennial Yards and the surrounding apartment towers, prepared foods and grab-and-go meals for office workers and Georgia State students, and a small café for the lunch crowd. Nair told reporters the ready-to-eat side now accounts for nearly a fifth of sales.
Mayor Andre Dickens said the store “has helped expand access to fresh and affordable food” and called it a case study in “how public-private partnerships can address food-access challenges.” Nair described Azalea as “a community-focused model that combines access to fresh food with support for local businesses,” a nod to the local vendors stocked alongside national brands.
The 150,000-customer number lands as the operator breaks ground on its next location: a 16,000-square-foot store at Campbellton Plaza in southwest Atlanta, slated to open in fall 2026. Together, the two stores would put Azalea in the rare category of an Atlanta-launched grocery chain expanding into the neighborhoods larger operators have historically skipped. For downtown, the more immediate signal is simpler: people who live, work, and study here will keep buying their groceries here if someone bothers to sell them.
Original reporting: Rough Draft Atlanta
