Around the corner from El Tesoro's forthcoming third location, construction is well underway on a barbecue concept meant to help form South Downtown's emerging town square.
Broad Street BBQ is converting three storefronts at 96, 98 and 100 Broad St. into a single restaurant with communal tables and a takeout window, continuing the district's pattern of reactivating long-vacant buildings rather than replacing them.
What stays
The renovation preserves the buildings' brick and plaster, along with the well-known American flag mural painted on one of them. For a block whose value has always been its intact early-20th-century storefronts, keeping the fabric is the entire point of the exercise.
Who is behind it
The proprietors are Jason Furst and Sam Pinner, the pair behind Sammy's, the sandwich shop that opened in Adair Park last month. Their goal is to be serving barbecue and batch cocktails in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, when Atlanta's matches begin roughly a year from now.
A note of caution from the developer
Atlanta Ventures partner Jon Birdsong offered a public caveat about the Broad Street renderings circulating among Atlanta development watchers, saying the finished product may not match them exactly, while promising another quality South Downtown destination is coming.
That kind of expectation management is unusual and probably healthy. South Downtown has produced more renderings than buildings over the past decade, and the current redevelopment has largely earned its credibility by opening tenants rather than publishing images.
The block is filling in
Broad Street BBQ joins a South Downtown food roster that now includes Tyde Tate Kitchen, Spiller Park Coffee, the incoming El Tesoro at 171 Mitchell St., Crates ATL and Delilah's Everyday Soul. Two blocks that were nearly entirely dark five years ago are now assembling something resembling a restaurant district, on a World Cup deadline.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published May 2025.
