A restaurant that would have been one of the more meaningful additions to South Downtown's quieter blocks is not happening. Butter + Scotch, the all-day concept from the team behind the celebrated Che Butter Jonez in Southwest Atlanta, has cancelled its plans to operate inside the Origin Hotel Atlanta at 166 Pryor St.
“Despite the excitement and community support,” the team announced by email Sunday, “unforeseen challenges during the development process have led the team to make the difficult decision to halt the project.”
The concept, from Chef Malik Rhasaan and owner Detric Fox-Quinlan, was pitched as an Afro-Caribbean and Southern mashup drawing on Rhasaan's native Queens and downhome comfort food. “We wanted to create something special for Atlanta,” Rhasaan said in a prepared statement. “This is not the end of our story.” The team says it remains optimistic the restaurant will surface elsewhere in the city.
The signals had been there. Back in April, Fox-Quinlan told Urbanize Atlanta that construction crews had run into hurdles at the property but that “everything promises to be absolutely beautiful upon completion.” The Origin, a Wyndham property converting a 1950s office building into 122 rooms, has been repeatedly delayed by construction issues. Hotel officials said last summer an October opening was realistic; the property still has not opened and is not accepting reservations until mid-January.
The loss lands harder than a typical restaurant cancellation because of where it was going. A ground-floor, all-day restaurant with an established local following was the piece that would have given the block a reason for non-guests to walk to it — the difference between a hotel that serves South Downtown and a hotel that merely sits in it. That storefront is now open again, a block south of Underground Atlanta and two blocks from the Georgia State Capitol.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published November 2024.
