Chefs Todd Ginsberg and Josh Kim are opening Ida's Kitchen Counter in South Downtown, with a debut set for the first week of August. It is the kind of arrival South Downtown has been waiting on: a restaurant from operators with a track record elsewhere in the city, choosing a stretch of blocks that has spent the last several years mostly in the middle of redevelopment rather than open for business.
Ginsberg and Kim are familiar names to anyone who follows Atlanta kitchens, and a counter-service format matters here for practical reasons. South Downtown's daytime population is a mix of office workers, court and government business, students and the residents filling in the neighborhood's renovated buildings. A counter concept serves all of them without requiring the sit-down commitment that has historically been a hard sell in this part of downtown outside of event days.
A few blocks north, Bank of America Plaza — the gold-topped tower most people know as the pencil building — is lining up several new dining concepts, including a private club, for openings next year. That is a notable shift for a building whose ground-floor food options have never matched its profile on the skyline. A private club in the tower also signals an attempt to give the North Avenue end of downtown a members-only anchor of the sort that has largely lived in Buckhead and Midtown.
Taken together, the two items point the same direction. Downtown's restaurant gap has never been about demand on game nights or convention weeks; it has been about the ordinary Tuesday, when workers and residents want somewhere to eat that is not a food court or a chain. Independent operators opening at street level in South Downtown, and a tower owner building a food program instead of leasing whatever will sign, are both bets on that weekday base.
Both projects still have to prove out. Ida's Kitchen Counter is the near-term one to watch, opening within days; the Bank of America Plaza concepts are a next-year story with no announced tenants or opening dates yet. Downtown readers should expect more detail on the tower's lineup as leases are signed.
Original reporting: Rough Draft Atlanta (2026-07-30)
