Atlanta Black Restaurant Week runs through Aug. 16, and it is the single easiest thing on this week's dining calendar for a downtown resident to act on. The promotion carries a published lineup of participating restaurants across the city, and it is the kind of event that rewards working through the list rather than defaulting to the same three lunch spots near the office. Anyone eating downtown on a weekday has a two-week window to spend that money somewhere new.
Just east of downtown, Manuel's Tavern is marking 70 years in Poncey-Highland with a multi-day celebration that started Aug. 6 and runs through Aug. 9. The bar is running food specials and selling an exclusive 70th anniversary T-shirt, with live performances from the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable, The Four O'Clocks, and a one-man circus act on stilts. Manuel's has been a fixture of local political life for most of those seven decades, which is a large part of why a neighborhood tavern's birthday registers as city news at all.
Summerhill gets its own entry on the calendar: Press Shop and Halfway Crooks Beer are hosting a cookbook club potluck on Aug. 13 from 7 to 9 p.m., with Gulf Coast cuisine as the month's theme. It is a short trip from the south end of downtown and one of the few recurring food events in the neighborhood that asks participants to actually cook rather than just show up and buy a plate.
On the closure side, Tuk Tuk Thai Food Loft in Buckhead shut down this week after 16 years, per WSB-TV. The restaurant was owned by chef DeeDee Niyomkul and the family's Tamarind Restaurant Group, which also operates Nan Thai Fine Dining in Midtown and Buckhead. Gusto! closed its 17th Street location, first reported by Tomorrow's News Today, and Smorgasburg Atlanta is on summer break until Sept. 12. Adam J's Grilled Cheese in the Pittsburgh neighborhood goes on hiatus next week while its owners weigh next steps, with a planned reopening Aug. 14.
A few other items worth knowing: Filipino pop-up Zarate Tiki Co. is becoming a full restaurant in East Atlanta Village, and East Coast chain &pizza will open at The Interlock on Howell Mill Road in September, joining five pizzerias already in that stretch. Buc-ee's has sued North Georgia chain Teddy's Market over its teddy-bear-in-a-ball-cap logo, one of 27 similar trademark suits the Texas travel-center chain has filed against small businesses nationally; Teddy's owners called the case groundless and bad faith. And in the department of things nobody downtown needs: Roaring Social in Decatur and Alpharetta is selling a $10,000 martini garnished with beluga caviar and a five-carat diamond tennis necklace.
Original reporting: Rough Draft Atlanta (2026-08-06)
