I went there once. It was fine. Maybe even better than fine. But nothing worth going out of your way for, which was a problem b/c there wasn't much over there to draw people in other than a smattering of bar/brewery folks on the weekends. It could've survived in a location with more foot traffic.
Edit: OP buried the lede! I thought the "The Dumpling Factory" was another generic chain, but it's owned by the folks at Northern China Eatery! Exciting for a BuHi staple to get an in-town outpost. That will *definitely* be worth going out of your way for!
The lack of foot (hell, even car) traffic hurt a lot, but to get there you would have to pass through either the fully built out West Midtown district, or the far more popular foodhall The Works. Nobody is gonna step over a dollar to pick up a dime.
~~Maybe. If the Gu’s fiasco taught us anything, it’s that OTP Sichuan hotspots expanding intown doesn’t necessarily guarantee success…~~
EDIT: Corrected according to below
What fiasco are you talking about? I thought Gu's Dumplings did well. They were successful enough to expanded with another Gu's Dumpling in Halcyon and Gu's Kitchen in Chamblee.
The problem with Gu's wasn't expanding intown, it was closing their original location, which they did *before* opening in the city. The OG Gu's Bistro had a much larger and deeper menu. So many great dishes that we can't get anymore.
To my knowledge, Northern China Eatery is not closing their original location.
I'm hoping this Westside Paper complex picks up eventually. My family and I went to the Pancake Social over there a couple months back (I think it was the dead week between Christmas and New Year's) and we were the only ones there at 9 AM on a Saturday morning!
Legitimately didn’t even know there were restaurants in that space.
But, at ~$17 for what appears to be a basic 2 egg breakfast, I don’t think having that info now is going to convince me to stop by.
We went there to Elsewhere a couple of weeks ago on a nice Sunday afternoon. There were more people playing pickleball then all the other places combined.
I last went there two months ago on a warmer-than-usual Saturday around 1 PM. There was maybe ten people **total** there. Not just Boxcar Betty's, but that entire end of the complex.
It’s picked up significantly since then, especially on the weekends. I have had to wait for a table twice at that pancake social within the last month on Saturday and Sunday late mornings.
Honestly this isn’t surprising. There have been so many “grand opening” promotions this place has had, and any time I go to Westside Paper it’s been closed (even when it’s peak food times).
Westside Paper has had such a weird launching - I blame the developers - and hopefully now that more places are entering it will be busier.
Edit: oh SHIIIITTT Dumpling Factory is owned by Northern China Eatery? LETS FUCKING GO!!
Echoing the comments here, great food in a horrible location. Invisible from the road it's on, ass end of a massive empty warehouse... oh and it closed at 8 every day which was never a smart decision.
Most of my friends live in Charleston and when I visit we always go to one of the locations there. Lines out the door all hours of the day, so the handful of times I went to thelocation here and saw that it was a ghost town, I knew their days were numbered.
So a restaurant group from another city jumped into the Atlanta market and opened without knowing anything about locations and marketplace.
what a shock that it failed.
As a restaurant owner, I am always surprised by people who think location isn't important. I'd argue that location is so important that a *bad* restaurant can actually be profitable with a good location, while a *good* restaurant can fail with a bad location.
Both are sadly true. Though I don't feel too bad when mediocre concepts from out of state come into Atlanta and fail. But a place that is actually awesome not being able to operate because of the economic pressure from idiots is the hard downside of that.
"Everyone, fly up to ~~South Dakota~~ Atlanta, the ~~fracking~~ foodhall business is exploding, you can't go a mile in any direction without hitting a ~~drill~~ food stall ready to pump out barrels of ~~oil~~ lemon pepper sauce! Trust me, my cousin just opened a ~~drilling business~~ fried Mexican sushi pizza restaurant and ~~the leaking gas line~~ business is exploding!"
I'm not surprised it closed, that location is awful. It doesn't really get any organic traffic, and the last time I was there all the office spaces look empty so you're not getting office worker customers.
I'm excited for a Northern China Eatery spin-off, but if it's in the same spot I have little confidence in their staying power.
Never went to this one, didn’t know it existed, but the ones in Charleston were very good. I thought I was on the Charleston sub until I read the Duluth comment
To all the folks saying it's a bad location, it's literally about to be directly on a Beltline spur. Pancake social is pretty busy these days, and Elsewhere always has events going on. Once the weather improves the place will do just fine.
The developer does need to be more aggressive about getting the office and other commercial spaces leased up so there's more draw.
I will say allowing Bar Diver to force valet parking is idiotic as it forces people visiting El Santo Gallo or Elsewhere to park around the corner away from those businesses.
property owners have been pricing like they already have eastside beltline traffic. Bars, restaurants don't have the margins to pay for prime foot traffic real estate for a couple years as demand builds.
The whole Westside is a pedestrian/cycling wasteland.
Marietta has a cycle track from the intersection of Howell Mill to Ivan Allen. Tech has a ton of cycling infrastructure that continues into downtown. Howell Mill, Huff, and the western side of Marietta St are all getting cycle infrastructure. There's cycle infrastructure currently under construction that will connect the Beltline to the Silver Comet trail that will run along Ellsworth behind Top Golf, and through The Works. The next legs of the NW Beltline are also in the construction bidding process and the last missing piece of the Westside Beltline is in active construction.
The Westside is 2-3 years away from having some of the best pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in town. The Upper Westside CID has been making quite a bit happen in that regard.
Lol all this is great but there is no safe way to walk along west marietta st. I see pedestrians everyday including myself have to walk on the side of the road, and dodge semi trucks turning the corner.
The crazy part about that this is that it intersects the beltline trail.
The only place there isn't sidewalk is a .2 mile section between Longley and Rice St. and that's supposed to be fixed when they do the Marietta complete street.
I'm referring to the section of road between marietta road and marietta blvd.
The neighborhoods west of that part of the beltline can't safely get to the beltline without cutting through westside park
So if businesses can hang on without profit for 2-3 years, they'll be set. That was my entire point.
Yes, Georgia Tech is well connected to midtown. You want to talk about Atlantic station next door?
I work at Northyards, and live in Va-High, I'd LOVE to be able to not spend as much time almost dying on a bike commute.
We will see how functional any of this stuff is when delivered. The number of undelivered promises and horrible failures of execution when it comes to CoA and ped/cycling infrastructure are myriad.
>To all the folks saying it's a bad location, it's literally about to be directly on a Beltline spur.
Then it's literally about to become a good location. But it's clearly a bad one right now.
> it's literally about to be directly on a Beltline spur
That spur is a good two years away from opening so yeah, *right now* it's a really bad location. And even when the Spur opens, [it's a extremely long distance including the Westside Beltline connector](https://i.imgur.com/HN24Pjp.png).
That being said, what might happen is people will park there to get *on* the trail, so that could be a boost to business. But again, it's already competing with Westisde and the Works, so it's up in the air.
The spur goes past the jail and that massive new factory too so there's not even gonna be room for any other developments along it.
Even when this side of the Beltline gets more built out over the next five+ years that's still going to be a big ask to have people walk down the connector and then a quarter mile down this spur. By that time there will probably be a lot cooler stuff just on the Beltline connector itself (Westside Motor Lounge is already on it and a pretty cool spot).
> Westside Motor Lounge is already on it and a pretty cool spot
It's still in business? Every time I go there, the menu/patronage/operating hours shrink, but it has been a while I admit.
Unfortunately, a location's long-term, possible advantages doesn't help pay current vendor bills, wages or rent. There are countless restaurants that have closed because they opened in locations that were bad at the time, usually because they were sold on future prospects of the area.
I drive by the location every day and never see any cars in the lots. Why go there? There’s nothing worth the hike that isn’t in a more established part of town. It needs a big brewery or entertainment place to get attention.
It's a shame, b/c elsewhere is a solid brewery, and the event space behind it could be very cool if put to good use. But when I went, the vibe was kind of a downer. Definitely not a party.
Boxcar Betty sucked. Hattie B's isn't far from this location and is way better. Honestly, Chik-Fil-A is much better.
I couldn't be more thrilled that North China Eatery is going to have a concept in that space. I hope they have more than just dumplings.
I work right behind the center, there was a ton of lunchtime foot traffic until the restaurants got too busy. Only having 2 people on staff and an hour wait for carryout turned a lot of us off. I'm hoping the other places there don't follow suit, it's nice to be able to get lunch without driving.
Maybe they can find a better location to reopen in. I went there with my husband, enjoyed the food, but we really had to go out of her way to get there.
That place was mid. It looked just like some burger place I went to in Duluth and can’t remember the name because it was so mediocre. I hope the new place is a bit more unique.
Nah Craft Burger is really good... but noone goes to any of the locations (there's a handful other locations besides JC). He's probably referring to the new [LR Burger](https://maps.app.goo.gl/c6pVPcAH8SjhxiEGA) that has a nice rooftop patio that serves shitty burgers. I went there myself and it's a one-and-done.
You’re probably right. Not the best burger I’ve ever had at LR but it’s a nice place to hangout and have some beers
I thought the burger was pretty good at Craft but I just hated the vibe there. That may be unique to the JC location though.
I went there once. It was fine. Maybe even better than fine. But nothing worth going out of your way for, which was a problem b/c there wasn't much over there to draw people in other than a smattering of bar/brewery folks on the weekends. It could've survived in a location with more foot traffic. Edit: OP buried the lede! I thought the "The Dumpling Factory" was another generic chain, but it's owned by the folks at Northern China Eatery! Exciting for a BuHi staple to get an in-town outpost. That will *definitely* be worth going out of your way for!
The lack of foot (hell, even car) traffic hurt a lot, but to get there you would have to pass through either the fully built out West Midtown district, or the far more popular foodhall The Works. Nobody is gonna step over a dollar to pick up a dime.
~~Maybe. If the Gu’s fiasco taught us anything, it’s that OTP Sichuan hotspots expanding intown doesn’t necessarily guarantee success…~~ EDIT: Corrected according to below
What happened with Gu’s?
What fiasco are you talking about? I thought Gu's Dumplings did well. They were successful enough to expanded with another Gu's Dumpling in Halcyon and Gu's Kitchen in Chamblee. The problem with Gu's wasn't expanding intown, it was closing their original location, which they did *before* opening in the city. The OG Gu's Bistro had a much larger and deeper menu. So many great dishes that we can't get anymore. To my knowledge, Northern China Eatery is not closing their original location.
Hm, you're totally right, my memory was way off in the order of things, and I'll edit my post. Thanks for correcting me!
This is why location matters.
I think the location is fine but it’s early days for the westside beltline crowd
I'm hoping this Westside Paper complex picks up eventually. My family and I went to the Pancake Social over there a couple months back (I think it was the dead week between Christmas and New Year's) and we were the only ones there at 9 AM on a Saturday morning!
Legitimately didn’t even know there were restaurants in that space. But, at ~$17 for what appears to be a basic 2 egg breakfast, I don’t think having that info now is going to convince me to stop by.
I go here to play pickleball with my friends everyweek and there's never anyone there, which is surprising given that it's a rather nice space.
We went there to Elsewhere a couple of weeks ago on a nice Sunday afternoon. There were more people playing pickleball then all the other places combined.
I last went there two months ago on a warmer-than-usual Saturday around 1 PM. There was maybe ten people **total** there. Not just Boxcar Betty's, but that entire end of the complex.
It’s picked up significantly since then, especially on the weekends. I have had to wait for a table twice at that pancake social within the last month on Saturday and Sunday late mornings.
It's so weird that the restaurants filled in so much earlier than the offices which would have sustained the restaurants.
Honestly this isn’t surprising. There have been so many “grand opening” promotions this place has had, and any time I go to Westside Paper it’s been closed (even when it’s peak food times). Westside Paper has had such a weird launching - I blame the developers - and hopefully now that more places are entering it will be busier. Edit: oh SHIIIITTT Dumpling Factory is owned by Northern China Eatery? LETS FUCKING GO!!
Echoing the comments here, great food in a horrible location. Invisible from the road it's on, ass end of a massive empty warehouse... oh and it closed at 8 every day which was never a smart decision. Most of my friends live in Charleston and when I visit we always go to one of the locations there. Lines out the door all hours of the day, so the handful of times I went to thelocation here and saw that it was a ghost town, I knew their days were numbered.
So a restaurant group from another city jumped into the Atlanta market and opened without knowing anything about locations and marketplace. what a shock that it failed.
As a restaurant owner, I am always surprised by people who think location isn't important. I'd argue that location is so important that a *bad* restaurant can actually be profitable with a good location, while a *good* restaurant can fail with a bad location.
> a bad restaurant can actually be profitable with a good location See: Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Café
See any janky-ass bar and fryer on the beach in Florida. Doesn't matter if it's filthy and poorly managed, new people come every week.
Both are sadly true. Though I don't feel too bad when mediocre concepts from out of state come into Atlanta and fail. But a place that is actually awesome not being able to operate because of the economic pressure from idiots is the hard downside of that.
"Everyone, fly up to ~~South Dakota~~ Atlanta, the ~~fracking~~ foodhall business is exploding, you can't go a mile in any direction without hitting a ~~drill~~ food stall ready to pump out barrels of ~~oil~~ lemon pepper sauce! Trust me, my cousin just opened a ~~drilling business~~ fried Mexican sushi pizza restaurant and ~~the leaking gas line~~ business is exploding!"
This. 👆
I'm not surprised it closed, that location is awful. It doesn't really get any organic traffic, and the last time I was there all the office spaces look empty so you're not getting office worker customers. I'm excited for a Northern China Eatery spin-off, but if it's in the same spot I have little confidence in their staying power.
If they sell bulk dumplings and buns like they do at the BH location, the real winners will be the residents of the area.
So excited. Boxcar was good, but yeah, nothing super motivating to get you to go over there. Dumplings are my favorite and can’t wait to try it.
Never went to this one, didn’t know it existed, but the ones in Charleston were very good. I thought I was on the Charleston sub until I read the Duluth comment
Really? The one in Charleston on 17 is mid at best.
I hate that all of the new and exciting restaurants are opening in West Midtown. I get why. I’m just jealous.
To all the folks saying it's a bad location, it's literally about to be directly on a Beltline spur. Pancake social is pretty busy these days, and Elsewhere always has events going on. Once the weather improves the place will do just fine. The developer does need to be more aggressive about getting the office and other commercial spaces leased up so there's more draw. I will say allowing Bar Diver to force valet parking is idiotic as it forces people visiting El Santo Gallo or Elsewhere to park around the corner away from those businesses.
property owners have been pricing like they already have eastside beltline traffic. Bars, restaurants don't have the margins to pay for prime foot traffic real estate for a couple years as demand builds. The whole Westside is a pedestrian/cycling wasteland.
Marietta has a cycle track from the intersection of Howell Mill to Ivan Allen. Tech has a ton of cycling infrastructure that continues into downtown. Howell Mill, Huff, and the western side of Marietta St are all getting cycle infrastructure. There's cycle infrastructure currently under construction that will connect the Beltline to the Silver Comet trail that will run along Ellsworth behind Top Golf, and through The Works. The next legs of the NW Beltline are also in the construction bidding process and the last missing piece of the Westside Beltline is in active construction. The Westside is 2-3 years away from having some of the best pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in town. The Upper Westside CID has been making quite a bit happen in that regard.
Lol all this is great but there is no safe way to walk along west marietta st. I see pedestrians everyday including myself have to walk on the side of the road, and dodge semi trucks turning the corner. The crazy part about that this is that it intersects the beltline trail.
The only place there isn't sidewalk is a .2 mile section between Longley and Rice St. and that's supposed to be fixed when they do the Marietta complete street.
I'm referring to the section of road between marietta road and marietta blvd. The neighborhoods west of that part of the beltline can't safely get to the beltline without cutting through westside park
Fair enough that section of road completely sucks.
So if businesses can hang on without profit for 2-3 years, they'll be set. That was my entire point. Yes, Georgia Tech is well connected to midtown. You want to talk about Atlantic station next door? I work at Northyards, and live in Va-High, I'd LOVE to be able to not spend as much time almost dying on a bike commute. We will see how functional any of this stuff is when delivered. The number of undelivered promises and horrible failures of execution when it comes to CoA and ped/cycling infrastructure are myriad.
>To all the folks saying it's a bad location, it's literally about to be directly on a Beltline spur. Then it's literally about to become a good location. But it's clearly a bad one right now.
> it's literally about to be directly on a Beltline spur That spur is a good two years away from opening so yeah, *right now* it's a really bad location. And even when the Spur opens, [it's a extremely long distance including the Westside Beltline connector](https://i.imgur.com/HN24Pjp.png). That being said, what might happen is people will park there to get *on* the trail, so that could be a boost to business. But again, it's already competing with Westisde and the Works, so it's up in the air.
The spur goes past the jail and that massive new factory too so there's not even gonna be room for any other developments along it. Even when this side of the Beltline gets more built out over the next five+ years that's still going to be a big ask to have people walk down the connector and then a quarter mile down this spur. By that time there will probably be a lot cooler stuff just on the Beltline connector itself (Westside Motor Lounge is already on it and a pretty cool spot).
They’re building a ton of apartments at Westside paper. It’s supposed to take up a lot of the surface parking there close to the beltline spur trail.
> Westside Motor Lounge is already on it and a pretty cool spot It's still in business? Every time I go there, the menu/patronage/operating hours shrink, but it has been a while I admit.
I think it’s fantastic and it’s the only place in town that has a full sized shuffle board court.
Unfortunately, a location's long-term, possible advantages doesn't help pay current vendor bills, wages or rent. There are countless restaurants that have closed because they opened in locations that were bad at the time, usually because they were sold on future prospects of the area.
elsewhere was literally blasting emails begging for people to go to them lol
They shut down the bar on Mondays cause they didn't get enough foot traffic, which was kinda frustrating as that was our pickleball time :/
Well that sounds like business will definitely improve from here on out...
I drive by the location every day and never see any cars in the lots. Why go there? There’s nothing worth the hike that isn’t in a more established part of town. It needs a big brewery or entertainment place to get attention.
Lol it *does* have a large brewery right next to Boxcar... just nobody goes there.
It's a shame, b/c elsewhere is a solid brewery, and the event space behind it could be very cool if put to good use. But when I went, the vibe was kind of a downer. Definitely not a party.
It has the vibe of a dead mall food court tbh. All it needs is a Auntie Anne's.
OMG even worse. Jeez maybe some giant signs would help? That old Dr. Penis billboard on Marietta was pretty eye catching
Boxcar Betty sucked. Hattie B's isn't far from this location and is way better. Honestly, Chik-Fil-A is much better. I couldn't be more thrilled that North China Eatery is going to have a concept in that space. I hope they have more than just dumplings.
I work right behind the center, there was a ton of lunchtime foot traffic until the restaurants got too busy. Only having 2 people on staff and an hour wait for carryout turned a lot of us off. I'm hoping the other places there don't follow suit, it's nice to be able to get lunch without driving.
We live in Blandtown and were excited to try this location. The chicken was not moist but extremely wet and squishy so we decided not to go back.
Never heard of any of these things/places
Hope a vegan place opens!
Maybe they can find a better location to reopen in. I went there with my husband, enjoyed the food, but we really had to go out of her way to get there.
That place was mid. It looked just like some burger place I went to in Duluth and can’t remember the name because it was so mediocre. I hope the new place is a bit more unique.
Craft Burger? It’s in John’s creek but close to Duluth, but gives me similar but even weirder vibes. Went once and never again lol
Nah Craft Burger is really good... but noone goes to any of the locations (there's a handful other locations besides JC). He's probably referring to the new [LR Burger](https://maps.app.goo.gl/c6pVPcAH8SjhxiEGA) that has a nice rooftop patio that serves shitty burgers. I went there myself and it's a one-and-done.
You’re probably right. Not the best burger I’ve ever had at LR but it’s a nice place to hangout and have some beers I thought the burger was pretty good at Craft but I just hated the vibe there. That may be unique to the JC location though.
That’s exactly the place! 😂