February 2024
Features
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Atlantans share why they love their neighborhoods and what makes them stay
ITP, OTP, east side, west side—where you live can be as big a part of your identity as the team you cheer for, and Atlantans pick with pride. Here, residents discuss what led them to their corner of the metro, and why they stay.
Atlanta BeltLine’s proposed rail is at a crossroads
Is Atlanta BeltLine rail transit the path toward a more functional, equitable city—or another expensive boondoggle waiting to happen? Weighing both sides of a very passionate debate.
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The Connector
Attorneys speak out about obstacles facing immigrants to Georgia
On any given day, Serene Hawasli Kashlan is responding to the legal needs of some 88 clients. They represent more than 36 different countries, she says, but they all share a common goal, to make the United States their permanent home. As managing asylum attorney at the Georgia Asylum and Immigration Network (GAIN), she’s among a relatively small group of metro Atlanta professionals providing a service that’s in high demand: pro bono representation for those who are seeking asylum.
BlackCatTips is painting at the corner of street art and folk art
“I don’t think I’ve ever done an interview while sitting on a bucket,” Kyle Brooks, also known as the artist BlackCatTips, muses while sitting on a blue plastic painter’s bucket. It’s a sunny afternoon in Virginia-Highland, and Brooks has begun painting a mural outside Ash Coffee. The cafe-meets-knickknack-shop opened just a few days ago and is already bustling. On the concrete wall outside, Brooks has completed a large white circle, where the cafe’s red logo will go. Next, he’ll add an abundance of whimsical, colorful characters: some mountains, some mushrooms, some faces of fanciful and unknown origin.
New professional sports teams launch in Atlanta
Not sure if you’ve ever tried launching a professional sports team before, but there’s a lot to it. Selecting logos. Setting schedules. Building hype. But apparently, Atlanta makes choosing a home city easy. In addition to the familiar big leagues, new pro teams are coming to the ATL.
These plumber’s daughters are carrying on the family business
“Our marketing is all hot pink and sparkles—we just decided to have fun with it,” says Michelle Cary. “Our slogan is ‘Armed, Licensed and Fabulous.’ We posed all the women plumbers in prom dresses—they were not excited at first, but it came out really great. We have hot-pink hard hats. Why not? We have fun.”
Does Atlanta have guaranteed-income programs?
Universal basic income (UBI) isn’t a new idea, but in a dystopian world with pandemics and a growing wealth divide, the utopian concept seems more practical than ever before. Some of Atlanta’s biggest players have bought in and are investing in small-scale guaranteed-income pilot programs.
The Bite
Oyster shells from Atlanta restaurants are helping save the Georgia coast
Hunt Revell realized that oysters are more than just slurpable happy hour treats when he taught high school in New York City. A Georgia boy, he remarked to his coworkers that he grew up eating oysters all the time, to which they replied, “‘Yeah, but we like them because they filter 50 gallons of water a day, and they’re good for the marine habitat, and oyster reefs can help with storm surge, flooding, and erosion, and we think they’re a great sustainable food source,’” recalls Revell. “I was like, Whoa, okay, that’s a whole ’nother level of love for oysters.” This stuck with him when he moved back home, and in 2021 he cofounded Shell to Shore, an oyster shell recycling nonprofit, in hopes of restoring Georgia’s shorelines.
The verdict on 3 new Atlanta food and drink spots: Rwby, El Malo, and Finca to Filter
A Mediterranean gem opens in Midtown, a bar specializing in agave and rum opens in Reynoldstown, and O4W gets a new coffee shop.
Atlanta chef and nutritionist Agatha Achindu is an evangelist for fresh foods
You are what you eat. It’s a simple philosophy, and one that Agatha Achindu, who recently released her newest cookbook, Bountiful Cooking: Wholesome Everyday Meals to Nourish You and Your Family, grew up with. The Atlanta nutritionist, speaker, chef, teacher, and founder of national baby food brand Yummy Spoonfuls believes that incorporating vibrant fruits and vegetables into your daily diet is the ticket to a healthy life.
Forget Buc-ee’s. Stuckey’s is still my roadside stop of choice.
As both a candy addict and a new convert to road trips, I must have stopped at the original Stuckey’s along Highway 23 in Eastman, Georgia, the birthplace of their famous pecan log roll. I’d forgotten all about that squishy, sugary treat, coated in caramel and rolled in coarsely chopped pecans, until last year, when bright displays of Stuckey’s venerable snack products caught my eye, first at the Candler Park Market, then at my local Ace Hardware. “What is going on there?,” I remember thinking.
The Goods
Why we’ll always need Turner Classic Movies
Like other creative enterprises that get national exposure but can be overlooked in their hometowns, Turner Classic Movies is a lodestar for fans of classic film that is sometimes taken for granted in Atlanta. The network’s film-purist canon of uncut, commercial-free movies, piped into American homes like cinematic catnip 24 hours a day, has made it a beloved binge-watch for top directors like Nancy Meyers, Alexander Payne, and Martin Scorsese.
In Atlanta, the jewelry business is often a multigenerational affair
The pull of familial ties is strong in many industries. But in Atlanta, nowhere is this more true than in the jewelry business. Many local companies span decades and generations, often deeply rooted in their communities. Here are seven family-run Atlanta-area jewelry stores to browse.
Room Envy: A relaxed dining room in West End
“Low seating feels more relaxed than traditional seating,” says Palmer Schallon, who built the furniture in this dining room. He and his wife, Melissa—both set decorators in the film industry—recently moved to this West End home from Los Angeles.
Miscellaneous
A love letter to Zoo Atlanta’s pandas
In August 2016, my oldest daughter, Vivien, started kindergarten at Parkside Elementary School in Grant Park, just a few blocks down the street from Zoo Atlanta. The school—which opened in 2001, shortly after the arrival of the zoo’s first giant pandas, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, in 1999—adopted the iconic creature as a mascot. Since then, seven pandas have been born at the zoo, with the youngest, a pair of twins, born just a month after Vivien started school.
