Photograph by Taylor O’Sullivan.
Quintessential Southern restaurant Mary Mac’s Tea Room has reopened after a part of the roof collapsed throughout a storm in March. Happily, nobody was inside on the time. Identified for giant parts of signature dishes like fried hen, black-eyed peas, collard greens and cornbread dressing, the 13,000-square-foot eatery has turn out to be a staple in midtown Ponce.
It was one in all 16 tearooms (women-owned eating places) in Atlanta when Mary McKenzie opened it in 1945. As we speak, it’s the longest standing from that point. Over time, it has undergone quite a few modifications whereas sustaining the spirit of the place. It expanded into six eating rooms and hosted politicians, dignitaries and musicians from Hillary Clinton and John Lewis to the Dalai Lama and Beyoncé. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, John Ferrell—who owned Mary Mac’s for 25 years—bought the restaurant to the group that operated Taco Mac. Harold Martin Jr., Michael Bodner, John Michael Bodner and Brian Rand managed to get it again into enterprise after seven months.
As then, the management workforce targeted on the pace of welcoming clients after fixing the roof. Some elements of the restaurant are nonetheless blocked off, specifically the Skyline Room, the Board Room and the Ferrell Bar. Longtime diners might discover some minor renovations, together with new paint on the partitions and rearranged furnishings and celeb pictures. Key gadgets—catfish, cheese grits, banana pudding—carry nostalgia to move you again in time.
“We won’t wait to welcome you to style your favourite meals,” Mary Mack posted on her Fb web page. “Your heat needs and type phrases have carried us by way of this troublesome course of, and we sit up for sharing our unbelievable Southern meals and hospitality with you once more quickly.”
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