Quick-serve restaurant Boston Market has closed its longstanding locations at 5903 Roswell Road in Sandy Springs and at 4215 Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth. The Sandy Springs restaurant, located in a freestanding building a few blocks north of I-285, occupied an outparcel of what is currently a Lowe's and was previously a Kmart-anchored shopping center. The Duluth restaurant was situated along Pleasant Hill Road, just off Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and across from the Kroger-anchored Peachtree Hill shopping center.
The company has not sent its email club members notice of the restaurant closures (as it has for others in the past) and both display signage indicating their closures are only temporary, but each has been removed from the company's website.
Built in 1994, Boston Market's Sandy Springs location is nearly 3,000 square feet and sits on nearly one acre, according to materials reviewed by ToNeTo Atlanta. The Duluth location is roughly 3,500 square feet, was built in 1994, and also sits on nearly one acre. Neither closure is believed to be in any way due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
ToNeTo Atlanta has been tracking the Sandy Springs location since late last year when local real estate firm Retail Planning Corporation listed the parcel, indicating that it would be available as of "late 2020."
Boston Market closed their Roswell location on Holcomb Bridge Road this past January and their East Cobb restaurant on Sandy Plains Road last January. This past July, the company closed another 45 restaurants nationwide, with restaurant executives blaming the closures on "an evolving restaurant industry that faces increasing competition, rising costs and shifting consumer preferences." The July closures included local restaurants on Redan Road in Stone Mountain and on Highway 29 in Lilburn. At the time of the Roswell closure, the company's website indicated that they operated 376 restaurants, while today it says they operate just 309, a reduction of nearly 20 percent.
Boston Market, originally Boston Chicken, began in Newton, Massachusetts in 1984, and was owned by McDonald's from 2000 until 2007.
Today, the chain is based in Golden, Colorado and is owned by Sun Capital Partners, a private equity firm. According to the restaurant's website, there are currently 309 Boston Market restaurants.
This past January Boston Market closed their Roswell location on Holcomb Bridge Road.
Following the closures, Boston Market has only a handful of Atlanta area locations, including those at Briarcliff and North Druid Hills Road not far from Toco Hills, Powers Ferry Road, in the same center as CVS, not far from Truist Park, and in Stone Mountain on Stone Mountain Highway. There are also Boston Market restaurants at Fort Benning, Fort Gordon, and Fort Stewart.
Of the recently shuttered Atlanta area Boston Markets, the only one to have reopened as something new is the East Cobb restaurant which reopened this past July as a Chipotle Mexican Grill. The building gave Chipotle a drive-thru lane where it would introduce to the local area its "Chipotlane," whereby customers can order ahead via the Chipotle app and get their food faster - and from their cars.
Are you surprised that Boston Market has been closing so many restaurants? What would you like to see open in the now former Sandy Springs and Duluth Boston Market locations? When was the last time you ate at a Boston Market?
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