The restaurant industry is known to be one of the most difficult around. The success rate is low and COVID, inflation and other factors have made operating a restaurant more challenging now than ever before. Two new restaurateurs opened their first restaurants of their own in 2018. This week brought news that one is closing while the other is expanding.
A month later, in June 2018, Roswell-native and former Marcel and St. Cecelia chef, Taylor Neary, would realize his dream of restaurant ownership with the debut of Restaurant Holmes, a neighborhood bar and restaurant serving new American cuisine, at 50 S. Main Street in the historic Jones House, near Alpharetta City Center in downtown Alpharetta.
A lot can change in five years. Following the debut of both restaurants, the world shut down due to a global pandemic, while food costs soared and finding reliable help - the backbone of any successful restaurant - became increasingly challenging, especially for independent restaurants.
While review sites are often skewed and should be taken with a grain of salt, the volume of comments on Yelp, Google and Facebook can give you a sense of the popularity and traffic of a restaurant.
Across the three aforementioned sites, Hen Mother Cookhouse received 2,206 reviews, with average rating of 4.4. Across the same sites, and in about the same period of time, Restaurant Holmes received 740 reviews, with an average rating of 4.2.
In a Facebook post Monday announcing the sale, Holmes ownership said "the last 5 years have been the best years of our lives" and thanked everyone for "letting us be part of your life in food and in spirits."
In a simultaneous Instagram post, Hen Mother Cookhouse revealed that they will be taking over the Holmes space and opening a second Hen Mother there next spring.
Holmes did not reveal a precise closing date, but will seemingly continue operating sibling restaurant, Holmes Slice, a pizza shop, which opened in 2020 in the mini food hall at Halcyon in Alpharetta.
Hen Mother Cookhouse is the second local business to announce expansion plans in Downtown Alpharetta. The owners of Boarding Pass Coffee in September acquired the former Crave Pie Studio in the Alpharetta City Center. The new Boarding Pass Coffee, joining locations in Milton and Gainesville, is slated to open early next year.
Have you been to Hen Mother Cookhouse? If so, what is your favorite thing on the menu? What other types of restaurants would you like to see open in Downtown Alpharetta?
Please share your thoughts below