Sage Woodfire Tavern seems to have quietly closed its last remaining Atlanta area restaurant. The Dunwoody outpost, located in Park Place ( 4505 Ashford Dunwoody Road ) is now marked "permanently closed" on Google and its website is down. The upscale eatery occupied a roughly 8,300 square foot space in the center previously home to Houlihan's. Sage opened in the space in 2010.
The locally owned restaurant once had several locations around metro Atlanta but had just four at the time of its 2018 bankruptcy filing. At that time, Sage restaurants were located on Haynes Bridge Road in Alpharetta, on Windy Hill Road not far from Truist Park, on Peachtree Road in Buckhead, and the Dunwoody restaurant on Ashford Dunwoody Road across from Perimeter Mall.
The Windy Hill and Alpharetta locations closed in 2018 shortly after the bankruptcy filing. In 2019, the Buckhead location (which had opened in place of the longstanding Morton's Steakhouse) just a year prior also closed. A location in East Cobb closed in 2017.
The Orient, a local Asian restaurant, opened in place of the Windy Hill Sage in early 2021 followed by 5Church, another local restaurant, opening in place of the former Buckhead location in 2022. ToNeTo Atlantaexclusively reported in January 2021 that Eddie V's Prime Seafood, an upscale restaurant from Darden, plans to demolish the former Alpharetta Sage and open a new restaurant in its place.
The East Cobb location was later briefly occupied by Jason's Deli but is vacant today.
Sage Woodfire Tavern's Dunwoody restaurant was in the news this past February after gunfire erupted in the restaurant’s parking lot. The suspects, Bernard Anthony Jones and Jailyn Reese, allegedly tried to leave the restaurant by "dining and dashing" and when a security guard [from Sage] confronted them in the parking lot and tried to get them to pay, an alternation occurred and Jones allegedly shot the guard three times, hitting him in the hand and shoulder. The guard survived and Anthony and Reese were subsequently charged and arrested on multiple charges in March, according to the City of Dunwoody.
Edens, the real estate firm that owns North DeKalb Mall (now Lulah Hills), Toco Hills, Merchants Walk, and Buckhead Market Place, among other centers, purchased Park Place in December 2021. Popular local restaurants Cafe Intermezzo, Eclipse di Luna, and McKendrick's Steakhouse remain open in the center. Alon's, however, another local favorite, closed their longstanding outpost in the center in early 2023, and more recently, Allen Edmonds, the luxury men's shoe retailer, moved from the center to nearby High Street. Existing restaurant franchise The Brass Tap, a Park Place tenant since February 2016, earlier this month dropped the franchise and rebranded as Cowboys & Caviar. The new restaurant reportedly offers a similar but enhanced food and cocktail menu with the addition of live music, too, in partnership with new business partner, Billy Allen.
What would you like to see open in place of Alon's, Sage or Allen Edmonds at Park Place? Have you been to Cowboys & Caviar? What is your favorite Dunwoody area restaurant?
Please share your thoughts below.