A new kind of restaurant plans to open this week at Toco Hills shopping center. Sababa's Burgers, offering kosher cuisine in a quick serve setting, plans to officially open Sunday July 28 at 2929 North Druid Hills Road, Suite F, a roughly 1,500 square foot space formerly home to BurgerIM, a separate burger business.
For those unfamiliar, the space is a bit hidden but is located near Pao Pao Ramen Factory & Bar and The Flying Biscuit Cafe.
Despite the similar names, Sababa's Burgers is not affiliated with Cafe Sababa, a Mediterranean eatery on Shallowford Road in Dunwoody or Sabaraba's, another Mediterranean restaurant which has locations in Sandy Springs and more recently opened a second in Chamblee.
Sababa is a Hebrew slang word meaning “great or cool” and can express enthusiasm and satisfaction. Sababa comes from the Arabic word tzababa, which means "great" or "excellent" in spoken Arabic.
When ToNeTo Atlanta stopped by Sababa's Wednesday afternoon, ownership was removing the brown paper that had covered the restaurant's windows for the past several weeks. While we were able to peek in briefly and note menu names that seemed to pay homage to the Thrashers (RIP), "Hotlanta", and WSB-2, among other Atlanta icons, management was preparing for a private "preview tasting" and did now allow us to take any photos of the digital menu board (which they simply turned off when we asked) as they indicated it was not yet final.
Sababa's will operate under the supervision of the Atlanta Kashruth Commission (AKC) meaning it will be open for lunch and dinner much of the week but will have abbreviated hours Friday and Saturday in observance of the Jewish Sabbath. In Toco Hills shopping center, Sababa's joins Chai Peking, a kosher Chinese restaurant inside Kroger that will this November celebrate 27 years in business, Bruster's and The Spicy Peach, a kosher grocery store and market that this year celebrates a decade in business.
Metro Atlanta has several other kosher establishments including Italian restaurant Formaggio Mio and Mediterranean eatery Toco Grill in the heavily Jewish community of Toco Hills along with Latin American eatery Fuego Mundo in Sandy Springs. Kosher restaurants and the high prices that come with them, have a less than stellar track record of success in Atlanta.
Nur Kitchen, a kosher Mediterranean eatery closed this past May along Buford Highway, outside of I-285 in Doraville. The restaurant reportedly has plans to reopen "in the Brookhaven area" and is for now offering special event catering, AKC certified, prepared in a local synagogue. Pita Grille, a ToNeTo Atlanta favorite, closed its casual pita shop in Chastain Park in 2020. Wall Street Pizza, one of the few kosher pizza shops in town, closed its location at Brighten Park (then Loehmann's Plaza) several years ago.
What is your favorite kosher restaurant in Atlanta? Are you excited about the addition of kosher burger joint at Toco Hills? What kind of restaurant would you most like to see open in or around Toco Hills?
Please share your thoughts below