Pour- Soft Opening This Weekend!

Pour Wine Bar, located in the Village Place Shopping Center (Verde, Library Coffee, Kaleidoscope), has been closed for the past few weeks and has now reopened under new ownership! Tonight (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday), they are having a soft opening with wine, craft beers, and free tapas.

Pour is no longer a wine/beer store + wine only bar, it is now a tapas and wine and craft beer bar (and per owner, eventually a full bar). This is probably a great move on their part- our first and only experience with original Pour wasn't super fab with no food and staff that knew next to nothing about wine. Hopefully new Pour will have some great tapas and maybe throw in a wine tasting event every now and again to rival Library Coffee Wine Tastings.

Brookhaven Arts Sale

This Saturday, December 10th from 11am - 4pm join the Brookhaven Arts Alliance for their annual Brookhaven Arts Sale.  Shoppers can peruse fine art, photography, pottery, folk art, jewelry, and more at prices 50-75% off the retail value.

Atlanta’s newest food truck, Ibiza Bites, will also be on hand, offering a new style of cuisine it calls “SoLa” ̶ a little bit South American, a little bit Latin American, a little deep South and a whole lot of delicious. Ibiza Bites was recently filmed for the Cooking Channel’s “Eat Street”. The Brookhaven Art Sale will be held at Brookhaven Self Storage, 2740 Apple Valley Road, Atlanta, GA 30319. See invitation below!

Dresden Walk + Brookhaven Overlay Ordinance

Months ago we blogged about Dresden Walk- a development going in across from Village Place (Kaleidoscope, Verde, etc.). Looks like our post was pretty close to the mark! This week the Atlanta Business Chronicle posted about the new multi-family apartment complex that Hines is planning on launching. This will not be a a condo complex as we previously had heard (Brookhaven Two), but will be a more appropriate (for the area) apartment building. The building will be a 215-unit complex. Not sure if any mixed-use areas will be incorporated, but with the crazy overlay and zoning ordinances they will most likely have to.

The Brookhaven Overlay Ordinance is a design/development guideline for new buildings (or major renovations) in our area- mainly focused along Peachtree (see map to right). Released in 2007, it calls for developments to comply with certain rules such as:

• Pedestrian-Friendly 
• Street-Fronted Buildings
• Minimum of Two Stories
• Landscape & Hardscape Requirements (see image below)
• Parking Requirements
• And many others- to read the full overlay ordinance, you can download a PDF of the document- enjoy. 

If you are curious as to why certain developments (like the MARTA parking lot redevelopment) have taken so long, or why Savi Market still looks a hell of a lot like Mom n' Pops, the Overlay is probably the answer. Not always development friendly, they are still a great way for local neighborhoods and communities can have some control over how their area looks, feels, and what it attracts, just can take a lot longer to get a property redeveloped. There are definitely pros and cons, but if analyzed, planned, and executed properly overlays can have a tremendous positive impact on the surrounding community.

Sunday Alcohol Sales... Not in DeKalb!

Just got an update about the Sunday Sales vote...

Conspicuously absent from the countywide ballot in DeKalb County is a referendum to allow Sunday sales of alcohol. Senate Bill 10, the legislation that enables local communities to decide this issue via public referendum will not be enacted in DeKalb's voting this coming Tuesday, November 8th.

Our neighboring cities of Chamblee, Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, and Atlanta will be voting on this question next Tuesday. If you are in unincorporated DeKalb, however, the county has yet to do anything regarding Sunday sales.

Boo! It's going to be super tricky to figure out what city/county you can buy alcohol in on Sundays for the Superbowl, but I guess it's alright that at least Chamblee and Atlanta will (most likely) pass the bill. Guess DeKalb doesn't need the extra revenue!

City of Brookhaven- Update!

Brookhaven Study Area Finalized

The proposal to create a new City of Brookhaven in North DeKalb is advancing, with the Citizens for N. DeKalb, an organization tasked with fundraising for a feasibility study examining potential costs and revenues for the new city, selecting final boundaries for that study. The entire study is due to be released shortly and we will release it as soon as it's published!

We know there have been some concerns with a few of the areas, including the neighborhood of our very own Stacy from StacyEats! State Representative Mike Jacobs has released a statement regarding the issues with some of the areas of the study map. In short, they have decided to exclude Century Center, so we will have to see how that effects the outcome of our cityhood... 

You can visit the Citizens for N. DeKalb Website to see the study area map (left) and read the related press releases and also see a great FAQ. 

PS- We totally apologize for the lack of posting... there's no great excuse for it other than being crazy busy. There has been a lot of great new things happening in Brookhaven lately with new shops and restaurants, festivals, and reviews. We will be trying to get back on the wagon (or is it off the wagon...?) and posting more frequently. It's been a great but busy past few months, but we haven't forgotten about you guys. Thanks for staying tuned!

New HOT Tolling Begins This Weekend!

A few months ago we wrote about the upcoming HOV to HOT lane conversion on I-85 in Gwinnett County, and this weekend the tolling begins.

Saturday, October 1st the Express Lanes and Peach Pass are open! Motorists who want the option to use the new I-85 Express Lanes and the all-electronic toll lanes on GA 400 now can open a Peach Pass account by visiting www.PeachPass.com. Peach Pass registration is required for all vehicles using the I-85 Express Lanes, including toll-exempt carpools with three or more occupants, transit vehicles, motorcycles, on-call emergency vehicles and Alternative Fuel Vehicles (AFV) with the proper AFV license plates (not including hybrids). A Peach Pass account costs $20 and adheres to your windshield (like the old cruise cards) and is electronically linked to your account. When you use the I-85 Express Lanes, tolls will be automatically deducted from your Peach Pass account.

Remember that the tolls will change based on time of day and traffic, so watch out for the signs posting the prices. We shall see how this all goes and if traffic (in the HOT lanes) are really that improved! Really the question is- how much would you pay to skip a few miles of traffic?

We're Still Here!

Hello readers, we really must apologize in the lapse of posting, Cory and I have just been really busy traveling, working, and footballin'. Just because we weren't writing, doesn't mean there isn't still a lot of stuff going on in the Brookhaven area. We have a few posts lined up in the next few weeks, so stay tuned! Just to mention:

• Mom n' Pops is gone (save your tears) and a new Savi Market to replace! Updates when we get 'em
• Lots of new great stuff coming online in Town Brookhaven including CineBistro, AT&T Store (yay...), and the cool looking Brookhaven Gallery (affiliated with Brookhaven Arts Alliance)
• Brookhaven Arts Festival is coming soon! Oct 15th and 16th. We had a blast last year!
• Library Coffee Co is now doing trivia- stop by every Monday night at 7pm and enjoy some (pretty freaking difficult) trivia! We had fun at their first ever night last week (photo below- thanks Stacy!)
• Plus we have a ton of restaurants that we've tried that we will be posting reviews on. Malaysian/Thai infusion sound delicious?? Stay tuned!