Iconic breakfast restaurant Java Jive is set to close next month after 30 years on Ponce de Leon Avenue.
The Dec. 22 closure was announced in a post on the restaurant’s Instagram account:
“We can’t begin to say how grateful we are to the many people who have kept us going for over three decades,” the statement reads in part. “What a crazy ride it has been to be on Ponce for the last 30 years as the city has changed around us yet we’ve remained the same.”
Steven Horwitz and his wife, Shira Levetan, opened Java Jive in 1994 at 790 Ponce de Leon Ave. as a coffee and dessert shop with weekend brunch. The restaurant added weekday breakfast later that year.
While gingerbread waffles and buttermilk pancakes are the stars of the menu, other breakfast specialties include scrambles and omelets, grits and biscuits.
Credit: undefined
Credit: undefined
In 1996, lunch and dinner menus were added with salads, sandwiches and soups, as well as classic comfort dishes including meatloaf, lasagna, stuffed peppers. Eventually, though, the restaurant reverted back to focusing on its original breakfast offerings.
The eatery’s eclectic, retro design includes Bakelite-handled cake breakers, atomic-age lamps, heavy old-fashioned stand mixers and chrome and Formica dinette sets. The corner is home to a collection of pastel stovetops, and a pastry case displays antique dishware and appliances for sale.
Credit: AJC file photo
Credit: AJC file photo
“There was a sense of design that went into residential and commercial products in this country during these times that you just won’t see anymore,” Horwitz told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1995.
Java Jive’s isn’t the only Ponce institution that will close permanently in the coming weeks. Further down the street, Bookhouse Pub is set to close after more than 15 years.
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