Punk Foodie at Ponce, a food stall and pop-up accelerator at Ponce City Market, closed on May 13.
The closure was announced in a post on Punk Foodie’s Instagram account.
“We at Punk Foodie have decided to end the stall experiment and put our focus on other formats to achieve our mission,” the post said. “This means we will continue to evolve the brand and look to build on our growing catering, private dining, events (e.g. Punk Foodie Fest) and event programming. Also expect to see the pop-up finder app and newsletter to come back to life.”
Atlanta pop-up curator Sam Flemming opened the stall in October in Ponce City Market’s Central Food Hall. It featured one- to two-month chef residences, monthly rotations of pop-up chefs and themed chef collaboration dinners.
Credit: Courtesy of of Ganji
Credit: Courtesy of of Ganji
The stall has hosted around 50 chefs, Flemming said, including Pepper’s Hot Dogs, Indian fusion concept Dhaba BBQ, Korean pop-up Ganji, Asian street food concept Salty Smiles and Ethiopian concept Ruki’s Kitchen.
Flemming founded Punk Foodie in 2021 after he fell in love with Atlanta’s pop-up and food truck scene. It began as a searchable database that tracks the locations and hours of pop-ups and food trucks around the city, but Flemming has since added an Instagram account, a weekly newsletter, an app, a content agency and events like Punk Foodie Fest, a food festival featuring pop-ups and food trucks, all with the mission of “amplifying and cultivating the city’s thriving underground and independent food scene,” according to the website.
Credit: Courtesy of @astoldbytori
Credit: Courtesy of @astoldbytori
While Flemming already had a database of over 1,000 pop-up and food truck chefs before opening Punk Foodie at Ponce, the stall allowed him to work alongside the chefs and learn their stories, he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“One thing about Punk Foodie is it’s making pop-ups seem more accessible,” Flemming said. “So putting it in one of the most popular food halls in the country definitely gave access to a lot of people.”
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