Mary Mac’s Tea Room on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Midtown, where heavy rain collapsed part of the roof overnight, is an Atlanta dining institution known for sweet tea, Southern dishes and hospitality.
The restaurant began as one of many Atlanta “tea rooms” in 1945. When it opened, Mary Mac’s was one of 16 tearooms in Atlanta and seated 75 guests. Today, the 1,300 square-foot restaurant is the only original tearoom that remains.
“In the late 1940s and 1950s, as WWII left behind countless widows in Atlanta in need of a way to support themselves, many turned to the restaurant business,” according to a 2013 Atlanta Journal-Constitution story by Jon Watson. “But in that day, it was somewhat frowned upon for a woman to just up open a “restaurant,” so many took to calling their Southern kitchens “tea rooms,” despite the fact that you wouldn’t find a teapot in the place.”
The meat-and-three restaurant has undergone ownership changes and, early on, a name change. It was Mrs. Fuller’s Tea Room until 1951, when Mary McKinsey bought the place, eventually changing the name to Mary Mac’s, according to a previous AJC story. Margaret Lupo owned and managed the restaurant from the early 1960s until she retired in 1994.
It’s still a meat-and-three, with popular dishes including fried chicken, collards, mac and cheese, peach cobbler and yeast rolls. There is also a custom of freebie pot liquor and cracklin’ cornbread for first-time diners. And the ordering is old school – literally – with old-school pencils and order forms at tables.
The food and ambience has endured, even after a big ownership change in October 2020, when owner John Ferrell sold to a group that includes local businessmen Harold Martin Jr. and Bryan Rand, and father-son partners Michael Bodnar and John Michael Bodnar of Fresh Hospitality restaurant group. The Nashville-based Fresh Hospitality has a portfolio of 20 restaurant brands, including Taco Mac, for which Martin serves as CEO. They also recently purchased the Vortex restaurant and bar in Little Five Points.
“Mary Mac’s is the premier purveyor of Southern hospitality and cuisine and tradition in the Southeast,” Martin told AJC food and dining editor Ligaya Figueras in 2020. “It’s a high bar.”
The restaurant was on the periphery of breaking news last summer, when a sinkhole caused by a collapsed sewer line, snarled traffic across the street from the restaurant.
The restaurant is located three blocks east of the Fox Theatre, at 224 Ponce de Leon Ave. N.E.
Learn more about Mary Mac’s
From 2020: Dining institution Mary Mac’s begins new chapter
Atlanta restaurant recipes: How to make Mary Mac’s sweet tea
2017: Mary Mac’s is about to lose special ingredient: Goodwill Ambassador
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