Longtime Concentrics Restaurant eatery Brasserie and Neighborhood Cafe at Parish has shuttered for good.
The Eastside Beltline restaurant had reopened in October for dine-in, takeout and walkup service after closing temporarily last March due to the coronavirus pandemic. The permanent closure was first reported by Atlanta Business Chronicle. Parish closed New Year’s Day weekend, according to Concentrics co-owner Bob Amick.
“One thing COVID taught me: evaluate everything I do,” said Amick. “It taught us a lot about efficiencies. In doing that, I had to make tough decisions.”
In its last days, Parish’s kitchen, with a reputation for brunch, was overseen by executive chef Chavez Hernandez. But many talented names spent time in the kitchen.
Parish opened in early 2008 in a century-old, stand-alone brick building at 240 North Highland Ave., as Parish Food & Goods with a Creole menu developed by Scott Serpas, who now owns Serpas restaurant in Old Fourth Ward.
Nick Melvin, who later oversaw the kitchen at Old Fourth Ward spot Venkman’s and now runs burrito pop-up Pollo Loco, took over at Parish in 2010 and pushed a menu of more traditional Southern fare.
In 2013, Zeb Stevenson — who would go on to helm the kitchen at Watershed on Peachtree and now owns Redbird in West Midtown — became the executive chef at Parish, by then known as Brasserie at Parish, and shifted the menu yet again.
Stuart Tracy, who now works on the development team for Chick-fil-A, also served as an executive chef at Parish from 2015-17.
Co-founded by Amick and his business partner Todd Rushing, Concentrics also owns Two Urban Licks on the Eastside Beltline and the adjoining Bully Boy, as well as Tap gastropub at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
The pandemic forced Amick and Rushing to make rapid adjustments early in 2020.
“We went from a weekend in the beginning of March trying to evaluate option A, B and C,” Amick told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in September 2020. “We left the meeting with option A. That was a Sunday. By Tuesday, we were at option C and we closed.”
All 300 of the company’s employees were furloughed — at its restaurants in Atlanta, Chicago and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as well as its consulting, management and marketing staff. The company immediately filed everyone for temporary unemployment.
“It’s been hard,” Amick said on Monday.
The company has filed for the next round of Paycheck Protection Program loans.
Parish is the latest food and beverage concept casualty in metro Atlanta due, in part, to the economic impact of the coronavirus. Other recent closures include FROGS Cantina in Midtown, Foundation Social Eatery in Roswell and Kouzina Christos in Marietta.
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