Legendary Atlanta restaurateur Dante Stephensen has died. Stephensen, 84 , was best known as the creator of eclectic nightspot Dante’s Down the Hatch. He passed away July 25 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Stephensen opened Dante’s Down the Hatch in 1970 in Underground Atlanta when that downtown strip was in its heyday. The restaurant was fashioned after an 18th Century sailing ship surrounded by a moat filled with live crocodiles. Inside, décor ranged from church pews and vintage clocks to wax figures and antique cars, collections from his travels around the world. Dante’s also offered some of the best live jazz in the region as well as fondue, which Stephensen became acquainted with while skiing the Alps and wanted to introduce to Atlantans. The quirky combination made it a celebrity hangout and a special occasion destination.
If Underground Atlanta was the draw for downtown nightlife, “Dante’s was its centerpiece,” wrote former AJC editor Bert Roughton in a 2013 story about Stephensen’s 43-year run as a restaurateur in Atlanta. “Longtime Atlantans carry memories of proposals and prom nights at Dante’s set to a Paul Mitchell Trio soundtrack.”
After business declined in 1981, Stephensen moved the restaurant to 3380 Peachtree Road in the heart of Buckhead. He opened a second branch in the renovated Underground in 1989, but it closed after a decade. Dante’s Down the Hatch shuttered for good in 2013, succumbing to a wrecking ball to make way for luxury apartment tower Cyan on Peachtree.
Credit: Jennifer Brett
Credit: Jennifer Brett
Like his iconic restaurant, Stephensen was a one of a kind person. Prior to his long career in the hospitality industry, he served as a Navy SEAL. Other jobs included that of Christmas card salesman, school bus driver, dishwasher and computer systems analyst.
According to a 2012 Patch story, Stephensen moved to Atlanta to help a friend run a factory making affordable shoes for the poor. “But he kept coming back to the idea of starting his own business and for years had been toying with the idea of opening a restaurant. When he heard about Underground Atlanta being formed, he decided the time was right.”
In 2012, he was inducted into the Atlanta Hospitality Hall of Fame.
News of Stephensen’s death has garnered an outpouring of tributes from friends, former employees and supporters.
Credit: Bob Andres
Credit: Bob Andres
“I was blessed to call this unique, fascinating, wonderfully eccentric man my godfather,” wrote Stephanie Jullock on Facebook. She recalled “feeding the crocodiles, going to Braves games with him with seats directly behind the dugout, riding in one of his many antique cars in the Atlanta 4th of July parades, sleeping over at his house/antique rail road car with my brother & riding it on the railways of Georgia.”
“I have known Dante Stephenson [sic] for the majority of my life,” wrote Karen J. Mitchell-Williams on Stephensen’s obituary tribute page. “He and my dad started the best jazz club in Atlanta. Dante’s Down the Hatch. Both were icons in the Atlanta Jazz club market. Eccentric and quirky, you had to know Dante to love him. Now he is back with the trio. Fly high Dante! Your work is done here on this earth. RIH”
Stephensen’s longtime friend Tricia Patterson remembers him as a multi-faceted person with a “wicked sense of humor.”
“He had no wife or kids, but four million that idolized him,” Patterson said.
Due to the coronavirus, a memorial service will be planned for a later date.
Read and sign the online guestbook for Dante Stephensen
About the Author
