On a late afternoon in December, Monica and Jayson Smith stood behind the bar of their newly renovated restaurant while customers chatted around them. Jayson Smith called out a greeting to a pair of diners who settled at a table a few feet away. He’s new to bartending, he said, but talking with customers comes naturally to him after 30 years of running Mr. Everything with his wife.
“It’s a blessing being in this community,” Jayson Smith said. “I get to know everybody.”
The team at Mr. Everything Cafe will hold a ribbon cutting and 30th anniversary ceremony at 11 a.m. on Dec. 20 to celebrate their recent move across the street to a two-story building with a new bar.
This spot has been in the works since the Smiths moved in 2018 to their third location, a small building at 899 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, but when COVID-19 hit, construction slowed down.
They continued serving their menu of “healthy made-to-order food” as pick-up only, but the Smiths missed interacting with their loyal customer base.
Nearly five years later, they’ve opened the two-story eatery at 882 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, complete with a full bar upstairs, TVs, ample seating and an open-concept kitchen on the bottom floor.
“There’s a lot of growth and construction going on in the neighborhood, and why not have a neighborhood bar?” Monica Smith said.
She envisions a “Cheers” type of environment where regulars stop in for a drink and chat with bartenders like her husband. Although the restaurant reopened at the end of September, they were waiting until the bar was complete to host a ceremony.
Credit: Courtesy of Mr. Everything Cafe
Credit: Courtesy of Mr. Everything Cafe
With its 30-year reign, Mr. Everything is something of a staple in the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive corridor in the Atlanta University Center neighborhood. It’s had four different locations since the Smiths opened the restaurant in June 1993, all of which have been on the same street.
“This is where we started,” Monica Smith said. “Martin Luther King is what has taken care of us all these years.”
Mr. Everything’s original 1993 location was much smaller than the current two-story building. In a 2001 Atlanta-Journal Constitution article by former reporter Christine Van Dusen, the eatery was described as “a tiny and modest place, with yellowing wall tile and just two tall chairs, rarely empty. There’s barely a place to put down a plate.”
The article is now memorialized on the building’s downstairs wall, along with other Atlanta paraphernalia as an homage to the city. The upstairs pays its respects to the New York City borough of Queens, where Jayson Smith grew up, with imagery from his neighborhood and the Queensboro bridge on the walls.
At first, the restaurant was a destination for hungry college students, Monica Smith said, featuring snacks, drinks and quick bites. Over the years, the customer base expanded as the menu evolved. It now includes Philly cheesesteaks, gyros, quesadillas, burgers and their most popular item, the Healthy Choice Rice dish, which comes with grilled meat, yellow rice, sautéed vegetables and cheese. Everything is still cooked to order.
Credit: Courtesy of Mr. Everything Cafe
Credit: Courtesy of Mr. Everything Cafe
David Taveres, the operations manager for Mr. Everything and the Smiths’ son-in-law, began working at the restaurant at 16 years old. He would walk by Mr. Everything on his way from Washington High School to Morehouse College, where his parents worked. Despite the small size of the original building, “once you pass by, you can immediately smell it,” he said.
As part of a work-study program, he applied to work at Mr. Everything. He worked there on and off for a while, and in a twist of fate, he later married one of the Smiths’ daughters after meeting her at Georgia State University.
“I tell a lot of people that’s my first and my last job,” he said.
Taveres said Mr. Everything has retained its status as an “Atlanta staple” because the food is consistent and the Smiths are hands-on with the business. The new two-story location, plus the addition of a full bar, is the eatery “doubling down,” he said.
“(It’s) just letting everybody know that Mr. Everything has been here, we’re still here.”
Credit: Courtesy of Mr. Everything Cafe
Credit: Courtesy of Mr. Everything Cafe
Monica Smith was 22 years old when she and her husband opened the restaurant and has seen it grow over the past 30 years. The Smiths now have plans to expand to Detroit and the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
“This is all we’ve known for the last 30 years,” Monica Smith, now 52, said as she sat in her newest building. “And this is what we’re gonna know for the rest of our lives.”
882 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Atlanta. 404-521-9903, mreverythingcafega.com.
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