Nani’s Piri Piri Chicken is set to close later this month, less than two years after opening in Ponce City Market’s Central Food Hall.
A representative for the restaurant confirmed that the restaurant’s last day will be Feb. 28. Nani’s opened in late 2021, serving rotisserie chicken plates served with flatbread and items like the Chicken Salad Melt, Nani’s Chicken Burger, and Nani’s Salad, along with sides like confit potato salad, green bean salad, and Mediterranean orzo salad.
The restaurant is part of the Chai Pani Restaurant Group, which includes spice company Spicewalla and Indian street food eatery Botiwalla, both of which will remain open in Ponce City Market.
The restaurant group, founded by Meherwan Irani and his wife, Molly, also owns and operates Chai Pani locations in Decatur and Asheville; Botiwalla in Asheville; and Buxton Chicken Palace and Buxton Hall Barbecue in Asheville.
The original location of Nani’s closed in Asheville last summer, and was turned into a retail space for Spicewalla and a secondary kitchen for Chai Pani.
Credit: Mia Yakel
Credit: Mia Yakel
“The Nani’s concept for delicious rotisserie chicken and homestyle sides was born of the pandemic, and we feel it has lived its best life,” a restaurant representative said in a prepared statement shared with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The restaurant group plans to focus on Chai Pani and Botiwalla, with plans to expand Botiwalla outside the Southeast.
“The response to our Outstanding Restaurant Award from the James Beard Foundation has exceeded our wildest expectations and made it clear that showcasing Indian street food — what we believe to be the most democratic, egalitarian, approachable, affordable cuisine of India — is our most pressing mission right now,” the statement said.
In addition to Chai Pani Asheville’s 2022 James Beard award, Chai Pani Decatur chef Sahar Siddiqi is a semifinalist this year in the Best Chef: Southeast category, and Irani has been a semifinalist in the same category several times.
Nani’s was part of a major expansion of the Central Food Hall at Ponce City Market, along with the openings of Vietvana Noodle House, Atrium, Umbrella Bar, Bibi and Spicewalla, as well as the reopening of Pizza Jeans on the ground floor of the hall.
Several food and beverage concepts have closed at Ponce City Market in the past two years, including Root Baking Co., Farm to Ladle, Marrakesh Market and Batter Cookie Dough Counter.
A representative for Jamestown Property Management, the company that owns Ponce City Market, did not immediately return the AJC’s request for comment on the Nani’s closure.
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