Just days ago, Greg Johnson and his wife Noelle Taylor were poised to take the space formerly occupied by dining and drinking establishment the Sound Table into its next stage by launching Edgewood Dynasty. Now, their plans have literally crumbled.
On Tuesday, firefighters had to evacuate the building at 483 Edgewood Avenue after officials accessed it for stability, found a large crack and deemed it unfit to enter due to the possibility of the building collapsing.
On Wednesday, an exterior wall did just that.
“The fire department does not know why it occurred,” said Atlanta Fire Rescue spokesman Sgt. Cortez Stafford, noting that first responders were only responsible for ensuring that no one was injured or trapped inside.
After Tuesday’s events, Johnson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he had put his life savings into the restaurant, which was set to open Thursday. Johnson was unavailable to comment on the latest events apart from a text message that there was “too much going on.”
“I’m just stunned,” said Karl Injex, who operated the Sound Table with his wife Mona Essa for 10 years before handing it off to the Johnsons. “My beloved Sound Table,” he lamented.
In the early 1990s, Injex lived in an apartment directly across the street. “Every morning, I drank coffee and looked at the building. It’s a beautiful building,” he said.
Injex and Essa opened the Sound Table in the first half of 2010, serving street food from around the world with influences including southeast Asia, central and south America and the Middle East. The cocktail lounge had been closed since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Having been patrons of the Sound Table for the past eight years, Johnson and Taylor had planned to make very minimal changes to the space and concept.
— Staff writer Tanni Deb contributed to this article.
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