The Peachtree Road Restaurant Space That Struggled to Keep One Tenant Is Getting Two
The standalone restaurant building at Buckhead Center has two fireplaces and a big patio facing Peachtree Road, and it has been dark since 2023. Its next tenant is chef Linton Hopkins, and Hopkins & Company plans two businesses with separate doors and different hours. Linton's Bar and Grill will handle lunch through dinner, and a reopened The Buttery will open in the morning with coffee and pastries. Rough Draft Atlanta reported that both are targeting late spring 2027.
Buckhead Center lists Garden Hills among its neighboring neighborhoods. The two office buildings sit just south of the Peachtree Road and West Paces Ferry Road intersection, with two Peachtree entrances and direct access to Pharr Road. For anyone who regularly drives Peachtree, this is the empty patio you keep passing.
Since 2017, the building has had one occupant, and it has been empty since 2023.
| Period | What occupied the space |
|---|---|
| About 2000 to August 2017 | Brio Tuscan Grille, open for seventeen years |
| 2017 to May 2021 | Brio closed; The Original Pancake House opened in May 2021 after a COVID delay |
| 2023 | The Original Pancake House closed after about two years |
| 2023 to now | Empty |
| Late spring 2027, target | Linton's Bar and Grill and The Buttery |
When Tomorrow's News Today Atlanta reported the pancake house closing in September 2023, it called the building "nearly 9,000 square feet." The site said the restaurant "benefited from an amazing Peachtree Road patio, but had to contend with a parking deck and a space likely too large for its actual needs." Brio's closing in 2017 came amid broader closures by its parent company, according to Hoodline. The new plan takes a different approach to the building's size and divides the footprint between two businesses.
The plan splits the space by time of day. What Now Atlanta says the two businesses will share a 7,000-square-foot space with to-go and dine-in service, and The Buttery will have its own entrance. According to Rough Draft, The Buttery will start in the morning with coffee, pastries, desserts, breads, croissant sandwiches, and grab-and-go meals. Linton's will serve weekday sandwiches and salads, martinis, calamari, and tuna tartare on the patio after work, and steak dinners by reservation. The two will share the patio facing Peachtree.
In the release quoted by What Now Atlanta, Hopkins described the schedule he has in mind:
"The place you take your kids after school for a lemonade and cookie, while you grab a chicken pot pie from The Buttery. The place for annual birthday dinners with steaks and salads and our sprinkle birthday cake. Or a quick lunch of sandwiches and salads between meetings upstairs."
That quote covers three groups of customers. Families stop in after school, neighbors come for birthday dinners, and the office tenants upstairs need lunch. A single dinner restaurant in this footprint depends on one rush a day. Two businesses with separate doors can serve all three groups and keep the patio busy from coffee to the last martini.
The building itself will stay. Hoodline, citing Urbanize Atlanta, reported that the plan refreshes the existing structure instead of replacing it. The design by architecture firm ASD/SKY calls for painted stucco, fabric awnings, and a wooden pergola out front, and it keeps the two fireplaces and the large Peachtree patio. Hopkins & Company was scheduled to present the plans to the Buckhead SPI-12 Development Review Committee.
The restaurant is part of a larger renovation. CP Group and Cohen & Steers bought Buckhead Center in February 2022, and Rough Draft describes Linton's and The Buttery as the latest additions to the complex's ongoing renovation. According to Rough Draft, CP Group founding partner Chris Eachus said Linton's and The Buttery fit the company's goal of making the two-building office property feel more connected to the neighborhood.
The property's website shows the rest of the work. The south tower lobby has been renovated, a new motor court and arrival area are under construction, and the site has gated structured parking with a daytime attendant, an on-site First Horizon branch with a drive-through, and a full-service Starbucks next door.
Tomorrow's News Today named the parking deck as one of the old restaurant's handicaps. A new arrival area and an attended garage address that directly, and a restaurant that expects lunch traffic from the towers depends on both working well.
This opening brings the Hopkinses back to Peachtree Road after an absence. Rough Draft notes that Linton and Gina Hopkins opened Restaurant Eugene at The Brookwood on Peachtree Road in 2004 and Holeman & Finch in the same complex four years later. Restaurant Eugene closed in 2019. Holeman & Finch, known for its late-night burger, closed a year later and reopened at Colony Square in Midtown in 2023. Those two Buckhead restaurants led the James Beard Foundation to name Hopkins Best Chef: Southeast in 2012.
The Buttery is returning too. Rough Draft reported it closed in 2024 after four years in Morningside-Lenox Park. Hopkins & Company never fully left Peachtree Road, though. The company's site still lists the Holeman and Finch Bottle Shop at Peachtree Battle Shopping Center. Atlanta magazine gives its address as 2357 Peachtree Road.
Hoodline, citing the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, also notes that the Hopkinses co-founded the producer-only Peachtree Road Farmers Market at The Cathedral of St. Philip in 2007, and it grew into Georgia's largest producer-only farmers market. A bakery-cafe built for weekday mornings follows naturally from that history.
Many recent arrivals near Garden Hills are evening places, which is one reason The Buttery stands out.
Martinis, steak, and late-evening service are already easy to find nearby. Linton's will add to that, while The Buttery's morning bread, croissant sandwiches, and chicken pot pie to go will be something new for this corner.
Before then, Buckhead Heritage has two fall events close by on its events calendar:
Spring 2027 is a target, not a promise. If it holds, the patio at the former Brio building will have its first new tenant in about four years, with a coffee counter opening hours before the grill.
Business openings along Peachtree change what daily life on this side of Buckhead looks like, and they change what buyers and longtime owners ask us about. If you'd like to talk about what Peachtree Road's next year might mean for your plans in Garden Hills, the team at Cathy LaMon would be glad to hear from you. Let's Connect.
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