Westside’s Chattahoochee Avenue Lands Itself a Food Hall and Brewery

The Works, an 80-acre overhaul of several warehouses along Chattahoochee Avenue in Westside, now includes a second location of Scofflaw Brewing Co. and a 16,000-square-foot food hall, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports. Both could open as soon as 2020. The Works is being built in phases to eventually feature 500 residences, a 200-key boutique hotel, 13 acres of greenspace, and retail shops

Plans for the food hall — Chattahoochee Food Works — call for 30 food stalls, shops, and a test kitchen hosting various chefs and culinary events. It will occupy a portion of the building in which Ballard Designs resides and open out onto a quarter-mile park in the complex called “the Spur.”

Robert Montwaid of Manhattan’s Gansevoort Market in New York City’s Meatpacking District hopes to draw young chefs, particularly those from Atlanta, to the Westside food hall. Montwaid says, unlike those other Atlanta food halls (Ponce City Market, Krog Street Market,) the markets his company creates are “comfortable” and “kind of homey”, with “soft materials and mood lighting.”

The Wilbert Group

As for Scofflaw’s new 9,000-square-foot research and development brewery and tasting room, it will be located next to Ballard Designs and the food hall in the complex. It should include an outdoor space for games, a taproom featuring the brewery’s Basement and POG IPAs as well as high-gravity and special release beers, and an open floor plan to allow visitors a glimpse into Scofflaw’s inner workings. The main brewery, founded in 2016, is located a little over a mile away on MacArthur Boulevard, near Crest Lawn Memorial Park.

The brewery’s expansion is likely much-needed positive news for owners Matt Shirah and Travis Herman. The partners found themselves in hot water last October following a PR stunt that backfired meant to promote Scofflaw’s now cancelled partnership with BrewDog breweries in the U.K.

A controversial press release promising free beer to Trump supporters was sent out by what Scofflaw labeled as a “rogue employee” from Frank PR to nearly 11,000 journalists, enraging both U.K. and U.S. beer drinkers. The U.K. PR firm was hired to handle the promoting of the partnership between the breweries, which would have seen Scofflaw’s Basement and POG IPAs distributed to all of BrewDog’s 36 U.K. locations. Shirah denounced the press release calling it “incorrect,” “inaccurate,” and “absolute nonsense.”

Scofflaw has a self-confessed reputation as “trailer trash brewers” and frequently engages in irreverent humor on social media. In a recent story by Good Beer Hunting, that rebellious rep, continued controversies, and rumored claims of physical altercations at the brewery, lead three Atlanta restaurants to stop pouring Scofflaw’s beers. This includes Brick Store Pub in Decatur. Scofflaw denies these claims and downplays the controversies, calling them “libelous.”

But, Scofflaw won’t be the only new brewery opening around the revitalized Chattahoochee corridor. Steady Hand Beer Co. is set to open in the next few weeks on neighboring Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard, across from Top Golf.

Eater Atlanta has reached out for further details.

1295 Chattahoochee Avenue NW, Atlanta. theworksatl.com.

• First look: ‘The Works’ planned for 80 acres on Atlanta’s Upper Westside [CurbedATL]
• Scofflaw Brewing Co. coverage [EATL]