Ford Fry Is Bringing His Tex-Mex Restaurant Superica to Howell Mill Road

A fifth Atlanta location of Ford Fry’s Tex-Mex restaurant Superica is opening next door to his seafood restaurant and oyster bar the Optimist on Howell Mill Road, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports.

Superica takes over the space formerly occupied by Public School 404, which opened at the Brady complex in 2017. The California-based gastropub closed in the spring of 2020 and restaurant space has remained vacant.

First opened at Krog Street Market in 2015, Superica now includes locations in Buckhead, at the Battery Atlanta in Cobb County, and in Alpharetta as well as in Houston, Charlotte, and Nashville. In addition to Superica and the Optimist, Fry’s Rocket Farm Restaurants group also own St. Cecilia, Little Rey, Marcel, Beetlecat, and King and Duke in Atlanta, No. 246 in Decatur, La Lucha and State of Grace in Houston, and a location of the Optimist in Nashville.

Fry closed his longtime Westside Provisions District restaurant JCT Kitchen and Bar at the end of 2021 after 15 years at the Howell Mill shopping and dining district. However, a new Rocket Farms restaurant is set to replace it later this year. Construction on the yet-named restaurant begins this month.

“[JCT Kitchen] was always a neighborhood restaurant and what is coming will also act in that same vein, but it will be in a fresh new way,” Fry said in the December closure announcement.

930 Howell Mill Road, Atlanta. superica.com.

• Ford Fry Is Closing His Longstanding Southern Restaurant JCT Kitchen at Westside Provisions [EATL]
• Gastropub Public School 404 Is Closed Permanently on Howell Mill Road [EATL]
• All Superica coverage [EATL]