Irwin Street Market’s Popular Pizza Window Relocates Nearby to Studioplex

After nearly two years at Irwin Street Market in the Old Fourth Ward, Rob Birdsong is relocating his popular pizza-making operation and takeout window Glide Pizza across the street to Studioplex. Now closed at the market, Glide should reopen for pizza at its new Auburn Avenue home this Friday, February 4.

Taking over the cafe behind cycling shop the Spindle, following the departure of Puerto Rican food pop-up My Abuelas Food, the move to Studioplex allows Birdsong to offer indoor and outdoor seating and to sell beer at Glide. He also plans to install a walk-up window here, something Birdsong says is now part of the “Glide DNA.”

“It’s a great opportunity for us, and it’s not going to change our delivery zone. This will give us more space and more room for dough and storage so we’ll stop selling out of pizzas at 8 p.m.,” he says of leaving Irwin Street Market, the restaurant incubator space Glide shares with businesses like Bomb Biscuits and Yay Beignet. “We’ve expanded twice in there and we’re bursting at the seams.”

Along with serving beer at the new Studioplex restaurant, including some from Inner Voice Brewing, where a second location of Glide opens in March, Birdsong is adding a pizzeria salad to the menu at Glide.

Ryan Fleisher

Glide Pizza

With daily COVID-19 cases still riding high in Atlanta due to the Omicron variant, Birdsong says he’ll stick to takeout and outdoor seating for now at Studioplex. In addition to seating on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, the property owner also gave Birdsong permission to use an area near the former Serpas restaurant to further expand Glide’s outdoor seating options at the complex. Indoor seating could begin as early as March, once the weather warms up and Birdsong can comfortably throw open the garage doors to the pizza shop.

Beyond the relocation to Studioplex and the second shop opening at Inner Voice Brewing in Decatur, Birdsong is working on a third Glide Pizza at the Westside Paper development on West Marietta Street. Similar in size and scale to the Studioplex shop, Glide will join other notable Atlanta restaurants at Westside Paper later this year, including Anne Quatrano’s Ponce City Market restaurant Pancake Social and chef Richard Tang’s Girl Diver, along with the first Georgia location of Boxcar Betty’s.

“Irwin Street was proof of concept, and building the business, and we feel like Glide is now mature enough to move on and for us to set up the business to be sustainable for the long term,” says Birdsong. “Studioplex will be our own space where we can continue growing and be able to meet the demand and be even more consistent.”

659 Auburn Avenue, Atlanta. glidepizza.com.

Open Tuesday - Thursday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Order online. Outdoor seating available.

Public Transit Information: Accessible by foot or bike via the Eastside Beltline Trail or by MARTA busses #3 and #809.

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