Peoplestown Is Getting a Food Hall in 2024

Yet another food hall is opening in Atlanta, adding to the food hall boom the city is currently experiencing.

This latest food hall opens next year in the Peoplestown neighborhood, part of the adaptive-reuse complex Terminal South taking shape along Ridge Avenue. It’s the final stop on MARTA’s planned bus rapid transit (BRT) route originating in downtown Atlanta and is just steps from the Southside Beltline trail.

Called Switchman Hall, the food hall takes over one of two former warehouse spaces on the property and will feature 12 restaurant stalls with a terrace for outdoor seating on what was a loading dock. The second warehouse will include two full-service restaurants, one with a patio facing Hank Aaron Drive. A representative for Terminal South tells Eater they are in negotiations with eight possible food hall tenants, but declined to provide further details, other than to say the stalls will serve affordable food options and reflect “the diversity of the neighborhood,” with a focus on local Black- and minority-owned businesses.

One of the developers leading the Terminal South project for owner Stafford Properties, Melissa Ahrendt, lives less than two miles away and is invested in making sure the food hall and other retail spaces suit the neighborhood and surrounding communities.

“We have multiple charitable initiatives in the works, one of which is that all tenants will be required to contribute to a scholarship fund that will benefit students that reside in Peoplestown,” the representative says. Stafford Properties also plans to match funds raised by Terminal South tenants.

Located a little over a mile south of the Summerhill dining district on Georgia Avenue, Terminal South is another MARTA-accessible complex now under construction in Atlanta meant to promote walkability and public transit in neighborhoods throughout the city. Similar projects are already underway around the Lindbergh MARTA station in Buckhead and the Edgewood/Candler Park MARTA station, which includes Bona Fide Deluxe sandwich shop and tasting room and wine shop Vin ATL.

Peoples Town Coffee Bar opened on Milton Avenue in the neighborhood earlier this winter and is easily accessed from this portion of the Southside trail. The coffee shop and cafe opens in the morning for coffee and coffee tonics and pastries and toasts, with grilled cheese sandwiches and other small bites paired with wine and beer in the afternoon and evening.

Terminal South

Food halls have taken root all over Atlanta and its northern suburbs, beginning with the opening of Krog Street Market in 2014, followed by Ponce City Market in 2015. Nearly a dozen new food halls will open in the next two years around Atlanta, including an 11-stall food hall called Halidom Eatery on Moreland Avenue in Woodland Hills, four miles east of Switchman Hall.

Citizens Market, a 13-stall food hall at Phipps Plaza, opens in April offering restaurant stalls from renowned chefs Dani Garcia, Masaharu Morimoto of Iron Chef fame, and Wes Avila and Italian chef and master butcher Dario Cecchini, as well as competitive eater Matt Stonie and actress Sofia Vergara.