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It appears a brand new Publix is taking over the space formerly home to the “Disco Kroger” on Piedmont Road in Buckhead, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Kroger closed the longtime Buckhead location this past December after 47 years.
Regency Centers, the owners of the Buckhead shopping complex, plan to redevelop the entire property and bring in new retail and restaurants over the next two years. This includes demolishing the existing Kroger building and replacing it with a new 55,000-square-foot Publix. The Piedmont Peachtree Crossing shopping center, now called Buckhead Landing, is currently home to Starbucks, Urban Wu Chinese restaurant, and Piu Bello pizzeria. Construction at Buckhead Landing should finish up some time in 2024.
Naming our neighborhood Krogers is nothing new in Atlanta, and actually owes its origins to the Disco Kroger. During the 1980s, the grocery store counted the legendary Limelight discotheque among its neighbors. Many of the club’s heavily inebriated and hungover patrons often ended their nights at the nearby Kroger, stumbling over to the grocery store and wandering the aisles in a daze in search of sustenance. Even after the nightclub closed in 1987, that Disco Kroger nickname stuck and is now embraced by generations of Atlantans, most of whom never stepped foot inside the infamous discotheque, where sharks swam for a time under the glass dance floor.
It’s unlikely this new Publix will enjoy the same local notoriety and fondness as its grocery store competitor there once did. And please don’t call it the Disco Publix, because as any true Atlantan knows, such nicknames are only reserved for our Krogers.
3330 Piedmont Road, Atlanta.
