A Beer Hall Closes in Poncey-Highland, While a Tapas Restaurant Shutters in Roswell

The Wurst Beer Hall closes on Ponce

Nine months after opening in part of the former Moe’s Southwest Grill space on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Poncey-Highland, Atlanta chef and Bantam and Biddy owner Shaun Doty closed the Wurst Beer Hall over the weekend due to “underperformance”. Doty’s Best Sandwich Shop remains open next door and the chef is considering replacing the Wurst with another restaurant in the coming months.

Doty and his business partners plan to take time over the holidays to determine which direction to take the Wurst space, hoping to open a “more approachable” restaurant the neighborhood can really get behind in the spring.

“We all live in the neighborhood and thought we knew what the neighborhood wanted, but we got a rude awakening,” Doty tells Eater. “Perhaps the Wurst was a little too niche.”

Doty is now focusing his energy on growing the Best Sandwich Shop, something he and his partners say was “always meant to simply compliment the space,” but turned out to be the “runaway favorite” of the two restaurants.

The Wurst Beer Hall was a refreshing addition to the dining scene when it opened along Ponce in March, serving platters of Patak sausages and sauerkraut, giant Bavarian pretzels, and entrees of currywurst and chicken schnitzel. The bar at the Wurst offered Ayinger’s Bavarian pilsner and Brau-Weisse on draft, as well as other local and imported beers served by the pint and liter.

Tapas restaurant Casa Robles in Roswell closes December 23

Lack of a steady stream of diners also appears to have claimed another relatively new restaurant. Brothers Ryan and Dan Pernice, the duo behind Table and Main and Osteria Mattone, will close Latin American and tapas restaurant Casa Robles December 23 after less than two years in Roswell.

“It was a great restaurant,” Ryan Pernice tells the AJC of the decision to close Casa Robles. “People loved the food. There just weren’t enough of them. . . The numbers just weren’t there.”

Casa Robles took over the former Whiskey Project space on Oak Street in May 2022, led in the kitchen by El Salvador native chef Laura Orellana. Orellana, who received her culinary training in Seville, Spain, at Escuela de Hosteleria de Sevilla, and lived and worked in Spain for five years, serves a mix of traditional Spanish tapas and dishes from El Salvador and Mexico, including pupusas, cochinita pibil tacos, tamales stuffed with Salvadorean chicken and chickpeas, and mariscada (a spicy seafood stew.)

Until it closes on December 23, the Roswell restaurant remains open for dinner. Orellana will then become the executive sous chef at Table and Main on Canton Street in the heart of Roswell’s dining district.