Atlanta

30-year-old Atlanta restaurant Mr. Everything Cafe to officially reopen Wednesday

ATLANTA — A 30-year-old business, the Mr. Everything Cafe, is set to reopen in a brand new location Wednesday.

Family-owned and operated, the business will celebrate its 30th anniversary and open its doors to the public at 11 a.m. in its new brick location on Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. SW in Atlanta.

The new location is a two-story dine-in restaurant with a full bar, with the owners, Monica and William Jayson Smith, saying it’ll have good, healthy food options for their community, calling their business an Atlanta staple.

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To celebrate the reopening, the owners say the cafe will serve lunch to a set of VIP guests and will feature music.

“We are having a ribbon cutting ceremony and 30th Anniversary celebration. This day has been a long time coming, as we have been serving the community along the MLK corridor for 30 years. Our event is open to the public and will include remarks from our local politicians, AUC representatives, celebrities, and nonprofit organizations - that we support, all of whom are long-standing customers,” Mrs. Smith said in a statement.

Additional celebrations are scheduled throughout the day and in the following weeks, with the restaurant planning to give away complimentary adult beverages from its second-floor bar to every 30th customer.

“We are one of the top five black-owned restaurants in the City of Atlanta that have been in business for over 25 years,” states Monica. “Each location is family-owned and we are all about our community.”

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The couple and owners of the restaurant said they have an open kitchen design so their customers can see their food being prepared. It’s also a place where customers are known by name and many are regulars.

“Most of our customers have been supporting us since they were in college and our cooks know them by name and most times their order,” Mr. Smith said.

The Mr. Everything Cafe first opened on June 1, 1993, and now has two corporate stores and three local franchises across Georgia. The Smiths were recipients of the 2022 Black Kitchen Initiative, sponsored by Heinz and the Lee Initiative and were featured on the Today show in 2019.

Another Mr. Everything Cafe is planned to open at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in 2024.

According to the reopening announcement, the Smiths are the parents of eight children, with ten grandchildren. They moved to Atlanta in 1991 searching for a better life for themselves and their family. Two years later, they rented out a small storefront on MLK Jr. Drive and the Mr. Everything Cafe opened up.

Their new location is just a four-minute walk down the street from their original spot.

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