Willie Degel, founder of the New York-based Uncle Jack’s restaurant group and former host of Food Network’s “Restaurant Stakeout,” recently signed a 10-year lease for his Uncle Jack’s Meat House concept to anchor the final commercial building in the Peachtree Corners Town Center development.
This will be the second Uncle Jack’s Meat House in metro Atlanta, the first being in Duluth.
The floorplan includes a 4,000-square-foot dining room with seating for 225, two patios, a front bar lounge/outdoor café, and a private party room.
The New York’s Meatpacking District-style decor will replicate the Duluth location, with meat hooks and custom light fixtures incorporating butchers’ cleavers and chefs’ knives.
“It will probably be ready to go late summer of 2020. They’re starting the building in a couple of weeks,” Degel shared on a phone call with What Now Atlanta.
In the meantime, Degel is scouting sites all the way from South Forsyth to Downtown Atlanta, and looking for “working partners” willing to invest between $100,000-$250,000 to open as many as 10 metro Atlanta locations of his varied portfolio–a meathouse, warehouse, speakeasy and tavern–over the next five years.
“I’m looking at this building right now, an entire building, right in the heart of Canton Street in Downtown Roswell and it’s getting renovated for a restaurateur. On the first floor I could do Uncle Jack’s Meathouse, the second floor, I could do the Jack’s speakeasy concept and the rooftop lounge I could do more of a tavern theme.”
In Halcyon, South Forsyth, Degel is mulling a meat wearhouse.
“It’s going to be like the Uncle Jack’s Meathouse, but the brick building has 50-foot ceilings. When you’re working with your own money and you love creating, you can adapt the concept to the community and to what their needs are and then you can adjust the menus, the prices, the items and it’s not just a cookie cutter concept. It’s not this franchise-based thing where you just eat, sleep and repeat. And that’s the difference when you’re an owner-operator.”
