In budding Edgewood commercial village, garage redo plans unveiled

Two and ½ years after its days as an auto garage ended, plans are coming to light for how a 1950s building will be transformed at a key Edgewood intersection with an ever-popular taqueria next door.

A chef-driven, local pizzeria and neighborhood market will operate in a small corner building located at 131 Whitefoord Ave., immediately north of traditional Mexican concept El Tesoro, according to the building and business owner, attorney Sid Weinstein, who has lived nearby for 19 years.

The building and lot in question—shuttered and cleared of autos since late 2021—is located near Whitefoord Avenue’s intersection with Arkwright Place. Atlanta urbanists have prophesized that intersection could emerge as Edgewood’s version of a downtown commercial village; Weinstein’s concepts, the multi-use Eastside Trolley Trail that opened last summer, and a recent demolition across the street that sources say could produce a breakfast concept are evidence that could be happening.

Weinstein’s property spans just shy of 8,900 square feet, roughly equivalent to a typical intown housing parcel. In the 1950s, an entrepreneur built the property’s lone cinderblock building as a three-bay auto repair garage, and for roughly two decades, it operated as Rudy’s Auto.  

Weinstein tells Urbanize Atlanta roughly half of the 1,400-square-foot building will be devoted to a non-franchise pizzeria concept serving pasta, salads, grab-and-go meals, beer, and wine, though space limitations won’t allow for a traditional brick-fired oven. Plans call for extending the building's roof to cover brick patio seating in front, separated by a wall from the sidewalk.

“Most of the seating is going to be outside—very little of it inside—because we just don’t have the room,” says Weinstein. “But it’ll be really cool.”

The concept’s name has yet to be made public, and Weinstein says project renderings are pending. Preserving the property’s character, he says, will be paramount.

“We’re going to try to keep it as unpolished as possible for the neighborhood,” says Weinstein. “That’s part of what put the kibosh on [this concept] for a while. The first designer designed something that should be in Alpharetta, other than down here.” A lengthy process of soil-testing as part of the City of Atlanta’s Brownfields Program also caused delays, he says.

The other half of the building will become a neighborhood market that Weinstein says will lean more “high-end,” offering dairy, meat, beer, wine, fresh breads, canned mixed-drinks, and possibly fresh vegetables in limited space. (One drawback, says Weinstein, is that the building’s character-rich garage doors face east, into the morning sun, meaning they’ll have to be replaced to keep temperatures stable for produce inside.)

Parking in the area has been a source of neighborhood and business concerns. Tentatively about eight to 10 parking spaces are planned behind the building, constituting what Weinstein says is more than half of the lot. He’s also in talks with nearby landowners about possibly leasing space for additional parking, at least at the outset.

“It’s like Virginia-Highland used to be, 33 years ago,” says Weinstein. “People get used to it, and they learn to park other places.”

The pizzeria-market concept was scheduled to go before Edgewood’s zoning committee Monday evening to start the redevelopment process.

Weinstein hopes to open the building by late summer or early fall. It will be open seven days a week, from morning until “as late as we can go,” according to ordinances, he says.

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• Edgewood news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)