The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mary Mac’s begins new chapter
Tea room reopens for takeout; dine-in service starts Nov. 9.
Doors have been locked at 224 Ponce de Leon in Midtown for seven long months due to the pandemic. That changed this past Monday when Mary Mac's Tea Room resumed its 75th year in business, albeit with takeout only. Dine-in service is set to commence Nov. 9.
The return of one of Atlanta's most endearing Southern restaurants means the return of crowd favorites like fried chicken, collards, mac and cheese, peach cobbler and yeast rolls. It means freebie pot likker and cracklin' cornbread for first-timers, as is the custom. It means old-school pencils and order forms at tables.
Yet, Mary Mac's debut during the pandemic also comes with changes. After 26 years, ownership has passed from John Ferrell to a group that includes local businessmen Harold Martin Jr. and Bryan Rand, and father-son partners Michael Bodnar and John Michael Bodnar of Fresh Hospitality restaurant group. The Nashville-based Fresh Hospitality has a portfolio of 20 restaurant brands, including Taco Mac, for which Martin serves as CEO.
It is Martin's long-standing connection to Mary Mac's as a customer that prompted him a few years ago to inquire about purchasing it. “I told Matt Thompson (Ferrell's son and Mary Mac's director of operations), ‘If you ever sell Mary Mac's, please call me first.' I love Mary Mac's. I think it should be owned by someone who fully understands its legacy and heritage and why it is
unique to the Atlanta restaurant scene,” Martin said.
He began patronizing the Midtown restaurant in the late 1990s while attending Morehouse College. “A big part of why I went there: it felt like home,” said the native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
One member of the Mary Mac’s staff, in particular, made him feel like family: Ellen Fraley. “She literally looked out for me ever since I was a freshman in college,” Martin said.
Fraley began her more than 20-year tenure as a server about the same time that Martin first sat down to sup on the four-piece fried chicken, sweet potato souffle, green beans and banana pudding, which has since become his go-to order.
Unfortunately, Fraley passed away this summer. As a tribute to her, the Board Room, one of the restaurant’s six dining rooms, has been renamed Ms. Ellen’s Room.
The vast majority of Mary Mac’s 100-person staff, however, is returning. Like Fraley, some of them have worked at the restaurant for more than two decades. “If we didn’t get our team back, we’d have to do an extraordinary amount of training,” Martin said. “The biggest thing when opening a restaurant is the people.”
It was 5 p.m. on that first day of takeout. A steady stream of cars pulled up to the curb and a server wearing a Mary Mac’s-branded face mask handed bags of hot rolls, meatloaf, butter peas and fried okra through rolled-down windows.
“It’s been nonstop,” said Mary Mac’s new director of operations Chad Reynolds, who also noted that the phone hadn’t stopped ringing with Thanksgiving orders.
When guests once again begin strolling through the doors on Nov. 9, they will notice plenty of changes that make the restaurant compliant with COVID-19 safety guidelines, including plexiglass installed at the hostess stand, 22 hand sanitizer stations throughout the 13,000-square-foot space, fewer tables that reduce seating capacity by half, and pencils that are now sanitized after each use.
But the goal remains the same as ever. “Mary Mac’s is the premier purveyor of
Southern hospitality and cuisine and tradition in the Southeast,” Martin said. “It’s a high bar. We have an amazing team that is able to execute that.”