The Empire Builder: How Ford Fry Reshaped Atlanta’s Dining Scene
Atlanta’s culinary identity didn’t happen by accident. Over the past two decades, a good deal of it was built one restaurant at a time by Ford Fry — a Texas-raised, New England-trained chef who came to the city almost by chance and ended up redefining what Southern dining could look like.
Fry’s path to Atlanta wasn’t a straight line toward restaurant ownership. His culinary background spans childhood meals with family in Texas, training at the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont, and stints as a fine dining chef in Florida, Colorado, and California before landing in Atlanta as a corporate chef. The corporate job, by his own admission, wasn’t the right fit — but the city was. In 2007, he put down roots by opening JCT Kitchen & Bar in the Westside neighborhood, a debut that earned him a StarChefs Rising Star award and marked the start of what would become one of the most influential restaurant groups in the Southeast.
TG: Your restaurants have helped redefine Atlanta’s dining scene. When you open a new concept, what is the very first question you ask yourself?
Chef Ford Fry: “The first of many questions starts with the physical location (neighborhood)… ‘What does this location want to be? Is it casual, fancy, right up the middle?’ And from these answers… ‘what experience excites me that fits with these answers?’”
Fry took his time before expanding, waiting five years before opening his second restaurant so he could learn how to run a business before scaling up. That second project turned out to be The Optimist, a sustainable seafood restaurant and oyster bar in West Midtown — and it changed everything. The restaurant was named Esquire’s Restaurant of the Year for 2012 by longtime food correspondent John Mariani, the first time an Atlanta restaurant had received that honor since 1998. Bon Appétit later named it to its list of the 50 Best New Restaurants of 2013.
TG: Every one of your restaurants has its own distinct personality. How do you know when you’ve found a concept that’s truly unique?
Chef: “I think it starts with this before we even open. I’m not sure that anything is truly unique but… being unique to the city it’s in is important. For example, The Optimist was not the first seafood restaurant in Atlanta, yet it may have been the first that was high quality yet offers a feeling of ‘on vacation,’ and approachable. That was the goal — no managers in suits and ties, plus there’s a three-hole putt-putt course outside that gave the guest an experience that matched being on vacation.”
That kind of national attention landing on an Atlanta restaurant helped put the city’s dining scene on a bigger map at a moment when Atlanta was still fighting for recognition alongside Charleston, Nashville, and New Orleans. The momentum carried into industry honors closer to home: Eater Atlanta named Fry “Empire Builder of the Year” in 2013, and the Georgia Restaurant Association named him Restauranteur of the Year that same year.
From there, Fry’s restaurant group — now operating under the name Rocket Farm Restaurants — grew quickly. His Atlanta portfolio today includes Little Rey in Piedmont Heights; BeetleCat in Inman Park; The Optimist; Marcel on the Westside, multiple Superica locations spanning Buckhead, Avalon, the Battery, and Krog Street Market; St. Cecilia in Buckhead; No. 246 in Decatur, and Little Sparrow and Bar Blanc, both on the Westside. It’s a lineup that spans Tex-Mex, French bistro fare, Italian coastal cooking, and high-end steakhouse dining, often within a few miles of each other.
TG: You’ve traveled extensively for culinary inspiration. What destination has had the greatest influence on your cooking, and where are you eager to explore next?
Chef: “I’d have to say LA for sure. I love the diversity of the neighborhoods, but from a culinary standpoint, I love the quality of ingredients available on that coast. Walking the Santa Monica farmers markets and seeing all those ingredients populate the restaurant menus, and preparing them in the simplest ways, inspires me. Let the ingredient speak for itself.”
TG: Atlanta has grown into one of America’s most exciting food cities. What makes it such a special place for chefs today?
Chef: “Atlanta has gone from most restaurants living in Buckhead to restaurants populated in all the cool intown neighborhoods. There is a way less corporate feeling and allowing chef-owners to create cool experiences in their part of town. Exploring neighborhoods and what restaurants they offer is super exciting, as there are satisfying finds all over the city.”
That shift is one Fry’s own portfolio has helped drive. Rather than clustering downtown or chasing a single hot corridor, his restaurants have anchored entire neighborhoods — the Westside Provisions District, Krog Street Market, Inman Park, Decatur, Buckhead — often signaling that a neighborhood was arriving as a dining destination in its own right.
TG: Hospitality seems to be at the heart of everything you do. What does creating a memorable dining experience mean to you beyond the food itself?
Chef: “I’ve always thought that we create the space and experience for our guest to come and enjoy their company, and then we just get out of the way. Guests do have a lot of options these days, so excelling at the unexpected is so important.”
That philosophy shows up across wildly different formats in his portfolio — from the fast-casual, order-at-the-counter energy of Little Rey to the special-occasion polish of Marcel’s steakhouse dining room. It’s a portfolio built less around a signature dish than around a signature sense of hospitality.
TG: Many aspiring chefs dream of following in your footsteps. What advice would you give someone hoping to build a successful and lasting career in the restaurant industry?
Chef: “At the end of the day, restaurants are businesses. We all love the creative side, but we are building something that needs longevity. Create something you’re genuinely passionate about but make sure it’s also something your neighborhood actually wants. The sweet spot is where those two things come together — you really can’t have one without the other.”
TG: And a question I’ve asked everyone from Joel Robuchon to our now legendary Chef Ford Fry — What do you look for when you are hiring a chef for one of your restaurants?
Chef: “I want to know that they are passionate about food. I look at their Instagram and see what pictures they post… that tells you what they are excited about!”
Fry’s success has since carried him beyond Georgia, into Houston, Nashville, and Charlotte, with restaurants like State of Grace and La Lucha extending his reach into Texas and an outpost of The Optimist opening in Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood in 2020. But Atlanta remains the base of the operation — and arguably the proving ground where his ideas about hospitality, neighborhood restaurants, and mentorship for young chefs first took shape.
Nearly two decades after JCT Kitchen opened, Fry’s fingerprints are on enough corners of the city that it’s difficult to talk about Atlanta’s modern food scene without talking about him. Whether it’s a first date at St. Cecilia, weekend queso at Superica, or a celebratory dinner at Marcel, there’s a good chance an Atlanta diner’s most memorable meals trace back, one way or another, to our illustrious cover, Chef Ford Fry.
