"With this opening in Buckhead Village, the Jeffrey brand comes full circle back to the Atlanta neighborhood where it first debuted." Michael Phillips, president of Jamestown, the Atlanta company that owns and manages Buckhead Village District, said that to Buckhead.com in August.
"Full circle" also describes the rest of this season. The year's two biggest names on Peachtree Road both helped define Buckhead in an earlier decade, left, and chose to come back to the same few blocks. A designer has reopened under his own name, and a chef is bringing his bakery back across town. The newer brands are filling in around them.
Bolling Way, Then and Now
Jeffrey Kalinsky opened his first store in Buckhead in 1990. Next came a store in New York's Meatpacking District and another in Palo Alto. Nordstrom bought a controlling interest in 2005, and in May 2020 the retailer closed all three Jeffrey stores.
On Aug. 2, Jeffrey reopened at 3070 Bolling Way NE. The space is 3,000 square feet, and 1,000 of them are a styling lounge. The store offers dedicated valet and free on-site alterations. Kalinsky runs it independently this time, with no corporate parent, and Buckhead.com reported that he chose the location before he chose anything else.
He told the outlet why he picked this block:
"I've gotten to know Buckhead Village because my friend Don Purcell opened a jewelry store there, and I've always frequented Le Colonial and Le Bilboquet, and the St. Regis is right there. It just seemed like the perfect location for a business like mine."
Purcell was general manager of Jeffrey's Atlanta and New York stores for 25 years. Now he runs his own shop across the street from his former boss. The racks mix independent labels such as Bergfabel, Sophie D'Hoore, Wommelsdorff, Christen, Dosa and Dusan with The Row, Celine, Phoebe Philo, Bottega Veneta, Gucci and Tom Ford.
That matters beyond fashion. One relationship pulled a returning retailer onto this street, and that retailer brings back a customer base Buckhead built more than 30 years ago.
The Leases That Set the Table
The Jeffrey return capped a run of signings that Jamestown had been building for nearly a year. In the order Buckhead.com laid them out:
- Fall 2025: Roche Bobois takes the district's largest ground-floor bay, 4,700 square feet facing Peachtree Road.
- January 2026: Maeve, Anthropologie's in-house label, opens its second standalone U.S. boutique. Great Many, a hair-growth studio, opens 1,800 square feet in its first location outside its New York flagship.
- Early 2026: Hill House Home opens in 2,200 square feet.
- May 2026: ME+EM takes 2,170 square feet. LoveShackFancy opens its 29th store, a 2,100-square-foot space built to look like a historic French townhouse.
- July 31, 2026: Bobbi Brown's Jones Road Beauty opens 1,800 square feet, two days before Jeffrey.
Most of these are first or second locations, not chain filler. They gave the block a reason to draw shoppers before a homecoming tenant arrived. Then Kalinsky, the person most linked with Buckhead luxury retail, came back to a street that had already been rebuilt for him.
Dining followed the same summer. Y Bar e Ristorante opened in July at 3065 Peachtree Road, in the former Storico Vino and Pachengo spaces. Rough Draft Atlanta reported that it comes from Y Hospitality, the group behind Yeppa & Co., Storico Fresco and Forza Storico. The design draws on 1960s cafes in Rimini, where partner Stephen Peterson grew up. It has a U-shaped bar, a covered patio and terraced seating along the pedestrian alley. The menu includes Aunt Becky's artichoke dip, and some of the wine comes from the group's own Enio Ottaviani Winery. Y Bar turns 21+ at 9 p.m., and the kitchen closes at 10.
A Chef Comes Back Up Peachtree
The second homecoming opens next spring. Rough Draft Atlanta reported in September that James Beard Award-winning chef Linton Hopkins and Hopkins & Company will open Linton's Bar and Grill at Buckhead Center, in the former Brio Tuscan Grille space at 2970 Peachtree Road. The opening is targeted for late spring 2027.
The Buttery is coming back with it. That bakery-cafe closed in 2024 after four years in Morningside-Lenox Park. In Buckhead it will sit next to the restaurant with its own entrance, and the two will share a patio overlooking Peachtree. Hopkins describes Linton's as a casual neighborhood place: sandwiches and salads at weekday lunch, martinis and tuna tartare on the patio after work, and steak dinners by reservation. The Buttery will serve coffee, pastries, breads and croissant sandwiches starting in the morning.
This is a return in the full sense of the word. Hopkins and his wife and business partner, Gina, opened Restaurant Eugene at The Brookwood on Peachtree in 2004, and Holeman & Finch followed in the same complex four years later. Restaurant Eugene closed in 2019 and Holeman & Finch in 2020. Holeman & Finch reopened at Colony Square in Midtown in 2023. The Buckhead restaurants are what led the James Beard Foundation to name Hopkins Best Chef: Southeast in 2012.
Kalinsky and Hopkins are back on the same corridor where they built their names, and both are working under their own banners again.
What Left While the Names Came Back
The summer had departures too, and they show what a return like this has to compete with.
Tuk Tuk Thai Food Loft, run by Tamarind Restaurant Group, closed in early August after 16 years in Buckhead, Rough Draft Atlanta reported in its Aug. 6 restaurant news. APT 4B closed its location at 2293 Peachtree Road on July 18. According to What Now Atlanta, the Caribbean restaurant expects to reopen somewhere else.
Sixteen years is a long run for any Atlanta restaurant. The Buckhead.com piece on Jeffrey ended on a measured note, saying the district's run "will be measured in renewals rather than ribbon-cuttings." The returning names start with an advantage that new brands don't have, because Buckhead already knows them. Whether that advantage lasts is a question for 2028, not this fall.
Still on the Way
A few announced Buckhead Village tenants are at different stages:
- Unsubscribed, the women's luxury fashion brand, is listed on its own boutique locator at 3056 Bolling Way, Suite B215, with regular hours posted.
- Roller Rabbit has planned its first Georgia store, 1,850 square feet at 3065 Peachtree Road NE, Suite B214. What Now Atlanta reported the plan in July without an opening timeline, and Buckhead.com described it as slated to open before year-end.
- TOM FORD Beauty is on Jamestown's announced list of retailers slated to open in the district.
- Linton's Bar and Grill and The Buttery are targeted for late spring 2027 at 2970 Peachtree Road.
From Oct. 22 to Nov. 12, on and Around Peachtree
This calendar falls right after these openings, while the new shops are still new to most of the neighborhood:
- Thursday, Oct. 22: Buckhead Heritage hosts a free talk on the High Museum's centennial.
- Oct. 23 through Nov. 1: Camp Twin Lakes Partners Card, a 10-day shopping event. Buckhead Village District lists it, and cardholders save 20% at hundreds of participating retailers and restaurants. Card sales help send children with serious illnesses, disabilities and life challenges to Camp Twin Lakes.
- Friday, Oct. 23: RAWAYANA plays the amphitheater at Chastain Park.
- Sunday, Oct. 25, noon to 4 p.m.: Buckhead Butcher Shop holds its first Oktober Wurstfest. Tickets are $125 and include a beer flight, food, and bratwurst and sauerkraut demonstrations, according to Rough Draft Atlanta.
- Oct. 30 and 31: Steve Lacy plays two nights at Chastain.
- Thursdays, Nov. 5 and Nov. 12, 6 to 10:30 p.m.: Sip & Spin at Brush Sushi, listed on the district's events calendar.
- Saturday, Nov. 7, 10 a.m.: Buckhead Heritage leads a walking tour of Peachtree Heights East, with a free history talk following on Nov. 12.
Walking to all this is getting easier, too. In Livable Buckhead's Aug. 19 update, its executive director said nearly five miles of PATH400 were open. The northern extension toward Sandy Springs was under construction and projected to finish its Atlanta section in the first quarter of 2027. If those forecasts hold, the trail and The Buttery's patio will be ready in the same spring. Our summer look at how PATH400 links Buckhead's openings traces the trail's route.
If you own a home within walking distance of Buckhead Village and want to know how this block's comeback could shape your listing's presentation, Bobbie Schmitt can put together a Custom Marketing Plan for it, built on 50 years of telling Buckhead's stories well.
