Could the suburbs not handle the cuban-style eatery?
LottaFrutta Gourmet Fruit House and Market, arguably one of the city’s best restaurants, has shuttered its Avalon outpost in Alpharetta, North American Properties (NAP), Avalon’s developer, confirmed in an email to What Now Atlanta (WNA) Tuesday.
The order-at-the-counter restaurant that specializes in Cuban-style sandwiches, fruit cups, smoothies, and salads, closed for good sometime last week.
LottaFrutta Avalon was covered with butcher-like paper from floor to ceiling over the weekend, several WNA readers report.
It’s unclear why LottaFrutta – which first opened mid-2015 at the mixed-use development – shuttered its Avalon location. LottaFrutta owner Myrna Perez did not immediately return WNA’s request for comment.
NAP, in a statement to WNA Tuesday, suggests the restaurant was not a good fit for the North Fulton market:
“The recent closing of LottaFrutta provides us with an opportunity to welcome an exciting new concept that better resonates with the North Fulton market. There’s significant interest in the space due to its premier location next to the region’s top performing Marlow’s Tavern. As Avalon continues to grow, we will continue to refine our merchandising strategy to offer a best-in-class retail and restaurant mix. The second phase of Avalon is 87 percent pre-leased in anticipation of its April 2017 opening. As always, we welcome community feedback and ideas for new retailers and restaurants using the hashtag #AvalonInsider.”
Andrew Randall, a WNA reader and Avalon patron, thinks the competition was too stiff for the eatery.
“We are very sad about this but it doesn’t come as a surprise because [LottaFrutta was] rarely busy and couldn’t seem to find their place among all the other food options around them,” Randall told WNA in an email Monday.
How can a restaurant with two overwhelmingly successful locations – the original on Auburn Avenue and a second at the Atlanta airport – not survive in Alpharetta just 29.5 miles north of its Old Fourth Ward restaurant?
Was it not Applebee’s-y enough?
