Walk the south side of McLendon Avenue at Clifton Road this week and you'll pass five storefronts in the space of about 150 feet. A year ago, three of those doors were dark. Two years ago, this same stretch was anchored by a single restaurant that had fed the neighborhood breakfast and biscuits for three decades, as Rough Draft Atlanta reported. The block hasn't been rebuilt so much as re-divided, and the way it's being re-divided says more about where Candler Park is headed than any single opening does.
Candler Park's own neighborhood organization has taken to calling this stretch simply "the block," the way you'd refer to a landmark everyone already knows. For most of the last century it was exactly that: a cluster of storefronts at the end of an old trolley line, later anchored for thirty years by the original Flying Biscuit Cafe until the restaurant moved to DeKalb Avenue in 2024. What's happened since is the real story, and it's not the one-for-one restaurant swap you'd expect.
Five Small Businesses Are Reshaping the Block
Flying Biscuit's departure in 2024 didn't just open one vacancy. It opened a negotiation over what the block would become, and the answer took two years to arrive in full.
Dr. Bombay's Underwater Tea Party, the whimsical gift shop that had anchored the western end of the strip, relocated to Grant Park. Kelly's Closet, the bridal shop next door, didn't leave the block at all. It moved within it, resettling in a storefront toward the building's eastern corner. Only Flying Biscuit's own space sat fully empty and waiting.
That's three departures from three very different kinds of retail: a restaurant, a novelty gift shop, a bridal boutique. None of them got replaced with a like-for-like tenant. That's the part worth sitting with, because it means the block's current identity was built from scratch rather than inherited.
What Moved In First Wasn't Food
The first tenant into the old Flying Biscuit space wasn't a restaurant. It was Lostintheletters, an Atlanta writing studio and nonprofit that opened a brick-and-mortar home base in part of the space last year and now functions as a bookstore and creative gathering spot.
Then came Lucille's, which took the corner unit of that same former Flying Biscuit footprint and opened in early July 2026. Owner Kristen Eber isn't new to this stretch of McLendon. She grew up in Virginia-Highland, spent her teenage years in Little Five Points, and worked at the original Flying Biscuit, at Mooncake boutique, and at Salon Red before opening her own spa, Rosefinch, nearby on Clifton. Lucille's is built around a focus described on the shop's own site as luxury, sustainability, wellness, and pleasure: home décor, candles, jewelry, and a curated collection of intimacy products behind a curtain in back. Eber has said the shop's reception in the neighborhood has been overwhelmingly positive, aside from a handful of concerned messages before people saw the space in person.
Neither Lostintheletters nor Lucille's replaced what left. They gave the block two entirely new categories of business it didn't have before: a literary nonprofit and a boutique built around self-care and intimacy. That's the pattern to notice. The block isn't refilling with the same kind of tenant it lost. It's diversifying into things it never had.
The Bakery Is Finally Arriving, Almost Two Years Later
Food is coming back to the block, just not where it left from, and not alone.
Little Tart Bakeshop, the pastry and espresso concept that's been a Grant Park, Summerhill, and Krog Street Market fixture since 2011, is opening its fourth Atlanta location this fall in the former Kelly's Closet storefront at 1643 McLendon Avenue. Founder Sarah O'Brien has said she's wanted a Candler Park location for as long as she's lived in Atlanta, more than fifteen years.
Next door, in the space that used to be Dr. Bombay's, O'Brien's team is opening Midi, a Parisian-style sandwich shop conceived on a research trip to Paris. Midi will serve sandwiches built on house bread with local ingredients, salads, a wine and cocktail list, and soft serve borrowed from O'Brien's other concept, Big Softie. Both openings were still targeting a fall 2026 debut as of this summer's reporting, with the exact date left to the construction schedule, as O'Brien told WhatNow.
When Little Tart and Midi open, the block's food and drink options won't be concentrated in one restaurant the way they were under Flying Biscuit. They'll be split across a bakery and a sandwich shop, sitting next to a gift boutique, a bookstore, and the relocated Kelly's Closet, all within the same short run of storefronts. Here's what that lineup looks like heading into fall, west to east along the south side of McLendon:
- Little Tart Bakeshop (opening fall 2026, 1643 McLendon Ave) — pastries and espresso, in the former Kelly's Closet space
- Midi (opening fall 2026) — Parisian-style sandwiches, wine, and soft serve, in the former Dr. Bombay's space
- Lostintheletters — writing studio, nonprofit, and bookstore
- Lucille's (open since July 2026, 1653E McLendon Ave at Clifton) — gift boutique and intimacy shop
- Kelly's Closet — bridal shop, now in its relocated storefront toward the building's eastern corner
Across the street, on the block's north side, nothing has changed. Candler Park Market and Gigi's Italian Kitchen & Restaurant have anchored that corner through the entire turnover on the south side, and La Fonda Latina remains next door to where Dr. Bombay's used to be. The contrast is useful: one side of McLendon held steady while the other side rebuilt itself business by business over two years.
Fall Fest Walks Through All of It on October 3 and 4
The timing lines up with something bigger than any single storefront. Fall Fest in Candler Park, the neighborhood's signature fundraiser and one of the most attended festivals in metro Atlanta, returns for its 25th year on Saturday, October 3, and Sunday, October 4, running 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. The festival draws crowds through the park and onto the surrounding streets, including McLendon Avenue, for an artist market, food vendors, live music, and a 5K.
Anyone who walked that same route during last year's festival will be walking past a materially different block this year. Lucille's wasn't open yet. Little Tart and Midi hadn't broken ground. The eastern storefronts were mid-renovation, floors and walls going in to divide what used to be one continuous café into three separate businesses. This year's Fall Fest crowd gets the finished version, or close to it, for the first time.
The neighborhood's other fall traditions already came and went this month. Fall Ball, the Candler Park Neighborhood Organization's evening fundraiser, was held September 18, and the Tour of Homes, which opens eight distinctive homes across Candler Park and a neighboring intown area, took place September 26. Fall Fest is the one still ahead, and it's the one that will put the most feet on McLendon Avenue at once.
What This Means for the Block Going Forward
The obvious read on McLendon Avenue would be that Candler Park lost a beloved restaurant and is slowly getting one back. The actual pattern is different. Where one restaurant used to concentrate the block's weekend traffic, five smaller, distinct businesses are expected to share it: a bakery, a sandwich shop, a bookstore, a gift boutique, and a relocated bridal shop, each offering a different kind of visit rather than one long brunch line. That's not a restoration of what left. It's a different kind of block than the one that existed under Flying Biscuit, built one storefront at a time by people who mostly already lived or worked in the neighborhood before they opened anything on it.
If you're curious what a walk down this stretch of McLendon looks like once Little Tart and Midi finish construction, Fall Fest weekend is the moment to find out.
Wilson Property Partners keeps a close eye on the corridors that make Candler Park feel like Candler Park, storefront by storefront. If you've got questions about this stretch of McLendon or anywhere else in the neighborhood, Wilson Property Partners would love to start a conversation about your neighborhood or home.
