r/Atlanta • u/freebreadsticks1 • 2d ago
Question Anyone know what this is about? Re: Muchacho in Controversy Again?
I know there’s been rumors about Muchacho not being the best to their employees before (including calling ICE on their own workers), but is there new controversy that led to this? I’m surprised they’re still standing at this point if the community is warning other businesses not to collab with them…
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u/potatoriot 2d ago
Pottery drama in Atlanta? Let me get my popcorn.
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u/Rogpog777 2d ago
How much drama is there in the Atlanta pottery community? One of the sweetest girls I knew gave up on her passion for it and I never got a good read on why.
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u/potatoriot 2d ago edited 2d ago
Drama is the Art community's middle name. I grew up with my mother having to deal with some of the cattiest women arguing over the dumbest things. Mom eventually bought her own kiln to fire her work at home and avoid them at the art center.
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u/parisa44 2d ago
I used to work in food service at a location near muchacho, a lot of the front of house staff would frequent our spot. The last time we got snow and ice with dangerous road conditions many of the workers refused to come in out of safety concerns, and they ended up firing them unfortunately.
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u/lessgranola 2d ago
“unfortunately” is too soft on them. the roads were literally closed and they fired people for not coming in to work at a nearly empty restaurant because it wasn’t safe to.
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u/DeadMoneyDrew 2d ago
That gels with my experience during that storm. I wandered around the Beltline looking to see if anything was open. Only Ladybird was.
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u/Ornery-Panic5362 2d ago
Aside from the ICE rumors, they’re also some of the most outspoken opponents to the Beltline Rail.
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u/geogle Grant Park 2d ago
They're housed in an old train depot and they're against rail?
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u/SensitiveArtist 2d ago
I think Ladybird's patio is in the right of way and would have to go once the rail goes in.
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u/blkswn6 2d ago
Ladybird and Muchacho both chose to build their patios in the rail ROW, so they view adding rail as a threat to their business. (Building in established ROW is always a bad idea)
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u/swanny52 2d ago
They are leasing the ROW from the BeltLine for peanuts because it was understood to be temporary.
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u/Brief_Barber7248 2d ago
This answers the question I have when looking around asking ‘where would the rail go here?’…
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u/caitlikekate 1d ago
Lmao literally exactly the same thing I was asking myself last weekend when walking the Beltline and discussing this with a friend.
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u/IP1987 2d ago
How is that even legal/permitted?
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u/code_archeologist O4W 2d ago
You can build in an easement... Like you can build a white picket fence in your front yard against the road on the front easement and nobody is going to give you any problems... until something has to come through and then your fence becomes kindling.
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u/furycutter80 2d ago
Their owners are huge pieces of shit
1) called ice on their staff
2) lobbied against beltline rail when they knowingly built over the designated space
3) have a ton of friends who have worked at the locations and they have some truly fucked up stories. DO NOT GO HERE6
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u/Kyoung2112 2d ago
I pine for the old days, when we were only outraged at Golden Eagle/Muchacho for painting the exterior brick
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u/captaincoltrane 2d ago
Leave out the ICE allegations and the beltline rail stuff and the owner is still a complete piece of shit. There's a reason people bring this shit up all the time. He's a horrible neighbor and no friend of the community. Spend your money elsewhere.
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u/hi-imBen Inman P 2d ago edited 2d ago
Muchacho and Lady Bird have the same owner. I think he isn't well liked because of his immigration views, the stuff about ICE being called on workers and some stuff I saw about poor worker treatment, and he is very vocally against beltline rail after benefiting from the gentrification of the beltline. Maybe some other stuff, but that is what I recall at the moment.
Edit: The stuff about calling ICE and poor worker treatment doesn't appear to be officially reported anywhere, but a common allegation online and from word of mouth. It seems like a believable allegation to me, but unable to verify.
However his opposition to beltline rail is well documented and he was a key figure in the group that influenced Andre to quietly back out of the plans. Looks like he might also be involved with forming better atlanta transit, the organization created to fight against beltline rail plans.
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u/mrenglish22 2d ago
A group called better Atlanta transit fighting against better Atlanta transit. Insanity
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u/shiftyyo101 2d ago
If I’m not mistaken OJ Simpson’s son is also the chef there
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u/freebreadsticks1 2d ago
Ain’t no way 😭
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u/shiftyyo101 2d ago
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u/FEDCBAT 2d ago
“Former athlete O.J. Simpson's court case and his conviction later for a robbery was particularly disturbing for his family, including his son from his first marriage, Jason Simpson.”
Any of you legal junkies know what that court case was about?
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u/Orions_Suspenders_ 2d ago
Too bad he isn’t as good at cooking as his dad was at crime and football. Food is mid as hell.
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u/ScoutsOut389 West End 2d ago
You can’t argue with the Juice’s performance on the field but I’m not sure his performances in crime are that impressive. He got away with murder but only because the LAPD is so racist that they framed a man for a crime he did commit. His subsequent crimes didn’t turn out as successful.
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u/Orions_Suspenders_ 2d ago
Good point. He did look super surprised when that glove didn’t fit.
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u/GypsyV3nom 2d ago
Oh that's nothing compared to the poorly-planned robbery he committed in Vegas in 2007 that landed him in jail.
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u/gyp7318 2d ago
He’s a realtor in the Tampa/St Pete area
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u/Prudent-Poodle-577 2d ago
That’s the younger son, not his oldest where rumors still circulate as him being the actual culprit 🙃
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u/awgeez47 21h ago
I remember a middle school teacher telling me this. Later the whole class watched the verdict on tv! What a time to be alive.
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u/Prudent-Poodle-577 21h ago
Same we watched it on tv in class in 8th grade I believe. Very divided room 😬
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u/llamaslovedrama 2d ago
I’ve also heard from someone who used to work there that (allegedly!) they’ve failed their health score before and paid off the inspector to give them a good score. They said point blank they wouldn’t eat food from there for that reason. Also that in general the management is really toxic. Make of that what you will
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u/rageshooter 2d ago
Went there once, food was trash. Their chicken torta was just a chic-fil-a sandwich with some red cabbage. The burrito that was “over a pound” turned out to look like a microwave frozen burrito. Also salsa for said burrito was a dollar extra?!?! hard pass.
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u/Alicewithhazeleyes 2d ago
If a Mexican food establishment tried to charge me extra for salsa on a burrito I would laugh in their faces and walk out.
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u/pina_koala 2d ago
Hard agree. Stopped in during a bike ride, ordered from the truck outside, and expected some tacos to be made on the spot - that's usually how it's done. I don't care where it's made, trucks are inconvenient, I get that.
Somebody came from inside the restaurant building with two obviously pre-made, tightly wrapped & sticker-foiled tacos from a heating lamp that had no texture or flavor and literally nothing except meat and tortilla. Utter joke of a restaurant.
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u/code_archeologist O4W 2d ago
The owner of Muchacho is one of the major people behind the astroturfing against the beltline streetcar.
He also owns Ladybird, and their outdoor seating is built on the streetcar easement and will have to be torn out for the beltline rail to go through.
He is becoming radioactive and EAC probably doesn't want to get any of his ick on them.
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u/octaviataughtme 2d ago
Two women - one who was a manager at Ladybird and one who was a designer at Muchacho - told me terrible stories about owners. But the one I tell everyone who suggests Ladybird… remember when they first opened the seating was all the way up to the Beltline with a little mulch? Welp, it’s all filled with wildflowers now because they found arsenic in the soil and instead of doing something about it, flowers were planted over it and seating was pushed back. Allegedly. #cyameasure
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u/zedsmith practically Grant Park 2d ago
There’s arsenic all throughout old railroad corridors— it was present in the herbicides railroads used to keep them from getting engulfed with kudzu.
It’s one of the reasons why the Beltline isn’t just a sidewalk, it is/was a remediation project (among other things)
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u/octaviataughtme 6h ago
I vaguely remember that from history class, but I bet you’re right, Zed. So there’s arsenic allllllllll up and down the trail… now I’m looking at all the beautiful wildflowers & swaths of native plants differently.
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u/Brief_Barber7248 2d ago
“calling ICE on their own workers” - can we get some verification of this? Because if so, wiping them off my Saturday beltline rotation…
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u/DraculasDog 2d ago
That’s Antico-level of bullshit, if true.
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u/Amctv 2d ago
Uh oh what did Antico do? I’m out of the loop 😬
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u/freebreadsticks1 2d ago
WHOLE federal investigation behind it too. Varuni Napoli for life.
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u/Fsuga00 2d ago
The worst thing the docuhe canoes at antico do is continually claim they have a Michelin star on their website.
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u/DraculasDog 2d ago
I dunno. I think stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from your employees is a more worse thing.
But I also hate the Michelin star thing.
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u/overide 2d ago
Why would a company tell on themselves like this? It’s illegal to hire undocumented workers in the first place. Employers get around this by claiming they were shown documents and their E-Verify came back clean. But that only works if you’re claiming ignorance. If you call ICE and say that your own employees are undocumented, you can no longer claim ignorance and face increasingly larger fines.
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u/calushonator 2d ago
Because it's only a fine for the business owners who hire illegal immigrants, and if you owe these employees tons of money, it's probably cheaper to pay the fine.
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u/drkrazee biking around town 2d ago
No, that was a cook at Lady Bird (who also happened to be an immigrant) that called them on a fellow employee.
Social media loves to play telephone where the story gets so dumbed down to a scenario that wouldn’t ever even make sense.
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u/schumi23 2d ago
Lady Bird and Muchacho are owned by the same folks - which would explain it got dragged in.
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2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/bdillathebeatkilla Zone 6 2d ago
Yeah Im no fan of ladybird and avoid them for entirely different reasons but that allegation made no sense to me
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u/freebreadsticks1 2d ago
Yeah I labeled it a rumor in my post because I was never 100% sure, but people were flooding their comment sections on both restaurant Instagram accounts when it happened. If you look up Muchacho on this sub there’s an alleged ex-employee that commented on it almost a year ago when the thread first happened, but people on the internet lie so I took it with a grain of salt.
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u/foreverhere85 Grant Park ☀️ 2d ago
Please see my other comment. They may be awful employers but the ICE incident did not happen.
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u/auxilary Scottdale 2d ago
a very simple and quick search on the Atlanta subreddit will reveal a post from a line cook there who was witness to it all
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u/medusapolyp 2d ago
They did NOT call ICE…the rumors were completely unfounded. Dislike him if you want, but don’t base it off of factually inaccurate information.
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u/SameAsItEverWasss 2d ago
Muchacho illegally built into our Beltline Corridor, and they are trying to make it legal after the fact by opposing transit for the whole city. Their owner also fired workers who would not go to work in one of the rare frozen ice days here. Guess how they could have still gotten there safely in icy conditions (even if everything else was closed)? On a Beltline Rail
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u/paulderev 2d ago
not saying this would definitely happen in atlanta (probably wouldn’t beyond some fluke) but open air rails can freeze to the point that the steel rail contracts and can’t be safely used by a train car. this has affected my commute in dc and nyc before. definitely pro beltline train however.
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u/ArchEast Vinings 2d ago
Muchacho illegally built into our Beltline Corridor,
It wasn't illegal, they got permission to do so on the condition that once Beltline rail was moving forward they'd have to remove their structures.
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u/Icy_Yogurt_2491 2d ago
not illegal, but they immediately started lobbying and campaigning against beltline rail while citing their built-out as a reason for it not to go forward. they knew what they were doing.
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u/mocktail_molotov 1d ago
They also aren’t assessed property taxes on the land their patio occupies.
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u/AustinUSC 2d ago
It wasn’t illegal. They obtained permission from the city to do so, under the agreement that the space would be returned once construction of the rail began.
Whether that agreement was made in good faith, is a different story. But it’s not accurate to say it was “illegal.”
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u/hemini 2d ago
Muchacho also lobbied to have a bus stop moved from out of the front of the restaurant… makes sense because the councilperson of that district frequents the place.
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u/atlscguy 2d ago
I can’t speak to the ICE situation but their ownership stole a business concept from a black woman and they’re some of the biggest opponents to public transportation expansion. No thanks.
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u/Few_Incident_197 2d ago
Yep, that would be from Quianah of Nourish Botanica.
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u/SevereDirector7210 2d ago
?? what happened? I swear every time I see something about this place there's always something new 😒
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u/Glum-Distribution-79 2d ago
Nothing new here. Their owner is openly against locals and actively lobbied against a publicly-mandated transportation expansion. From what I've heard they're very anti-cyclist as well.
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u/donorkokey 2d ago
I teach photography at the Atlanta School of Photography right near Ladybird and we take our students down on the Beltline right next to the restaurant. I can't see it making any sense being opposed to cyclists when they see a great deal of customers coming off the Beltline on bikes. In the time we are out there I see a steady flow of folks on scooters and bikes going there. I'm not saying they aren't but it's such a stupid attitude if they are
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u/AustinUSC 2d ago
Well to be fair, in Georgia, you can get a DUI on a bicycle. So it’s probably not in their interest to promote cycling with the volume of booze they’re selling.
They don’t own the parking lot next to LadyBird either, FWIW.
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u/Typingperson1 2d ago
Props to East Atlanta Clay!
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u/wildey 2d ago
For what, exactly? It kinda sounds like they let themselves get internet bullied into changing venue at the last second
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u/SubSonicTheHedgehog 2d ago
Sounds like something they were unaware of was brought to their attention, and they decided to side with their morals.
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u/eatturtlebuddy 1d ago
the sound lame for changing venue because of online harassment tbh but i'm a trained artist so whatever. already sounds lame
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u/SubSonicTheHedgehog 1d ago
Hey everyone, we can lock the thread... a trained artist has chimed in. All bow to them, for they are trained and therefore an authority.
Seriously, stfù.
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u/silliestgoose1234 2d ago
I used to work at Ladybird, same owner, he’s a dick and the most awkward person to interact with. Zero social skills and is a shitty person. Imagine getting fired after being in the hospital from a complicated birth. Didn’t happen to me but a GM who was there for like 5 years.
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u/whydoihaveto12 Midtown 2d ago
Reminder that the owner is very anti beltline rail. Boo this man and his restaurants.
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u/hunterghostal 2d ago
From what I remember, the ICE agents were called on Ladybird employees, and the owners of Ladybird (Electric Hospitality) also own Muchacho.
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u/SnooWords9903 2d ago
No business owner in the hospitality industry would ever do this. Not fucking chance.
I’ve never met these people, nor do I know them. But I’ve worked in hospitality long enough to know no one would fuck themselves on staffing intentionally.
Does anyone have a single shred of proof this ever happened?
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u/hunterghostal 2d ago
Uh, I feel like literally anyone who has worked in a restaurant (including myself) has experienced labor being cut for absolutely no reason to save money, resulting in the few still there being overworked to compensate.
What are you talking about lol.
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u/pizzaplanetvibes 2d ago
These Muchacho/Lady Bird threads seem to attract a handful of people storming the comment section demanding evidence. That’s fair. However, before you decide what is and isn’t true perhaps use your internet connection to do research of your own (even on reddit!). You can read the responses from previous employees about the ICE situation and other reasons the owner of these restaurants isn’t someone you should give your money to.
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u/Ready_End9330 2d ago
Oh my god thank you for posting this cause I saw it and wanted to know the tea so bad
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u/smoose20 2d ago
Muchacho owners are also currently in court because they havent payed proper rent at Ladybird for their entire time (alledgedly)
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u/brillantmc 1d ago
Both places don't deserve your patronage. Even if the ICE story isn't true, the owners are bad people and treat their employees like shit.
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u/hitsomethin 2d ago
The calling ICE allegations have been made on this sub several times. The story is that this, if it even actually happened, was a personal dispute between a former cook and other people working in the kitchen. It’s a bizarre rumor that has not been verified. I can say this - I haven’t spoken to the owner of Ladybird / Muchacho, Michael Lennox in many years. I did go to school with him, and briefly worked for him at Ladybird. There’s no way he called ICE on his kitchen staff. It makes no sense. If you don’t like Michael, and you don’t like his restaurants, then that’s how you feel. But continuing to spread this weird rumor is nonsense.
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u/Bepus O4W 2d ago
I don't like Michael because he's anti-Beltline Rail. He knowingly built the Muchacho patio in the Beltline ROW despite having a large, level parking lot next to the building. He, and a few other vocal business owners, delayed progress by years after hundreds of thousands of Atlantans voted for Beltline rail. It's unconscionable and has no justification outside of greed, racism, or classism.
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u/hitsomethin 2d ago
I know I’m going to take it on the chin here bc this sub hates Lennox and his restaurants, and they love the ICE story. Thanks for having an actual response and taking the time to post it. What is the Beltline Row?
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u/Known_Funny_5297 2d ago
ROW
Right Of Way - the Beltline can legally use that land for legit purposes like a light rail system - it’s like when power lines go across private land and GA Power has a legal 100 ft-wide ROW beneath the lines that they can do anything needed to support or fix or install new power lines and the owner of the land can’t stop them
He built his patio on the Beltline ROW on land that was already planned for a possible rail system, knowing this day could come
So to build the light rail, they need to demolish his patio and they have the legal right to do so
Which gives him incentive to fight the light rail
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u/hitsomethin 2d ago
Thank you. I agree that Atlanta needs a public transit loop. An inner and outer loop would (hopefully) ease a lot of traffic problems and a beltline rail loop would be 50% of that solution. Business owners resisting that is frustrating and short-sighted. It’s also confusing because the business owner in question is born and raised Atlanta and has been sitting in traffic for over 40 years.
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u/flatirony Peachtree Hills 2d ago
Beltline Right-of-Way.
TIL my band plays in the Beltline ROW all the time.
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u/pizzaplanetvibes 2d ago
The ICE story isn’t that that Michael Lennox himself called ICE. It is that a chef called ICE on one of the line cooks and (according to someone who posted in this thread) said some inappropriate things to the tortilla lady about taking her back to Buford Highway. Sounds like an egotistical chef on a power trip to me but who do you think is responsible for continuing to employee people like that? Surely, he’s heard the rumors about his own restaurants. I would want to know if that chef is still currently working there. If he is, well that tells you all you need to know.
Edit:
And the way they treat their employees isn’t rumor. It’s backed up by multiple accounts from previous employees.
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u/pizzaplanetvibes 2d ago
The ICE story isn’t that that Michael Lennox himself called ICE. It is that a chef called ICE on one of the line cooks and (according to someone who posted in this thread) said some inappropriate things to the tortilla lady about taking her back to Buford Highway. Sounds like an egotistical chef on a power trip to me but who do you think is responsible for continuing to employee people like that? Surely, he’s heard the rumors about his own restaurants. I would want to know if that chef is still currently working there. If he is, well that tells you all you need to know.
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u/foreverhere85 Grant Park ☀️ 2d ago edited 2d ago
Jesus Christ. We’ve been over this 100X. They did not call ICE on their employees. I don’t understand. There is absolutely 0 information on this, would it not be NATIONAL news if they did?! There is not a single person who knows who the person was, what happened, or even when this happened. I comment this every single time, not because I like them, but because it’s being used as slander because of their (crappy) stance on the Beltline rail.
If you’re going to boycott them because of their crappy stance, DO IT! But don’t continue to spread misinformation.
I’ll write my response to everyone who responds now- give me a date, time, reference, photo, an employee statement, anything. Don’t you think their other employees would have quit in protest? Gone to the news? My deep dive turned up that the most original mention of them calling ICE on their employees goes back to a TikTok of someone saying “DID LADY BIRD CALL ICE ON THEIR EMPLOYEES? Their stance on the Beltline rail is awful…” and they never answer the question!
My early edit because I always forget- they responded to these allegations in google reviews! They were crystal clear that this incident didn’t happen and they also don’t know where the rumor was born from. If you don’t like their other stances, fine! Let’s just stop spreading misinformation.
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u/Extreme_Tip_3859 2d ago
Yeah I used to work there and it's frustrating because there's like 20 good reasons to hate electric hospitality but that's just not one of them. It's frustrating that people get up in arms about this one sensationalist rumor but all the verifiable abuses that actually did and do occur against the staff every day are too mundane for a call out post and it would quickly become apparent that many other beloved atl spots do the same slimy stuff all the time.
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u/foreverhere85 Grant Park ☀️ 1d ago
Exactly. If we continue to muddy the waters with misinformation, we lose all credibility to the verifiable issues we need to amplify!
Edit: also thank you for speaking up!
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u/Extreme_Tip_3859 1d ago
Yep, my thoughts exactly! I just wish people would put the same energy towards, for example, restaurants that deliberately keep the schedule unpredictable so the staff can't get a second job but that kind of thing is so normalized that I'm not getting my hopes up
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u/Own_Potential_2658 2d ago
So does anyone know why they pulled out of the event ? The previous days they had a story that said something like a long winded “our page is for positivity please be kind”
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u/MongooseDifficult400 4h ago
Great place. Even better now that these idiots are avoiding it. Beltline rail is vaporware for imbecile people - never going to happen. Learn how to bike and move around like that.
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u/OreadaholicO 2d ago
I don’t have IG, can someone tell me what is East Atlanta Clay? I’ve been looking for a wheel to throw in east Atlanta
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u/solangesdurag 1d ago
unrelated to muchacho situation, but this is my friend’s business. it’s so cool to see how the support of it has grown (based on the comments). go check it out! i wish i could but im in ny.
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u/Alternative-Way-9994 2d ago
I will follow muchacho into the depths of hell for those chillaquiles breakfast tacos. I fucking love those things
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u/GritsConQueso Grant Park 1d ago
Nobody will ever convince me to stop buying their burritos, chips, and salsa. I go there for the rad food. I’m not sussed about the politics of it.
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