THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED.

The restaurant landscape in Atlanta is an ever-evolving thing. In October of 2010 we were driving through Decatur and saw a new restaurant where the Freight Room once was and decided to give it a try. When I went to write this post, I googled for their website and found that they’d changed names, and menus, but not owners. By March of 2011, they’d become Rail Kitchen and Bar. By August of 2011, that venture had closed, too. I don’t drive by that way often enough to see if it has re-opened, and as what.

It’s a shame, because the space itself is great inside. It is a converted railroad station. Being the geek that I am (that counts for architecture, too), what really caught my eye were some of the internal features. The most fascinating of which was the ceiling fan system. Each fan was connected by a giant series of belts – the first powered by the motor and each of the rest running off the power to the first. I talked to the hostess about it, at length to the chagrin of Jo, and she said that the system was bought for the depot in the late 30s and had never been installed. When they took the space over, they found it still in the boxes, and put it up. At the time we were there, the menu was focused strongly on locally sourced ingredients.

I had a pimiento cheese burger with a side of mac and cheese. It was fine, but not worth a return trip.

Good thing, because I couldn’t go back if I wanted to…