Walk the block of Dunwoody Village Parkway between the old Steak & Grace space and Morty's Meat Supply and you will pass five different storefronts with five different names, five different menus, and five different reasons to stop in. What you will not find, if you check the paperwork, is five different owners. David Abes, founder of DASH Hospitality Group, now runs Bar{n} Booze and Bites, Morty's Meat Supply, Message In a Bottle, Good Vibes Ice Cream, and, as of this spring, {S}table Comfort Food {n} Cocktails. One person's taste is quietly setting the tone for a meaningful share of where Village residents eat, drink, and grab dessert.
That consolidation is the real story of Dunwoody Village heading into October, and it is happening at the same time a very different ownership model is playing out two miles north at The Shops of Dunwoody, where the owner, Asana Partners, is doing the opposite: spreading its bets across four unrelated new tenants rather than betting on one operator's vision. Both approaches are unfolding under the same volunteer-run fall traditions that have outlasted every restaurant that has opened and closed on these blocks.
The Fifth Storefront
Steak & Grace lasted about ten months. The steakhouse, opened by Barry Mills of Big B's Fish Joint in Chastain Park, closed abruptly on January 22 after what Mills later described as a team effort he was proud of even as the concept failed to catch on. Abes bought the space and told Rough Draft Atlanta the deal came together fast. He had been approached about spaces in Buckhead and Midtown before, he said, but turned them down because Dunwoody is his home.
{S}table opened in April under chef Camron Woods, serving Southern comfort food built around a charcuterie board Abes calls the Southern Lazy Susan, with Georgia gouda, pimento cheese, smoked duck, and country ham, alongside barbecue pulled pork dumplings, buttermilk fried chicken, and a Georgia mountain trout dish called pecandine. There's a daily meat-and-two rotating through fried catfish, meatloaf, and pot roast. Abes has said the restaurant is meant as a tribute to the former Chastain Park restaurant Horseradish Grill, where he worked as general manager in the 1990s, not to the Old Hickory House some longtime Dunwoody residents remember from the same footprint.
The names Abes chooses are not accidental. Bar{n} and {S}table both play on Dunwoody's agrarian history, a nod Abes has connected to his own childhood riding horses at nearby Banister Farm. Whether or not a given diner catches the reference, the effect on the Village's dining identity is the same: fewer independent operators competing for the same corners, more of the neighborhood's flavor shaped by one company's read on what belongs there.
The Smokehouse Stage
Abes isn't just holding onto what he has. Morty's expanded its building this year to add the Smokehouse Stage, a new performance space that launched a dueling piano bar on March 6. The shows come from Atlanta Dueling Pianos, a group founded by Francisco Vidal in partnership with Atlanta Music Agency's Joshua Gray Hamilton, built around audience requests rather than a set list, so no two nights run the same. It's reservation-based, and it turns a barbecue restaurant into a Friday night destination without Abes having to open a sixth building.
That's the pattern worth watching. Rather than acquiring more square footage every time he wants to grow, Abes is building new revenue inside buildings he already controls. It's a different kind of expansion than the one happening a few minutes away.
Two Miles North, a Different Playbook
The Shops of Dunwoody sits about two miles north of Perimeter Mall on Chamblee Dunwoody Road, close enough to the Village that it shares the same trade area but far enough that it answers to a different owner entirely. Asana Partners acquired the center in March 2025 and has spent this year signing leases with four unrelated businesses: Beyond Juicery + Eatery, Jetset Pilates, Tenku Sushi, and Sweat440, a high-intensity interval training studio. All four are expected to open through the summer and fall of 2026.
The leasing team described the strategy as building a tenant mix that complements the surrounding market rather than centering it on any single concept. It's the inverse of what's happening at {S}table and Bar{n}. Where Abes is concentrating ownership under one name residents already recognize, Asana Partners is diversifying across categories, wellness, fitness, sushi, juice, betting that variety itself is what keeps a shopping center relevant to the people who live nearby.
Neither approach is right or wrong. But if you've noticed Dunwoody Village feels more like a single curated experience lately while The Shops of Dunwoody feels more like a grab bag of new options, this is why. Two ownership philosophies, operating blocks apart, are producing two different neighborhoods within the same neighborhood.
The Traditions That Don't Change Hands
None of this touches the parts of Dunwoody Village that don't have an owner at all. The Scarecrow Showdown returns from October 1 through 31, organized by the nonprofit Create Dunwoody, with entries zip-tied to the fence at the Cheek-Spruill Farmhouse for public voting. It's the kind of event that runs on volunteer labor and a modest entry fee rather than corporate sponsorship, and it will unfold on the same sidewalks where Abes' restaurants sit, regardless of who owns the storefront behind any given scarecrow.
Two days into the month, the Dunwoody Woman's Club holds its 53rd Annual Home Tour on Friday, October 2, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fifty-three years means this event predates every restaurant currently open in the Village, predates DASH Hospitality Group, predates Steak & Grace and whatever came before it. The businesses change hands. The Home Tour and the Scarecrow Showdown do not.
What Else Is Opening This Month
A few things worth knowing if you're planning October weekends:
- Explorefest, a new community event at Williamsburg Shopping Center in East Dunwoody, runs Saturday, October 3, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., built around discovering the businesses and music of that side of town rather than the Village core.
- The Atlanta Kosher BBQ Festival is bringing a new Dunwoody location near Perimeter Mall on October 18, noon to 4 p.m., with free admission.
- Adega Gaucha, the Orlando-founded Brazilian steakhouse chain, is under construction at Twelve24 on Hammond Drive, replacing Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant. The company's own recent statements disagree on timing. A press release from August frames the opening as December 2026, while the brand's website and its Inc. 5000 recap both say January 2027. Either way, it will be the chain's first location outside Florida after three restaurants in Orlando, Kissimmee, and Deerfield Beach.
- Saints + Council, the Midtown restaurant known for its brunch, is planning a second location at Perimeter Mall in 2027, a 7,800 square foot space that would be Abes' most direct new competitor if it lands close enough to the Village to matter.
None of these openings are inside the five storefronts Abes controls, which is its own kind of data point. The growth happening around Dunwoody Village right now is coming from outside operators moving in, not from the Village's dominant restaurateur expanding his own footprint further. For now, his growth is vertical, adding a stage inside Morty's, rather than horizontal.
Whichever restaurant you end up at this month, the scarecrow on the fence outside it will have been zip-tied there by someone who runs the same event every October regardless of who signed the lease.
If you're weighing what a home near Dunwoody Village is actually worth given how fast its storefronts are changing hands, Jennifer Henley can walk you through what that turnover means for property values on these specific blocks.
