FORD FRY IS CLOSING KING AND DUKE IN BUCKHEAD THIS MONTH

Ford Fry is closing his Buckhead restaurant King and Duke Sunday, June 18, after ten years at One Buckhead Plaza on Peachtree Road.

First reported by Tomorrow’s News Today, and confirmed by Eater with Fry, the decision to close apparently came down to the lease being up on the restaurant and Fry having no real interest in renewing for another decade. While a new tenant is already set to take over the space, Fry is staying mum on King and Duke’s replacement, only saying it’s not a restaurant from his Rocket Farms hospitality group. However, some reports indicate chef Fares Kargar is considering the Peachtree Road space for a location of his Persian restaurant Delbar.

“We made the decision to not renew our lease for King + Duke, and the restaurant will close its doors for the last time on June 18. It’s time for someone else to come in and bring something new to the space (and we know the neighborhood will be excited to learn what that is),” Fry says in a statement provided to Eater. “Our full team will be offered positions at our other spots as we continue to look toward the newness of 2023.”

That “newness” Fry refers to in the statement includes the opening of Little Sparrow later this summer in the former JCT Kitchen space at Westside Provisions District, followed by cocktail bar Bar Blanc upstairs in the JCT Bar space this fall. Fry recently opened two new locations of his Tex-Mex restaurant Superica in Dunwoody at Ashford Lane and on Howell Mill Road next to his seafood restaurant the Optimist. Next year, Fry plans to open a second location of chicken al carbon restaurant Little Rey at the upcoming Medley development headed to Johns Creek.

Fry first opened King and Duke in 2013, naming the restaurant for two characters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American novelist Mark Twain. Fry told Eater at the time of the opening that he loved the novel and the characters of the king and the duke who “put on the facade of being royalty but were actually hillbillies.”

The restaurant features a 24-foot wood-burning hearth and serves dishes fired over coal and wood, something Fry found to be “primitive but exacting food”. It was this type of cooking technique, he said, which sparked the idea behind the restaurant’s name, King and Duke.

3060 Peachtree Road, Atlanta. kinganddukeatl.com.

2023-06-01T19:57:59Z dg43tfdfdgfd