Cherished restaurant chain forced to close its flagship location after nearly 50 years in business
The beloved wing and beer spot served its final customer this week.
While fans mourned the loss, the company says the move is part of a broader strategy to fuel growth across the Southeast.
'This isn't the end of the story — it's a milestone in our journey,' said Taco Mac CEO Harold Martin. 'We're deeply grateful for our roots in the Virginia-Highlands neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia, and we're more excited than ever for what's ahead.'
Taco Mac currently operates 27 locations across Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama and plans to expand into additional states. Employees impacted by the closure were offered jobs at nearby locations.
The now-shuttered space will soon be home to a Jack Brown's Beer & Burger Joint.
News of the closure sparked an emotional reaction on social media, especially from longtime fans.
Loyal customers shared their memories they have of the Virginia-Highlands restaurant on Instagram
'Wow — this is such sad news. It was one of the first places I ate when I moved to Atlanta in 1990,' a fan wrote on a Taco Mac Instagram post.
'At the heart of Virginia Highlands, this restaurant was a staple to the community and essential part of T-Mac history,' another fan responded.
'So bummed we won't get one more time to cherish this special place.'
Still, not everyone was surprised. Some users pointed to a decline in quality over recent years.
'This location had really gone downhill in the last several years, sad to see it go but no surprise,' a commenter wrote.
'Taco Mac was legendary in VaHi but the quality went downhill years ago,' another Instagram user claimed.
Taco Mac's farewell follows a broader trend of high-profile closures in the restaurant industry.
Taco Bell made headlines last month after closing its historic Arizona restaurant after 60 years of business.
Major chains have also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. TGI Fridays closed hundreds of restaurants and currently has less than 100 US restaurants since filing for bankruptcy last year.
Hooters began shuttering restaurants last year and filed for bankruptcy protection in March.
Outside the restaurant industry, multiple retailers have shut their flagship store doors for financial and restructuring purposes.
Neiman Marcus shuttered its Texas flagship store in March, and Saks closed its iconic California store after nearly 45 years last week.
Pars
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
4 minutes ago
- Reuters
Trump's tariffs are leaving Black beauty businesses in peril
PHILADELPHIA/ SMYRNA, Georgia Aug 19 (Reuters) - Earlier this summer, Dajiah Blackshear-Calloway, 34, started to notice that her regular clients weren't visiting her hair salon as often as they used to. The salon, in Smyrna, Georgia, houses two stylists and offers dozens of services that range from $50 natural hairstyles to $745 tape-in weave extensions. Her most popular services are $254 sew-ins, where human hair extensions are woven into braids, and $125 quick weaves, where human or synthetic hair is styled and then glued to a stocking cap. But the prices of hair extensions and hair glues used to create wigs and weaves have gone up exponentially after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a series of different tariffs on China and Vietnam, where the majority of Black beauty products are made. The price of a package of hair imported from Vietnam has gone up to $290 from $190 since May. A bottle of hair glue, imported from China, has gone up from $8 a bottle to $14.99 at her local beauty supply store. 'We're being impacted at every level,' Blackshear-Calloway said. 'I'm either having to eat that cost or pass that expense along to my clients, which affects their budgets and their pockets as well.' To avoid passing on rising costs, Blackshear-Calloway is asking her clients to bring their own hair to their appointments. Now her salon is offering a quick weave service without hair for $140, but with hair the price is $400, according to her booking website. She's also struggling to get products since her wholesaler is delaying shipments as tariff rates fluctuate. Kadidja Dosso, 30, owner of Dosso Beauty, which sells hypoallergenic braiding hair, as well as The Dosso Hair Salon in Philadelphia, has also faced delayed shipments on imports from China. She waited over a month to get $50,000 worth of China-made braiding hair via air freight at John F. Kennedy Airport in June, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced 145% tariffs on the country over confusion over what tariff should apply. "We have to provide more specifics of the products - exact materials, the product use - for it to clear customs," Dosso said. "Part of the issue was that the same language that we've been using for years wasn't descriptive enough." She wants to avoid raising prices on her $13 packets of hair which customers typically buy at least five at a time to complete one hairstyle. Tariffs are disproportionately impacting Black business owners like Blackshear-Calloway and Dosso, said Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. 'Many Black entrepreneurs started off with less wealth,' Perry said. He said that the wealth gap puts Black entrepreneurs, especially those in low-margin businesses like consumer goods or hair care services, into precarious financial positions as tariffs eat into their bottom lines. Sina Golara, an assistant professor of supply chain and operations management at Georgia State University, said rising costs due to tariffs are "like a tax that you're imposing on business." 'In some cases, it could be borne by the foreign manufacturer, but in most cases, it will also have quite a substantial impact on the domestic buyers and consumers," Golara said. Diann Valentine, 55, founder of Slayyy Hair, first felt the impact of tariffs shortly after the initial 145% tariff was imposed on China and she faced a $300,000 bill to get 26,000 units of braiding hair out of the Los Angeles port in May. "To lose that kind of money at this stage has been devastating," Valentine said. Since then she has raised the price of her braiding hair and drawstring ponytail extensions by 20%. She also laid off four employees and is working 16-hour days to compensate in her two Glow+Flow beauty supply stores in Inglewood and Hawthorne, California. Slayyy Hair supplies $8.49 nontoxic braiding hair and $35.99 synthetic drawstring ponytails to TJ Maxx and Marshalls, which have resisted renegotiating prices or delivery deadlines to compensate. "So essentially, we paid more for our ponytails than TJ Maxx and Marshalls paid for them," Valentine said. She is also trying to renegotiate price increases with Target, where she sells in at least 70 stores in California, Nevada and Colorado, she said. TJ Maxx and Marshalls declined a Reuters request for comment. Fifty percent of the merchandise comes from China, Valentine said, and prices for synthetic wigs, human-hair weaves, plastic hair rollers, rubber bands, combs and brushes that stock her shelves are trending up at her beauty supply locations. "I thought maybe we would see an increase in foot traffic because there would be more DIY hairstyles - more women doing their hair at home," she said. "But for right now, we've only seen decreased foot traffic and also a decrease in frequency of visits from our existing customers." While beauty product sales are typically resilient during economic downturns, beauty services are seen as discretionary, said Marley Brocker, senior analyst at market research firm IBISWorld. "Tariffs on those imports are going to directly lead to higher costs for those service providers, whether they're buying directly from overseas manufacturers or buying from wholesalers within the U.S.," she said. Black U.S. consumers spent approximately $2.29 billion on hair care products in 2022, according to a NielsenIQ study from that year. But higher prices are causing some Black women to visit the salon less frequently. Deiara Frye, 27, of Raleigh, North Carolina, usually schedules hair appointments at least five times a year, but so far this year she's only gone once. "Due to the cost of everything rising over the years, I tend to get braids a little more often now than sew-ins, or try to maintain my natural hair," she said. She's also seeing prices for her natural hair products like Unilever's Shea Moisture and Procter & Gamble's Pantene go up. Fewer visits are impacting salons and beauty supply stores. Until earlier this year, Dionne Maxwell was selling wigs, braiding hair, shampoos and conditioners out of her mini beauty supply store in Dallas, Georgia, located 33 miles outside of Atlanta, but she shut it down after she started losing foot traffic in May and moved operations into her home. Now she's relying on orders placed through Uber Eats, TikTok Shop and to sustain her business, but even those sales have slowed significantly, she said. 'We don't have the money for advertising, because enough revenue is not coming in to advertise with," Maxwell said. Tariffs have raised Maxwell's wholesale price for China-made braiding hair by 50 cents per pack, she said, and she is now required to buy more hair in her wholesale orders. She said she's struggled to negotiate better prices with her hair wholesalers, who are requiring her to order more units of merchandise at higher costs. Her wholesaler is asking her to purchase 110 packs of hair per order, when she was previously able to buy 30 packs at a time, she said. 'For the past two months, we have been basically paying our bills out of pocket because we really have had nothing coming in,' Maxwell said.
Reuters
7 hours ago
- Reuters
Thai industrial sentiment falls to lowest level in 3 years
BANGKOK, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Thailand's industrial sentiment index fell for a fifth straight month in July, hitting a three-year low due to worries about the impact of U.S. tariffs and the border conflict with Cambodia, the Federation of Thai Industries said on Tuesday. The survey was conducted before the U.S. set tariffs on Thai imports at 19%, which was in line with, opens new tab regional peers. However, the tariff rates on transshipments, opens new tab via Thailand from third countries remain uncertain. The United States is Thailand's biggest export market and last year accounted for 18.3% of total shipments, worth $55 billion. The FTI said its industrial sentiment index dropped to 86.6 in July from 87.7 in June. Other factors weighing on sentiment included flooding in the country's north and weakening purchasing power, the FTI said.
BBC News
10 hours ago
- BBC News
World Business Report Ukraine talks: Will Ukraine and Russia negotiate a full peace deal?
Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders are holding talks with Donald Trump at the White House - what will be next? We hear from Ukrainian business owner. Also, the Norwegian fund - worth $2 trillion - says it will divest from six firms with connections to the West Bank and Gaza. It currently has around $1.86 bn in companies listed in Israel. And are more people wondering about investing in that staple of many American and Middle Eastern cities - air conditioning? Where do you think some of the biggest movies and TV shows of the last twenty years have been shot? Fast and Furious? Stranger Things? The Walking Dead? Spiderman: Homecoming? It's the US state of Georgia. Despite a drop in investments over the recent years we find out why this state wants to keep the crown as an alternative to Hollywood.
