Anyone who has parked at Avenue East Cobb over the past few years has walked past two boxy little buildings sitting behind the shopping center's main strip, wondering what was ever going to move into them. They were not always there. They were built on purpose, on what used to be surface parking, as part of a redevelopment plan Cobb County commissioners approved back in June 2022. The plan called them jewel boxes, a name that promised more than an empty storefront usually delivers. For three years, that is mostly what they were. This year, one of them finally has a name on the door, and the tenant that has moved in tells you more about how long these things actually take than any press release did at the time.
The Plan That Took Three Years To Become A Restaurant
North American Properties, the developer behind Avalon and the Colony Square overhaul, took over management of the aging 1999 outdoor mall in a 2021 joint venture with PGIM Real Estate. The pitch was to turn a tired retail center into what NAP called the community's third place. County commissioners approved the site plan changes unanimously and without opposition at a hearing on June 21, 2022, and construction broke ground that August. The scope was not small. Crews demolished part of the center's original building to make room for an 8,000 square foot plaza with a raised stage, a large LED screen, a deck with a fire pit, and a covered drop off for valet service. Next to that plaza, two standalone jewel box buildings, 2,500 square feet each, went up for restaurant and retail use.
At the time, a spokeswoman for NAP told local reporters she could not yet say who would occupy them. That line ended up being accurate for longer than anyone probably expected. The plaza itself opened, the stage started hosting events, and general retail filled in around it. Warby Parker and a New York Butcher Shoppe opened that November near where Stockyard Burgers & Bones used to sit, followed by a Tempur-Pedic showroom the following spring. But the jewel boxes, the part of the plan built specifically to anchor the center's new identity as a dining destination, sat without a confirmed restaurant tenant for years after the concrete had cured.
What Actually Moved In, Three Years Later
The wait ended in pieces, starting last fall. Giulia, an Italian bakery and patisserie with an existing location at The Forum Peachtree Corners, opened a 900 square foot spot along the plaza, tucked between the Barre3 studio and a forthcoming restaurant from the same ownership group. That restaurant, Luga Italian Eatery, opened to the public on November 24, 2025. Founded by brothers Ben and Seth Gjuka, Luga fills 4,400 square feet with an open kitchen and a 28 seat bar, and its most talked about dishes are a homemade pappardelle with wild boar ragu and a wood fired Margherita pizza. Between the two, the Gjuka family effectively claimed the storefront run closest to the plaza's stage.
The jewel box itself took a little longer. Tenku Sushi Elevation, a sister restaurant to an existing Japanese spot in Woodstock, is now open in one of the two standalone buildings, and it is the first named tenant either jewel box has had since they were built. The Woodstock original built its menu around nigiri, sashimi, robata grill items, omakase and a flame seared marinated octopus, and the Avenue location adds something the plaza never had before: a rooftop bar. It is a sleek, lounge style room built around sushi and premium seafood, which is a different kind of anchor than a shopping center usually gets from a jewel box that spent three years empty. As of this writing, the second jewel box still does not have a confirmed occupant.
Here is the run of dates in order, since the gap between announcement and delivery is really the story:
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| June 21, 2022 | Cobb County commissioners approve NAP's plaza and jewel box site plan |
| August 2022 | Groundbreaking on the plaza, jewel boxes and concierge building |
| November 2022 – Spring 2023 | First retail wave opens: Warby Parker, NY Butcher Shoppe, Tempur-Pedic |
| October 2024 | NAP's Atlanta subsidiary is acquired by Jamestown, which takes over management |
| November 2025 | Giulia and Luga Italian Eatery open near the plaza |
| December 31, 2025 | Tin Lizzy's Cantina and Tin Pin Game Bar close permanently |
| 2026 | Tenku Sushi Elevation opens in one of the two jewel boxes, with a rooftop bar |
More than three years passed between the county approving the plan and a restaurant actually opening inside one of its signature buildings. Part of that gap likely traces to the ownership change in October 2024, when Jamestown took over management of the property from NAP's Atlanta arm. Leasing a purpose built restaurant space to the right operator is a slower process than filling a generic retail bay, and a change in ownership midstream rarely speeds that up.
The Same Month, One Of The Original Names Left
The timing of what left is worth sitting with as much as what arrived. Tin Lizzy's Cantina had been part of Avenue East Cobb for close to a decade, since around 2016, with the adjacent Tin Pin Game Bar as its entertainment companion. Atlanta based Southern Proper Hospitality Group closed both concepts permanently as of December 31, 2025, within weeks of Giulia and Luga opening a few storefronts away. The shopping center did not simply add a restaurant this year. It lost one of its longer standing names at almost the exact moment the jewel box plan finally started paying off.
That kind of overlap is normal for a center this size, but it means the Avenue's current lineup is not the same one that opened with the plaza in 2022, and it will likely keep shifting. A few storefronts over, Brixx Wood Fired Pizza has also closed, with nothing announced yet for that space. None of this points to trouble at the property. It points to a shopping center that is still actively being recomposed years after its ribbon cutting, which is a different thing than a finished project.
What A Regular Friday Actually Looks Like Now
If you have not been back to Avenue East Cobb in a few months, the walk from the parking deck to the plaza looks different than it did at the start of 2025. You can start with an espresso and a croissant at Giulia, grab pappardelle at Luga if you want to sit down, or skip both and head straight for the rooftop at Tenku for sashimi and a cocktail with a view over the plaza's stage and LED screen. The margarita hour that used to belong to Tin Lizzy's is gone, and that patio is either sitting empty or waiting on whatever leases into it next. The plaza itself keeps doing what it was built to do, hosting concerts and events on a rotating calendar, regardless of which restaurant is currently flanking it.
None of this changes what Avenue East Cobb is for the neighborhood day to day, a walkable stretch of Roswell Road that mixes national retail with a growing list of locally rooted restaurants. What it does change is which storefronts you point out to a friend visiting for the first time, and how long you should expect a good idea to take before it actually shows up on a menu.
Watching a place like this fill in slowly, storefront by storefront, is its own kind of neighborhood knowledge, the sort that only comes from paying attention over years rather than checking in once. That is the same lens worth applying to the East Cobb housing market itself, where a listing's context, timing and true value rarely show up in a single snapshot either. If you are curious what any of that means for a specific street or a specific home, Neil Hediger Real Estate is always glad to talk it through.
