Cakes & Ale Moves in July

If you love the menu at Cakes & Ale Restaurant Bar but find it hard to get a seat – your wait is almost over. 

When the award-winning restaurant moves to its larger home on Decatur Square in early July, it will about double its seating capacity. 

“We’ve been here for three years and the space is a great place to start," said owner Kristin Allin. "But we’ve outgrown it really fast.  Our current location holds 56, and we’ve had to turn away 25 to 50 people every night – especially on weekends."

 The new location, still being renovated on Sycamore Street at Church Street, right next to the Decatur MARTA entrance, is just a five minute walk from the current location.

“The new place holds 81, and has a lot of features we weren’t able to get here, like windows that open to the outdoors, outdoor seating for 20, a rooftop garden, and a wood-burning oven, and a bakery and dessert bar,” said Allin.

The full-service bakery will have scones and coffee for breakfast, sandwiches on homemade bread for lunch, and desserts and cocktails in the evening. 

While renovating the new restaurant space, the owners dug up an historic surprise.

“When we pulled off the paneling and ply-wood  in that room, we found a sign for Miss Teele’s bakery," Allin said. "We’ll keep that sign as the focal point of the bakery.  It’s an interesting window into the past. We place the building around 1910 to 1920.  We got a historic loan, and we want to bring it back to what it was historically.  We get a tax credit for historic renovation but we would have done it regardless of the loan.”

Allin, who lives Decatur, also believes in giving back to the community. 

“Our Decatur customers are wonderful," Allin said. "We’ve made a connection by being passionate in what we’re doing.  We do a lot in the community like the fundraising dinner we do every October for Oakhurst Community Garden.  And we got 10 other restaurants involved to help raise $5,000 for the  project.

Recently Allin’s husband, Billy, a co-owner and the restaurant's chef, was nominated for a James Beard Award for “Best Chef in the Southeast,” and for “Best New Chef” by Food and Wine magazine.  Pastry chef, Cynthia Wong, was nominated for a James Beard Award for “Outstanding Pastry Chef.”  

Parking at the new location will be behind the restaurant, with two spots for carry-out only, and a pay lot which is $3 on weekdays and $5 on weekends.  Meters on the street are free after 6 p.m. 

Allin says neighboring businesses are excited about them coming.

“People have been so supportive," Allin said.  "They see [our move] as progress along the Church Street corridor.  We don’t want to be exclusive, we want to be a real neighborhood restaurant where you don’t have to make reservations.”