With humble beginnings operating out of a Dunwoody gas station, Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks in the fall will debut its second brick-and-mortar restaurant. Owner Derrick Hayes earlier this year opened a Big Dave’s in downtown and now in November will open a planned outpost of the Philly-style cheesesteak eatery in the Peachtree Pavillion shopping center, at 6035 Peachtree BLVD.
“Contrary to many businesses negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Big Dave’s has seen an increase in sales and customer turnout since the crisis began,” a company spokesperson Monday told What Now Atlanta in an email. “Being able to build a new restaurant in the middle of a pandemic is the biggest blessing to my father,” Hayes wrote in an Instagram post alongside progress photos of the restaurant’s construction. Hayes, a Philadelphia native, launched Big Dave’s in honor of his late father who passed away from lung cancer.
Ahead of opening the upcoming Doraville Big Dave’s in a few months, Hayes on Friday, Sept. 18, unveiled a food truck, set to bring its cheesecakes to customers around the city. “The food truck will exclusively sell beef, chicken, and salmon cheesesteak egg rolls which are all wildly popular menu items,” the spokesperson said.
Hayes debuted the truck in the Peachtree Pavillion parking lot with an Instagram video and the help of his two young daughters. “My daddy has a surprise,” the two little girls said in front of the truck while releasing red and blue balloons into the sky. “And I ain’t have to sell a drug to get here,” Hayes wrote as the post’s caption.
