Owner George Cameli makes plea on Facebook to save the 20-year-old Ponce de Leon pizzeria from the ‘Beltline paradigm.’
George Cameli, the restaurateur behind Cameli’s Gourmet Pizza Joint, is fearful that the redevelopment of Murder Kroger is going to kill his restaurant business of 20 years.
Cameli took to Facebook this week with a sponsored post pleading with Atlantans to save the Ponce de Leon mainstay.
“Don’t let Murder Kroger kill Cameli’s Pizza,” Cameli Thursday posted to the restaurant’s page. “Don’t let Cameli’s Pizza be the next victim of the new intown redevelopment/Beltline paradigm.”
The forthcoming “behemoth redevelopment” on the Beltline has “already had serious negative effects on Cameli’s Pizza,” he said.
The project, 725 Ponce, a mixed-use development anchored by Kroger, could take nearly two years to complete, according to Cameli.
Cameli voiced concerns that when Murder Kroger temporarily shutters for construction of its new home, his business will suffer.
“When shopping center ‘anchors’ like Kroger close it can have dire consequences for the adjacent businesses within that shopping center. It would be tragic irony to think that in some way our efforts to help improve our intown neighborhoods may ultimately lead to our demise…”
Cameli is planning to launch a “20 More Years on Ponce” Campaign urging Atlantans to patronize Cameli’s Pizza while Murder Kroger undergoes its lengthy redevelopment.
“When the Kroger development is finished, we plan on thriving in our new environment, but until then we will need your continued support to keep the doors open. Cameli’s has been kickin’ for 20 years and I hope we can serve you for another 20.”
To read Cameli’s post in it’s entirety, click here.
5 Responses
Would you kindly stop calling it the “Murder Kroger”? It’s cruel and unnecessary. It’s also inaccurate. There have been murders outside the Kroger at Ansley and the one on Moreland. Be so courteous as to call it the Beltline Kroger. They tried really hard to transform it from the dowdy second-rate grocery store that it was to one that’s well patronized today. It is a shame that it’s being torn down–I do shudder at the effects of massive development alongside an already over-used public walking and riding space. But maybe you will at least stop using that horrible term.
It’s still second rate. Do you shop there? Ever walked past the seafood counter while breathing? Tried to find the advertised specials? Looked for produce?
It’s Murder Kroger, not Beltline Kroger. That’s what area residents call it. I know the developers are selling out the soul of the neighborhood as fast as they can, but unfortunately you can’t get a zoning variance making people change their language.
Will you stop telling people how to refer to landmarks in Atlanta? This place has been murder Kroger long before your butt hurt self interjected your noob opinion into the matter. I shudder at the thought that gentrification allows dowdy second rate citzenry like yourself into a community to whitewash it with your wants and desires. Wherever you came from, be that another state or another part of the city, go back. Murder Kroger is part of the community you want to desperately change into your own likeness. Your the problem, not a nickname.
The quality (or lack of) of food at Cameli’s will be their downfall – not what their next door neighbors are doing.
Who’s butt hurt here? The fools who have become attached to a vile and idiotic nickname for a dump of a grocery store. Murder Kroger is a sick name. What’s cool about it? Why become attached to something so juvenile that represents something so horrible? You’re not edgy. You’re ridiculous.
As for Cameli’s his business benefited greatly from the Beltline. If his food were good enough he’d be able to weather the change. Stop blaming development.