Ginger Yums Opening The Ginger Room In Alpharetta’s Oldest Building

Juice bar, and tea and coffee house, will be centered about the company's ginger-based juices⁠, which they call Ginger Yums⁠.

Alpharetta’s Skelton-Teasley House, at 61 Roswell Road, is known as the oldest building in the City. Built for physician and Milton County postmaster Dr. Oliver P. Skelton in 1856, the Greek Revival-style one-story house sits on the highest point in Alpharetta. 

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For Ginger Yums LLC Co-Owner Angela Avery, the 1,543-square-foot house was quaint, welcoming, and everything she was looking for in a location to open her business’s first brick-and-mortar, The Ginger Room.  

“When I walked in, I got kind of emotional because it was exactly what I’ve been wanting in the last couple of years,” Avery said. “It was the perfect timing, perfect location, perfect little house in the middle of Alpharetta.”

In this perfect house, Avery and Co-Owner Karl Walbrook plan to serve the ginger-based juices⁠—which they call Ginger Yums⁠—they’ve been selling at farmer’s markets and their Peachtree Corners headquarters since 2018 when they started the company. However, The Ginger Room will be more than just a juice bar, reminiscent of the tea houses around London, where Walbrook grew up. 

In addition to the Ginger Yums, made in-house, the pair will have a lineup of coffees, teas, and baked goods. Though some of these will come from Avery and Walbrook, the majority of the offerings will come from local businesses in Alpharetta that The Ginger Room will highlight on a rotating basis. 

“Yes, I make a great cake and Karl makes a great bakewell tart, him being from England, but you know what? We’re going to focus on what we do well, and we’re going to let our partners focus on what they do well,” Avery said. “And hopefully we’ll be able to bring an amazing product to downtown Alpharetta.”

Even without a space like The Ginger Room, the pair have already built a devout following in the two years they’ve been operating. “When we go to the market, we see our familiar faces of customers who come back,” Avery said. 

“For example, the mom who I saw, she’s been pregnant for the last nine months. She comes back, and she sees me a couple of weekends ago, and she has the baby in a stroller,” she said. “It’s really heartwarming. It’s exciting.”

The origin of the co-owners’ ginger-based juices, and The Ginger Room by extension, comes from Avery’s life-long stomach issues, which Walbrook helped alleviate by making the first (of many) Ginger Yums. Since then, the two have been hard at work building their business into what it is today in addition to working full-time jobs. 

“Karl and I laugh all the time about how we started. We used to clean every single piece of ginger by hand,” Avery recalls. “You know, I’ve got tennis elbow and carpal tunnel in my right arm now because of it … I really think hard work pays off and we just keep a positive attitude.”

Even during a pandemic, Ginger Yums LLC has been able to expand their business, starting deliveries recently and seeing an increase in sales. However, regardless of the concept, opening a cafe during a pandemic is an intimidating idea. “Who opens in the middle of all these scary things coming up,” Avery said. 

Though apprehension lingers in The Ginger Room’s future, it is overwhelmed by a sense of anticipation.

“I just go back to the fact that the image of what we wanted in our mind is about to come to fruition in the location that we wanted,” Avery said. “It’s rewarding, and we’ll be able to touch more people.”

The Ginger Room expects to open in mid-to-late October. It will share a courtyard with a yet-to-be-leased neighboring space out of an incoming 30,800-square-foot mixed-use development. The project is being leased by Jimmy Davis with Sullivan Wickley, who also represented the landlord in leasing The Ginger Room.

Paul Kim

Paul Kim

Paul Kim is a senior at NYU studying Journalism and Public Policy with a minor in Food Studies. A Korean-Taiwanese American born and raised in Atlanta, Paul holds a special appreciation for the diverse food city that Atlanta has become in the last few years. Paul especially loves Korean food because they don't use cilantro in their dishes. Paul hates cilantro.
Paul Kim

Paul Kim

Paul Kim is a senior at NYU studying Journalism and Public Policy with a minor in Food Studies. A Korean-Taiwanese American born and raised in Atlanta, Paul holds a special appreciation for the diverse food city that Atlanta has become in the last few years. Paul especially loves Korean food because they don't use cilantro in their dishes. Paul hates cilantro.
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