Local on North co-owners Georganne Rose and Salem Makhloaf have sold two of their restaurants.
In deals brokered by Driss Senhaji of Atlanta Business Brokers, LLC, the husband-and-wife owners sold their Downtown Roswell and Duluth locations to Meredith Longwith and Kamal Singh, respectively.
For Longwith and her brother, Gregory Marer, this purchase marks the realization of a long-time dream. Originally hailing from California, the two, and their third sibling, started catering from a young age.
“We grew up catering,” Longwith said. “That’s how we got through high school and college and supported ourselves, with a lot of large catering companies.”
While Longwith moved to Georgia 10 years ago, Marer continued to cater in California, cooking for the stars in their award show afterparties, private celebrations, and superbowl parties. He eventually followed Longwith to Georgia a year ago, “and that’s how we decided to open a restaurant,” Longwith said.
The new restaurant, rebranded as Canton St. Social, is “bringing a California concept to Atlanta,” according to Longwith. They are taking the things that Local on North was doing and scaling it up.
The old beverage program will be scrapped in favor of top-shelf liquors and craft cocktails. The restaurant interior will be refurbished with new decor, new furniture, and a crystal chandelier overhead. The new menu, created by Marer as executive chef, will keep some elements of Local on North’s menu and add onto it in the form of small plates like tapas and charcuterie spreads.
The pair also plan on having live music on their outdoor patio, which makes up a large portion of the restaurant’s space with only 1,500 square feet of interior space. The couples plan on fitting 12-15 tables outdoors.
“We don’t want it to be so fancy that people don’t want to come in when they’re in shorts and T-shirts,” Longwith said. “So we’re trying to marry the two.”
While Longwith and Marer are rebranding their space, Kamal Singh, the new owner of Local on North in Duluth, is keeping the name and concept the same. Singh’s priority with the restaurant is to build a community around it.
“We’re going to give them good service, good quality, promoting local everything, good people,” Singh said. “When you enter into this restaurant, you feel like you’re welcomed, not in like a franchise, capitalist kind of environment. It feels like you’re in a community-based restaurant.”
Singh was originally a “technical guy,” as he puts it. He owns a technical consulting company for IT businesses.
“Two years back, we decided to buy some businesses to diversify our income, so we were looking for retail businesses at that point,” Singh said. “Somehow we ended up with a restaurant.”
Singh initially bought into a franchise, opening a Poke Bar in Sandy Springs. “We found out it’s very rewarding,” he said. Singh now owns a total of four restaurants. In addition to the Poke Bar and Local on North, he co-owns Coney Island Diner and Saffron Fine Indian Cuisine, both in Middletown, New York.
Though the “heart,” as Singh says, of the restaurant remains the same, he plans on rotating the menu throughout the year. “We’re going to make it more seasonal like bringing more cool foods during the summer,” Singh said.
Both the Downtown Roswell and Duluth locations are currently open. Canton St. Social’s rebranding will officially take place in the coming weeks, with a grand opening further down the line.
