Mi Cocina Midtown Abruptly Shutters

Saturday was the Tex-Mex restaurant's last day in business.

UPDATE (April 25, 2018): Sugar Factory American Brasserie Leases Former Mi Cocina Space at 1010 Midtown

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The Midtown Mile is looking more and more out of reach with the closure of a major restaurant in the heart of the 14-consecutive blocks on Peachtree Street – “Atlanta’s signature boulevard” – over the weekend.

Mi Cocina, the Texas-based Tex-Mex restaurant in the 12th and Midtown development, at 1080 Peachtree St NE, abruptly shuttered Saturday.

“It is with a heavy heart that we close our restaurant here in Atlanta,” Mi Cocina posted to its Facebook page early Sunday morning. “We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here and hope you will visit us in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.”

A sign posted to the main entrance of Mi Cocina shares the same message.

“We do not have any further comment about closing our restaurant other than to thank our Familia – our incredible team members and loyal guests – for a wonderful four years in Midtown,” a spokesperson told What Now Atlanta in an email after a request for comment Monday.

Mi Cocina first opened its Midtown doors October 2012. An estimated $1.5 Million was spent building out the massive 8,800-square-foot space including an outdoor seating area and mezzanine.

The two-level restaurant had 265 seats, including a 40-seat bar with banquettes, tables and bar stools and two private dining rooms.

Neighboring CB2 closed its Midtown Mile doors late last year and across the street in the same development Republic of Couture, a 6,500-square-foot fashion boutique, shared the same fate the year prior.

But those are only the Peachtree Street closures.

Daniel Corporation, the developer behind 12th and Midtown, saw its tenants Bantam + Biddy and Max’s Wine Dive Bar shutter in the same development, both in roughly the last year.

Will the Midtown Mile ever reach its full potential? Leave your thoughts in the comments…

Caleb J. Spivak

Caleb J. Spivak

Caleb J. Spivak

Caleb J. Spivak

17 Responses

  1. For every step forward, MIdtown takes 2 steps back. Who is paying the ridiculously high rents to live in a place with next to nothing going on but crime and gunshots?? This city is in real trouble.

    1. “next to nothing going on but crime and gunshots”
      Ha. Yes, Midtown has nothing going on but crime and gunshots. Are you serious?

        1. Personally, I think Midtown is very safe. The only gunshots I can recall happening recently is the shots fired in the Opera (nightclub) parking lot. But perhaps you meant to reply to mike or perhaps the sarcasm didn’t come through my response to him.

  2. Midtown needs more variety. Not just high end places. Look at the 16th street mall area in Denver, you have a Ross right next to a high end store right next to a dive bar right next to a high end cocktail bar

    1. Shannon, you are exactly right. The streetscape on the “Midtown Mile” is becoming more homogenized and less appealing every day. The clothing store that closed was a ridiculous number of square feet and no one shopped there. Mi Cocina was a monstrosity and the food – meh. Need more Ribalta-type restaurants and book stalls, flower/vegetable markets. Hard to reconstruct, I suppose, once you’ve ripped out the original storefronts. It’s all starting to feel a bit contrived.

      1. That clothes store sold 200.00 jeans you had to get tailored and they didn’t even do it there!! Get real retailers. The public is not stupid

  3. aside from the “crime and gunshots” stuff agree on all counts. with a little extra work and concessions from Selig we could land some local flavor in that stretch of Midtown Mile. we need that more than more chain stores.

    a locally sourced market; independent restaurant and bookstore… something that says Atlanta. and Cocina was definitely not that.

  4. I live on the Midtown Mile and don’t have enough time to patronize all 300 restaurants!! Give us a break from food and throw in some mix! It’s a great place to live

  5. Daniel Corp. with 12th & Midtown charges way too much for the rent and raises it dramatically when lease renewal comes. We need a market, pharmacy or even QT concept but no one can afford it so they let all this retail sit empty.

  6. No more restaurants are needed in the area. Especially given the new restaurants opening in O4W, inman park, buckhead, and other parts of Midtown. People here eat out a lot, and even still theres no way all these restaurants can survive. I agree, the clothing store that was across the street was a joke. I went in there looking to spend money and couldn’t find anything nice or reasonably priced. Some smaller retail stores would be nice. People get tired of driving to Buckhead to shop. These developers should be courting tried and true retail, such as Urban Outfitters, Aldo, Zara, Jewelry stores, or smaller independent retailers and things that aren’t available over at Atlantic station. The stores should be much smaller. 1000 sq feet.

  7. Mi Cocina was the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel in terms of food quality and service.
    In fact, Every chain restaurant that comes to the Midtown area is terrible in terms of food, management, and service.
    I haven’t been to any other instance of a Five Napkin Burger, La Tagliatella, Mi Cocina, or Lime Fresh, but if the rest of them are as awful as their Midtown incarnations, I don’t know how they stay in business.
    Why is it so difficult to find people in Midtown area with the managerial/service/culinary skills to implement a proven “turnkey” restaurant concept?

  8. Developers over leveraged the property, resulting in high rent rates to comply with the terms of the permanent financing.
    Businesses won’t thrive when “the rent is too damn high”

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