If you eat dinner inside the loop around McDonough Square, you have watched this year's food news scroll past without touching your table. The chef with the James Beard credential, the fast-casual chain finally coming to Henry County, the local diner that outgrew its old building. None of it opened on the Square. All of it landed about a mile east, on Jonesboro Road.
That is not a knock on the Square. It is still where you go for the meal that matters and the night out that needs a backdrop. But if your mental map of "where the new stuff is" still centers on the courthouse, you are missing half of what has opened in your own city this year.
The Square Still Owns the Reasons You Go Out
Walk the Square on a Friday night and it still works the way it always has. Pandora on the Square, run by Chef Carlos Brown, is the room you book when the occasion needs one, with lunch service Tuesday through Friday, weekend brunch, and dinner running into Sunday night. In August, Pandora hosted a ticketed Legacy Breakfast with SCMIB, the kind of programmed event that turns a restaurant into a reason to plan your Saturday around it.
The rest of the Square rotation hasn't changed much, and that consistency is the point. Kirby G's Diner on Macon Street is still the burger stop, home to hand-patty builds like the "I Like Cheese" Burger and "The Duke." Gritz Family Restaurant keeps breakfast running all day, every day, no exceptions. Crust & Craft covers pizza, beer, and cocktails for the table you can walk into on a Thursday without a reservation.
What's actually new on the Square isn't a kitchen. It's Story on the Square, the independent bookstore at 19 Griffin Street that runs a wine and beer bar called The Rough Draft in the back and rents its second-floor event space for weddings, book clubs, and trivia nights. In June, Story on the Square hosted the inaugural McDonough Storytellers Film Festival, a two-day run of screenings and panels that pulled foot traffic through downtown on a weekend that used to be quiet. Add in live music at 1942 On The Square and Southern Roots Tavern & Eatery, and the Square's real growth story this year is programming, not plates.
Every New Kitchen Address Is on Jonesboro Road
Now go a mile east. Jonesboro Road used to be the corridor you drove through to get somewhere else, a stretch of drive-through windows between the interstate and downtown. That description stopped being accurate in 2026.
In March, chef Todd Richards opened Que-Riosity at 1931 Jonesboro Road. Richards isn't a first-time operator testing a concept. He's a four-time James Beard semifinalist and the executive chef at Waldorf Astoria Atlanta Buckhead, and he chose McDonough for a fine-dining barbecue room that's open Thursday through Monday, 3 to 10 p.m. His own framing of the concept says a lot about what he's building:
"Keeping true Southern barbecue traditions alive means giving them the same care and attention you'd see in a fine-dining kitchen."
That's not the kind of chef who lands in a corridor by accident. Two months earlier, in February, Super Chix signed a lease for a 2,500-square-foot space at 982 Jonesboro Rd, Suite 200, with local franchisee Missy Moon, who already operates several locations around metro Atlanta. Franchise operators like Super Chix pick their next market by running the numbers against the strongest suburbs in the region. McDonough making that shortlist is a signal about where the corridor's traffic and rent numbers now sit, not just a chicken sandwich opening.
Even the local independent scene is voting with its feet. Leo's Cafe didn't close when it needed more room. It moved into a larger space at 148 John Frank Ward Boulevard, the building that used to house Baby Jane's Home Cooking. Small businesses trading up in square footage instead of shutting down is usually a better read on a corridor's health than any single grand opening.
Why the Money Went East Instead of Staying Downtown
The Square has a ceiling that Jonesboro Road doesn't. Downtown McDonough is historic real estate, meaning the building stock is fixed. There's no vacant 2,500-square-foot end cap sitting empty on the courthouse loop waiting for a franchise to sign a lease. Jonesboro Road has exactly that kind of space, plus interstate visibility and a corridor that's already carrying commuter and retail traffic without the parking constraints of a town square built before cars existed.
That's the mechanism behind the split. The Square wins on atmosphere, walkability, and the kind of dinner-then-drinks routing you can only do on foot. Jonesboro Road wins on square footage and access, which is exactly what a chef opening a full-service barbecue concept or a franchise scaling into a new suburb actually needs.
Here's how the two districts stack up right now:
| District | What's There Now | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| McDonough Square | Pandora on the Square, Crust & Craft, Kirby G's Diner, Gritz Family Restaurant, Story on the Square, 1942 On The Square, Southern Roots Tavern & Eatery | A planned night out, weekend brunch, live music, community events |
| Jonesboro Road | Que-Riosity, Super Chix, Leo's Cafe (new location) | A destination meal from a name chef, a fast-casual weeknight stop, a growing independent that outgrew downtown |
Neither column is winning outright. They're doing different jobs for the same city.
The One Edit Worth Making to Your Weekly Rotation
None of this means abandoning the Square. The Square is still where the Main Street Market sets up, and the city has one scheduled for Saturday, September 26, on the downtown square, with vendors, food, and live music running through the afternoon. It's still where you'd take out-of-town family for the kind of walk-and-eat evening that only works when everything is in one place.
But if your last new restaurant memory is from the courthouse loop, you're behind on your own city's food scene by about a year. The practical fix is small. Move one weekly meal to Jonesboro Road. Try the barbecue at Que-Riosity on a Thursday, or catch Super Chix once it's open for the fast-casual night you'd otherwise default to a chain you've already tried a hundred times. Keep the Square for the plans that need a backdrop, and let Jonesboro Road handle the plans that need a kitchen doing something new.
McDonough isn't choosing between its two food districts. It's building two different reasons to eat out, a few minutes apart, and residents who only track one of them are working with half the map.
If you're curious about how these kinds of local shifts tend to show up in home values and buyer interest around Henry County, our Henry County neighborhood guide tracks the bigger picture alongside the day-to-day. And if you're weighing a move of your own, whether toward McDonough or away from it, The Kinnebrew Group is always glad to talk through what a neighborhood like this one actually offers, block by block and corridor by corridor.
