In the past decade, the Atlanta dining scene by an outdoor party whose popularity continues to grow, inviting folks who swarm to it daily—strolling, jogging, dancing, and wheeling—to embrace the city’s natural beauty and charm.
Known simply as the Atlanta Beltline, this 22-mile concrete loop that connects 45 city neighborhoods has brought with it a new echelon of dining and drinking options. Built on a reclaimed railroad corridor, few developments in modern Atlantan history have been as consequential in changing the city’s landscape.
Conceived in 1999 as an urban planner master’s thesis, the Beltline became real with the opening of the West End Trail in 2008. While some areas await their paved section, the Beltline’s prioritization of pedestrians is now a bridge from Atlanta’s past to its future. It’s a city best experienced through sharing, whether that’s easy access to green space, shopping districts, and public art, or small and large plates of food representative of this international Southern metropolis’s mix of people.
Whether strolling, date-nighting, or walking-it-out with the squad, dining options abound on and around the Beltline, from pizza shops to brewpubs to food halls to top-tier steakhouses tucked inside repurposed factories. Whatever your flavor, it’s worth stepping out.
Ladybird/Ranger Station
Ladybird went from a friendly camp-inspired “Grove & Mess Hall” to one of the Eastside Trail’s most popular hangouts. Inside the window-wrapped dining room you can tuck into leather seating and reclaimed wood picnic tables, or sit outside at charred barrels turned into two-tops on sandy gravel near a vintage camper patio bar.
Lunch and dinner begin with snacky starters like chili-garlic peanuts boiled in Old Bay. Larger shareable “base camp” dinners for four include fried catfish with lump crab hushpuppies.
To wash down all that richness, try one of four “patio punch” cocktails, or score a reservation upstairs at Ranger Station, a ’70s-themed cocktail bar where the lights are low but spirits are high.
Kevin Rathbun Steak
One of Atlanta’s most respected chefs, Kevin Rathbun has a beefy reputation as a steak-master. The dining room of his moody Inman Park steakhouse features black-painted brick and stained-wood walls, with a sprawling tree-branch chandelier hanging above white-clothed tables.
It’s a great place to devour horseradish-crusted bone marrow before diving fork-first into dry-aged USDA prime cowboy rib eyes and porterhouses for two, or Wagyu strip and skirt steaks for those seeking smaller cuts between 10 and 16 ounces.
If the temptation to indulge in an old-fashioned and the coffee-toffee bonbons proves too powerful, an after-dinner walk is always an option.
Breaker Breaker
Gulf Coast beach diners of decades past inspired this fun-loving indoor-outdoor seafood dive where the whole idea is to step back and pretend you’re on a relaxed shoreline. Chef Maximilian Hines oversees a people-pleasing menu that leans into the classics: fried gulf fish and shrimp platters with coleslaw and hushpuppies, a rich and dark-copper-roux seafood gumbo, even fish melt sandwiches with Swiss cheese and pickled chiles.
