As a retired educator, I have the time to take advantage of the many local happy hour deals that restaurants offer to drum up business during a slow part of the day. Since I live on a relatively fixed income, maximum money mileage and value are important components and considerations.
But so are a restaurant’s ambience and the quality of its menu and service that affects a diner’s overall enjoyment. My friend Patty Morrison and I, during the months of July and August 2017, selected ten Perimeter Mall area restaurants to experience their happy hour menus, choices of drink and nosh offerings, and compare them.
We recognize that our survey was not scientific despite serious employment of applied hands on research. Surveys of this nature are admittedly subjective; regardless, we have done our best to provide consumers with practical information and to facilitate good times between the hours of 3 PM and 7 PM.
www.arnoldheller.org, my web site, is exclusively a public information site. I am not seeking compensation from the restaurants surveyed, nor endorsing them. Many local people have inquired about best local deals and now they can simply read the below list and make their selection.
Restaurants are listed in order of visitations decided on whim and convenience – this is not a ranking.
Seasons 52
The Sunset Menu – served 4 to 6:30 PM – includes satisfying choices of drinks and small plates. The restaurant’s ambience is very attractive and comfortable for a mall, out parcel location. The service is attentive, and a sizable and interesting crowd accumulated the day of our visit, many of whom appeared to stay for dinner. I like Season’s 52’s grilled trout very much.
Fleming’s Steakhouse
Flemings is a typically comfortable beef-oriented restaurant – comfortable dark leather chairs and booths – and provides a surprisingly good selection of “five for $6”, five decent choices of mixed drinks, wine, beer, or small plates or appetizers. The service was excellent and the red wine selections generous.
Westin Hotel’s Savor Bar
The hotel is located in the Concourse Office Park, Sandy Springs, that is noted for its two iconic office buildings.
The Savor Bar and Grille at the Westin Hotel possesses a grand modern ambience, especially when sitting at the bar and overlooking the patio and lake. The food choice is the most limited but the drinks selection is good and the environment is special.
The Cheesecake Factory
Located at Perimeter Mall, the Cheesecake Factory is a lively happy hour (4:30 – 6:30) with a fine choice of small plates, drink possibilities, and a pretty bar and interior. The chain restaurant remains very popular with the public – at 5 PM, it was the busiest of all.
Taki Japanese Restaurant
Location: Perimeter Center Village, 4711 Ashford Dunwoody Rd.
This relatively quiet and relaxing restaurant offers good deals on Martinis, Cosmos and other drinks. The pot stickers and the spring rolls are my favorites – the two sushi rolls and noodle dish are a good value.
P F Chang’s
The location, Ashford Restaurant Park in Dunwoody is supposedly being redeveloped in to a dense retail center with a commercial tower – Brio and McCormack and Schmick’s closed earlier. It is believed that P. F. Chang will stay put during the reconstruction and be the first restaurant anchor. In the meantime, this attractive Chinese bistro is still providing a good happy hour deal.
PF Chang’s has a cool modern décor. We chose a table out on the patio overlooking Ashford Restaurant Lake. The tasty noshes, array of adult beverages, and lakeside breezes was enjoyable.
Eclipse de Luna
Location: Park Place Center, Ashford Dunwoody
This neighborhood institution with a Brazilian accent furnishes a colorful and lively atmosphere (3 – 7 PM) for imbibing, socializing and even dancing to a nightly band. The Spanish short ribs and mojitos are favorites of mine. The lamb chops are not available for happy hour but there are still many tasty items to please the palate.
Sage Wood Fire Grill
Location: Park Place which is home to a second fine tapas restaurant and bar (3 – 7 PM). Noted for its neon lined bar tops and stools, Sage offers a fairly broad line of tapas plates and full drinks. An Indie or jazz musician performs after 6 PM.
Zinburger Wine & Burger Bar, Perimeter Center Place
Zinburger Wine & Burger Bar is located at 4565 Ashford-Dunwoody Road.
The interior is a contemporary design that is also very comfortable – sit at the bar, outdoor patio, or booths. The food and drink offerings may be the best deal of all at this point in time and has become our favorite at this point in time (Jan. 10, 2019)
The food choices are $5 Zini Burgers, Philly Cheesesteak, house potato chips and half price sides too.
The Brass Tap at Park Place
The Brass Tap Pub at Park Place Shopping Center is located at 4505 Ashford-Dunwoody Road. Patty and I patronized this friendly, comfortable pub every Tuesday for six months, July to December.
We enjoyed their choice of beers but rarely found the discounted happy hour offerings to our liking and chose the full priced beers instead. Ultimately, we found this pattern to be fairly expensive and after discovering the Zinburger promotion of all half-priced beers, we have been steady customers since.
We strongly recommend The Brass Tap for its pretty location, ambience, friendly staff and decent bar food. It served us very well until we found a much better deal which is partly of what happy hour is about.
The Pub at Perimeter Mall and Brio at the Ashford Restaurant Park made our original top ten deals but closed this year. The Breakers Korean Steak House has taken over The Pub’s location.
In the meantime, a bonus is the Le Meridien Hotel that does not have a happy hour program – twice a month they present from 8 – 10 PM an awesome jazz band with excellent lead singers that is a well attended local treasure flying under the radar.
It’s amazing what’s available to Perimeter Center area residents within a square mile of their homes.