After a short feature during the Georgia-South Carolina football game on Sept. 18, Crawford’s itty-bitty donut shop Cafe Racer is hardly a secret anymore. Owner Chris Hart has been looking for a spot in Athens for some time to expand the business, and it looks like he’s found one, at the top of the Athens Health and Fitness lot on Broad Street (which some of y’all may still refer to as the old “Kroger in the Hole” lot), between Classic City Bank and ABC Package.
Cafe Racer plans to build a new spot and is shooting for late spring to open, although the extent to which the future is predictable doesn’t seem to be returning to normal anytime soon. The plan for location No. 2, says Hart, is to have a drive-through window and a walk-up window with two different outdoor patio spaces and a bathroom (upgrade!), but still no interior seating.
Hart also hopes to expand the menu, given the slightly larger size and the ability to customize the building to the restaurant’s needs. There will still be donuts and biscuits, but burger night could be much more frequent, with tacos, more biscuits, breakfast burritos, hotcakes and the like potentially being a regular thing, as well as more vegetarian options (housemade veggie burgers), a “traditional cheesesteak” and more.
Hart says, “The current iteration of Cafe Racer isn’t—in my eyes—complete. It’s more just the pieces of a bigger picture that would actually fit into our little building. I’d say that we’re currently serving about 60-70% of our projected future menu, so we’re not reinventing ourselves as much as just topping it all off a bit.”
He adds, “All that to say, we’re really swinging for the fences with this one. We’re committing to quick service, and the design of the building will reflect that. Currently, we’re planning on running a classic fast food style flow with a breakfast menu that transitions to a rest-of-day lunch/dinner menu around 11 a.m. I’m really happy with the direction we’re headed. It’s exciting to be rubbing elbows with some of the fast-food giants over there, but doing it our own way—which is pretty much the polar opposite of what you get with corporate national chains. It’s a bit unexpected and non-traditional, but I think that discomfort is familiar and a solid benchmark that we’re sticking true to our roots.”
Will the original stay in its beautiful field? For the moment, yes, but Hart does say that the building needs some work, so changes could be coming there as well.
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