Meeting up with your friends at La Parrilla is about to get a lot more confusing. There’s a brand new Mexican restaurant called La Parrilla open in Beechwood Shopping Center, near the Hibbett Sports, only it’s not the same one as our local chain that’s been open in Athens since 1999. It’s not an uncommon name among Mexican restaurants given that “parrilla” means “grill.” Bizarro LaPa is a bigger chain, based out of Marietta, with 21 locations, mostly clustered around Atlanta. Prices and menus are similar. Just maybe specify on your text chain.
Also newly open is a second location of Los Reyes. The original remains on Highway 29 North, attached to a gas station, providing some of the best and most consistent Mexican food around, from Americanized combo platters to menudo. The offshoot is shiny and new and in the Oak Grove Shopping Center on Jefferson Road.
Ponko Chicken, on Baxter Street, is “temporarily closed,” which often is another way of saying “permanently closed.” On the other hand, Bon de Paris, on the Eastside, is back open? Kinda? After months of being closed and promising to reopen and hanging up a banner that said it was reopening any day now, the “open” sign was brightly flashing around noon this weekend, and the door was unlocked. When I poked my head in, I was told that it wasn’t, in fact, open yet but would be around 3 p.m. that day. Check it out, but maybe have a backup plan.
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