Love Local: The Nook's Recipe for Community Creates a Place for Everyone
06/24/2026
BY BRIAN CARR
In the heart of Midtown Atlanta, there’s a neighborhood restaurant that has spent nearly two decades serving up great meals in a lively atmosphere where everyone feels at home. Regulars swear by the Totchos, complete with house-made toppings, and the Bloody Best, a towering version of the classic Bloody Mary. And the hundreds of photos on the walls carry stories about the incredible people who have come through the doors.
The Nook on Piedmont Park is a bar and restaurant that exemplifies Midtown’s casual, neighborhood feel. It’s a place rooted in community and good food, along with a strong sense of goodwill.
We sat down with Katherine Drolett, owner and managing partner of The Nook, to learn the secret ingredients that make her restaurant feel like home. Read more.
Walk into The Nook on any given day, and you’ll find a rare sense of warmth and kinship that threads through the dining room tables, the beer taps, and the heaping plates of food. In one corner, an elderly couple shares a meal together over quiet conversation, while at the bar, a kickball team celebrates with a few pints after playing across the street in Piedmont Park.
It’s the quintessential neighborhood bar and restaurant, where everyone is welcome, and where they are bound to run into someone they know. The casual atmosphere – with a view out onto tree-lined Piedmont Avenue, a hearty menu, ardent support from regulars, and a staff that’s eager to please – makes it easy to visit, unwind, and even start a friendly conversation with someone.
This is one of those places in Midtown that feels like home.
Since opening in 2009, The Nook has hosted weddings, baby showers, and even memorial services. It has launched careers, and reunited old friends. And if you pause long enough to study the walls, you’ll understand why.
The Walls Tell Stories
Most of the wall space at The Nook is covered in photographs, a sprawling archive of the people who have passed through its doors. Katherine Drolett, the restaurant’s owner and managing partner, can identify nearly every face.
“It’s such a gift,” Drolett said. “I can look at these photos, and I know all these people, and I know where they are now.”
Among the portraits is a large photo of Jerome, the restaurant’s late beloved longtime dishwasher, who held his post until his death in 2018. Quiet and humble, Jerome had no ambitions beyond his station … until the night the kitchen staff coaxed him up to the mic during karaoke. “When the microphone touched that guy’s hand,” Drolett said, “he became a star.”
Then there’s a portrait of George Egerton, a line cook who diagnosed a stubborn brunch-service bottleneck by reimagining the kitchen as a Detroit car assembly line — and earned himself a kitchen manager promotion in the process, and later became a part owner.
These endearing photos are more than footnotes in The Nook’s history. In fact, they are the headline.
‘Nooksters’ Welcome
Drolett’s path to running a restaurant was, by her own admission, far from linear. She worked for the Georgia Attorney General's Office as an Assistant Attorney General, practiced commercial real estate law, and once co-owned a Buckhead bar during law school at Emory University.
Drolett stumbled into The Nook through a colleague’s casual tip about an available property on Piedmont Avenue in Midtown, which was once the address of the bar she frequented with her classmates during law school. She took over as managing member in 2011, when the Great Recession’s toll on the legal industry made the pivot feel less like a gamble and more like a calling. Today, The Nook employs a staff of 41 people.
“We really care about each other,” she said, adding that current and former employees are given their own designation: “Nooksters.”
They stop by to visit. They return after stints managing other establishments. They show up to the annual Christmas party.
“Nooksters are family,” Drolett said.
Giving Back, One Cocktail at a Time
The Nook’s sense of community goodwill reaches well beyond its walls. The restaurant maintains an ongoing “Giving Cocktail” program, rotating every couple of months to benefit a different local Atlanta organization. Its “Drink for the Trees” initiative supports the Georgia Conservancy’s reforestation work, while “Flower Power” directs proceeds to the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
Community, in Drolett’s view, is a baseline obligation, not a marketing gimmick.
“We are stewards of our community,” she said. “Everybody who works here understands that’s one of the most important things that we do here.”
Award-Winning Eats. And the Original Home of the "Totcho"
Of course, none of this community-building would matter to patrons without food worth coming back for. The Nook staked its culinary claim early, pioneering what it bills as the “Totcho” — Tater Tots Covered in Goodness — a concept that landed the restaurant on multiple television shows in the early 2010s. The dish has since evolved into a vehicle for local flair: for the current World Cup, The Nook has created a custom Totcho for each team playing in Atlanta, complete with collectible stamp passbooks and a Nook soccer jersey for guests who taste them all.
Other award-winning standouts include stuffed burgers featuring combinations like Shrimp & Grits with andouille sausage, gouda grit cakes, and tomato beurre blanc. The house black bean burger, the product of testing 25 commercial and house-made versions, has become a personal favorite of Drolett’s. Beyond burgers, The Nook serves Bourbon Salmon and White Bean Chicken Chili, too. And for a treat at brunch, try the Stuffed French Toast.
And then there is the Bloody Best, The Nook’s towering Bloody Mary that once earned a segment on the Today Show for its sheer audacity of scale.
Striving to Be a Constant in a Changing District
In a Midtown neighborhood that Drolett describes as genuinely singular — walkable, full of personality, and increasingly precious as independent spots give way to the intown development boom — The Nook has chosen to hold its ground, literally and figuratively. When people ask about the property as a potential future development site, her answer is consistent.
“This place is the touchpoint for our whole Midtown community,” she tells them. “And it’s perfect just the way it is.”
The Nook on Piedmont Park
1144 Piedmont Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30309
Operating Hours:
- Mon-Wed: 11am-12am
- Thurs-Fri: 11am-1am
- Sat-Sun: 10am-12am
Here are just some of the weekly offerings:
- Neighborhood Happy Hour Mon-Fri from 3-6pm
- Team Trivia Wednesdays at 8pm
- Brunch Saturdays and Sundays from 10am-3pm