Restaurateur of the Year Award: The General Muir and West Egg Cafe

From Restaurant INFORMER, 2014, Vol. 4, Issue 4

For Jennifer, Ben, Shelley and Todd, a similar dream has led to a fruitful partnership.

The four came together when Ben and Shelley Johnson, who also operate West Egg Cafe in the West Midtown area of Atlanta, started thinking about opening a second restaurant on the other side of town, this time a New York-style deli.

Soon after, they just happened to read an article mentioning local chef Todd Ginsberg’s dream of one day opening … a New York-style deli. Enter Shelley Sweet, who at the time worked at West Egg but had previously worked at TAP with Ginsberg. Put two and two together, and after many long talks about restaurants and delis, The General Muir was born.

Open since 2013, The General Muir has been a huge success, garnering national accolades! Including Atlanta Magazine Restaurant of the Year, Eater Atlanta Restaurant of the Year, Creative Loafing’s Best New Restaurant, one of Bon Appetit’s 50 Best New Restaurants, and one of GQ Magazine’s 25 Best New Restaurants.

Ben, a native Atlantan, and Jennifer, originally from the Washington D.C. area, met in Ann Arbor, Mich., while attending law school. After practicing law in Atlanta for a number of years, they opened West Egg in March 2004, hoping to create a comfortable restaurant environment that might help anchor a growing community in West Midtown. Ten years later, West Egg continues to serve up breakfast, lunch and dinner in the heart of a now-thriving restaurant scene.

Shelley Sweet began her restaurant career at West Egg in 2004, but took a circuitous route to becoming a business partner. She left West Egg in 2006 to join the Concentrics Restaurants group, serving as a manager at several of its concepts, including Two Urban Licks, Murphy’s and TAP. She then left Concentrics to serve as the opening General Manager at Hugh Acheson’s Empire State South before rejoining West Egg in 2011 as General Manager, becoming a partner in 2014. Sweet considers coming full circle with West Egg one of her greatest accomplishments.

“It is such a special place to so many people and is why I am in this business,” she says. “It is how our partnership came together for The General Muir. It is where I lived and worked after college, in the old UHaul lofts before the site was redeveloped. It is where I made my closest friends and where I met my husband.”

Todd Ginsberg is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, N.Y. He started his career at The Dining Room at The Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta under Joel Antunes and Bruno Menard, led the kitchens at Asher in Roswell and Madison’s in Highlands, N.C., and spent time at Lucas Carton in Paris and at Alain Ducasse in New York. Upon his return to Atlanta, he worked for the Concentrics Restaurants group, serving as chef at both Trois and TAP, where he and Shelley worked together, and was the chef at Bocado from its opening in 2009.

The four recently opened Fred’s Meat & Bread, a restaurant stall serving classic sandwiches, within the new Krog Street Market. A second stall, Yalla, which offers Middle Eastern cuisine with a contemporary twist, will open soon.