Ponce City Market's Food Hall Changed Hands This Year. Here's Who's Behind the Counters Now
October 22, 2026
October 22, 2026
If you last ordered at the Central Food Hall's ramen counter around the holidays, would you know whose ramen you'd be eating now? Over the past ten months, much of the hall's first generation has left. The businesses that replaced them follow a pattern. Most of them made their name somewhere else first, often in the suburbs, before they took a stall on Ponce. Behind that pattern is a lease cycle that started when the hall opened in 2015.
At the turn of the year, four tenants exited the Central Food Hall. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the final days of 2025 brought news of closures at Ton Ton Ramen & Yakitori, Miso Ko, the Spanish tapas stall La Metro and the cookie shop Sugar Shane's. Ton Ton and Miso Ko served their last meals on Jan. 3, 2026, according to Rough Draft Atlanta. The paper's headline used the developer's own word for it: the turnover was "strategic." Jamestown, the market's developer, linked part of it to leases reaching the end of their terms. It said a renewal is a chance to bring in new concepts while keeping the hall's identity intact.
The timing makes sense once you count the years. Ton Ton and Miso Ko were among the hall's longest-running tenants. Rough Draft Atlanta dates Ton Ton to the food hall's 2015 opening and has Miso Ko arriving three years later. That puts both at about a decade, which is roughly how long a first lease in a project like this lasts. La Metro had a much shorter run. Eater Atlanta reported it had been open about a year. The same report said Ton Ton and the market did not reach a renewal, even though both sides made good-faith efforts.
So the changes didn't come from one bad season. Stalls that opened with the hall are reaching the end of their first terms, and each expiring lease becomes a decision about who comes next.
The answer Jamestown has landed on so far favors operators who have already proven themselves elsewhere. Here is the 2026 roster of Central Food Hall newcomers and where each one came from.
Okiboru and NoriFish ran later than first planned. When the AJC reported the closures in January, it said both would open in the spring. Rough Draft reported both open on Aug. 29. That means the Ton Ton and Miso Ko spaces sat dark through most of the first half of the year, and a stall's replacement isn't instant.
Terminal 26 is still on the market's directory with regular hours. Its own site still says "Now open at Ponce City Market," with news posts from September 2026. La Cueva's website has a live entertainment schedule posted for Oct. 19 through 25. Upstairs, that schedule is part of the reason to go.
What these names share is a track record. Several of them, Okiboru and NoriFish especially, already had customers in Sandy Springs, Buckhead and Kennesaw before they ever served anyone in Old Fourth Ward. For an O4W regular, a familiar suburban name now means a shorter trip, and the hall has picked up a different kind of predictability than it had in 2015.
The retail floors upstairs show the same pattern. Dragon Denim, which What Now Atlanta describes as an online-first fashion brand, opened its first Atlanta storefront Sept. 26. The store is on Ponce City Market's second floor, next to Rhen's Nest.
Dragon Denim isn't a restaurant group. It's still a brand that built its audience online before it signed a physical lease here. Upstairs and down, the market is mostly filling space with businesses that arrive with customers already behind them.
The BeltLine frontage across the street shows the other side of turnover. Rough Draft Atlanta reported on Oct. 12 that Rina, the Mediterranean street food restaurant at Ford Factory Lofts across from Ponce City Market, had closed the week before. Oliva Restaurant Group told the outlet Rina will eventually reopen at a new location. No site or date has been announced.
Rina leaves an empty storefront on one of the busiest stretches of the Eastside Trail, at the same time the food hall across the street has nearly finished its 2026 refill. If the market's approach holds, keep an eye on what kind of operator takes that storefront next.
Halloween falls on Saturday this year, so the market's seasonal programming fits into a tight Friday-to-Sunday window. Everything below is at 675 Ponce de Leon Ave. NE.
The Roof switches crowds in the hours between those two Saturday events. The afternoon parades and the late party are built for different audiences. If you want the food hall before either one, Okiboru's tsukemen or a NoriFish hand roll is now the quick downstairs stop that Ton Ton used to be.
The Roof itself is between seasons. SK8 The Roof, the rooftop roller rink that runs April through August, is marked closed for the season. The Roof's site says ice skating returns in "Winter 2026" but hasn't posted an opening date yet.
The Village Retail Saturday Maker's Market comes to The Shed on Saturday, Nov. 28, with local makers, artists, vintage vendors and small businesses. It returns Dec. 19. The listing gives two different start times, 11 a.m. and noon, so check before you head over that morning.
The Maker's Market rotates its vendors from one date to the next. In 2026, Ponce City Market's permanent stalls have changed almost as quickly, as lease after lease from the 2015 opening reaches its end.
If you're weighing a home within walking distance of Ponce City Market, and want to know how much this kind of turnover shapes a block's daily routine, Roxanne Sellers knows these streets and the businesses on them. Let's Connect and schedule a consultation.
Roxanne’s clients enjoy her personal touches, and it is truly her joy to ultimately fulfill her client’s requests throughout the transaction and graciously serve them.With only her clients’ best interests in mind, she acts as a skilled advocate on their behalf.