The headlines seem to appear weekly. A new hotel, a new development, a new restaurant opening in Savannah. All of it (most of it at any rate) located in the heart of downtown Savannah. For the sake of this discourse, we will define that has Forsyth Park to the Savannah River.
The area South of Forsyth all the way to Victory Drive to include the red-hot Starland District has seen its fair share of growth the last few years as well.
The part of Savannah that is developing at a very quick pace that we don’t find making too many headlines is the Montgomery Street corridor. Now one of Savannah’s more popular restaurants is taking a first step into the Western edge of Central Savannah with the purchase of an old family favorite, Michael’s Restaurant.
Ardsley Station’s ownership group purchased the former family dining restaurant a few weeks ago with plans to create a catering kitchen. Since they opened in Spring of 2021, Ardsley Station has grown quickly. They knew almost immediately that their kitchen was too small to handle both daily lunch and dinner service as well as their growing catering operation.
“We looked at a lot of different options to expand our footprint here.” says Tyler Kopkas, Co-owner of Ardsley Station. “But the new space just gives us a lot more flexibility.”
In the short term, the new space at Montgomery and 54th Streets will serve primarily as a production and prep kitchen for both the restaurant at Victory and Drayton as well as catering. They have some ideas on what else they could do with that property but that’s down the line.
“We still want to expand here at some point.” Tyler says of the original Ardsley Station property “But nothing serious has been talked about yet.”
Meanwhile, the sign out front of Michael’s reads ‘closed after 36 years.’ Another neighborhood ‘old school’ family restaurant gone. You may recall the very popular Larry’s restaurant on Skidaway Road closed in 2020 and never returned.
Some will undoubtedly lament the clear erosion of what Savannah has been for so many years, other’s will see opportunity for growth and development. The 3 brand new apartment buildings being built on Montgomery Street just South of Anderson Street will tell you all you need to know about that. Not to mention the number of art galleries that have begun to move in on that corridor.
More signs of growth in The Hostess City.
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