Atlanta is a city that just keeps getting bigger. Broader.
Rather than expanding skyward as many other cities with natural boundaries do, razing things down just to stack them up, it simply spills out farther. This is what makes the places that have remained in Atlanta proper even more precious, and what makes the history of an address—like that held by El Ponce—an important lens into the city’s past and what lies in its future.
The Early Days
939 Ponce de Leon Avenue Northeast has been a home to food made by immigrants from inception. “Originally, the very first restaurant ever built on this property was a steakhouse. I found this out from the son of the Greek immigrant who opened it!” laughs owner Rosalinda Thurnher, who herself arrived via Austria. “He came in just looking around, and I was like, ‘Are you lost? Can I help you?’ and he told me it was once his dad’s restaurant in the 1960s.”
By the 1970s, the building had been sold and became Pepe’s, the start of its 50 consecutive years as a Mexican restaurant. It was during this era that the basement of the restaurant became the “original speakeasy of Ponce.” Thurnher says her customers have shared memories of the club where they’d dance hot Atlanta nights away…