From trendy dad and trucker hats to voting pins and tie-dyed t-shirts, repping Atlanta restaurants has never been more fun—or fashionable.
“For small establishments without huge marketing budgets, creating and selling merchandise [merch] is a savvy way to reach potential customers and build brand buzz,” explains Rob Birdsong, owner of Glide Pizza.
Birdsong, who owned a small Atlanta-themed t-shirt company before he launched Glide Pizza in the Old Fourth Ward four years ago, says more restaurants are getting into the merch game because owners can get creative with promoting their establishments beyond social media and the dining room.
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Dale Donchey, owner of Spiller Park Coffee, agrees. His coffee shop branding and merch feature a playful baseball theme.
Since opening Spiller Park nearly a decade ago, Donchey learned that selling merch can be an additional revenue stream for small, independent cafes and restaurants—critical when rising food, labor, and real estate costs make profit margins slimmer than ever.
“If you can talk someone into spending $15 on a mug or $20 on a pin, it’s a way for your small business to not only tell an important story and message, but something you can sell at a higher price point for profit that’s not attached to labor,” he explains.
Vivian Lee, owner of Avondale Estates bakery and sandwich shop Leftie Lee’s, sells merch to bring in additional revenue from non-perishable items and to showcase a little brand personality. Lee also believes people enjoy publicly supporting the restaurants they love through wearable merch.
Rise of restaurant merch
Ticonderoga Club partner and creative director Bart Sasso was at the forefront of Atlanta’s restaurant merch boom. A Georgia Tech graduate, Sasso was running Atlanta t-shirt company Esperanza in the late 2000s when his clever designs caught the attention of future Ticonderoga Club partner Greg Best, then the beverage director at Holeman & Finch in Buckhead.
“Greg was a big music fan and collected tour posters and other band merch, and he really wanted to explore that same type of branding for restaurants through merch,” recalls Sasso.
The pair collaborated on a limited run of t-shirts depicting the restaurant’s cocktails, charcuterie boards, and other favorite dishes. Soon, restaurants like Fox Brothers Bar-B-Q reached out to request branding and designs. Today, Sasso and his team at Sasso and Co. design merch ranging from dad caps, key chains, and hoodies to tote bags and candles for Atlanta restaurants like How Crispy Express and Lloyd’s Pizza and beverage brands like Tip Top Proper Cocktails. Sasso sources the candles from Glower, co-owned by Kimball House and Gene’s partner Matt Christison and Murrell’s Row Spirits partner Ferrol Lee Mayfield.
Sasso feels that, in many ways, branded restaurant merch now rivals band merch as people seek to support their favorite places to eat and owners try to differentiate their restaurants from competitors.
“In Atlanta, we have all of these entrepreneurial restaurants that have strong personalities and have cultivated really loyal followings, like bands do, and people can display their allegiances by buying merch, which has become an integral part of a restaurant’s offering and identity,” he says.
Brand building
Summerhill restaurant Little Bear is one of those local restaurants known for its distinct brand identity and expansive merch line.
When Chef Jarrett Stieber opened the restaurant in early 2020, he knew his beloved dog, Fernando, would be the face of the brand.
“We had a feeling that using Fernando would definitely help push sales and drive traffic,” says Stieber of his massive Great Pyrenees, who’s become a local celebrity at coffee shops and restaurant patios around Atlanta.
Stieber worked with Alvin Diec, co-owner of local design company Family Bros. to develop Little Bear’s logo, branding, and merch, featuring Fernando’s unmistakable image.
“Design is storytelling,” says Diec, who conceptualize branding and merch for other local brands like Spiller Park Coffee and Victory Sandwich Bar.
He says the best designs and products—like Little Bear’s Fernando-centric merch line—distill a restaurant’s spirit and ethos into something “visual and functional.”
For each merch batch, Stieber gives Diec a list of the items he’d like to sell at the restaurant, and the company turns around mockups with multiple designs and colors. The result? Everything from pompom knit hats and oversized sweatshirts to fuzzy house slippers and seasonal items like a holiday mug and pre-batched holiday cocktail.
Ticonderoga Club is known in Atlanta for zanier merch, anchored by a core line of hats, t-shirts, and key chains with the restaurant’s logo — a toothy-grinning skull.
“We take so many things about the restaurant seriously—our food, our beverage, our hospitality—that merch is a way to explore our sense of humor and have this kind of creative laboratory where I get to explore all of my influences and be cheeky and fun and surprising,” says Sasso.
While he doesn’t follow trends when designing items, Sasso takes a lot of his design and merch cues from lifestyle brands, which includes limited-edition candles, one inspired by Ticonderoga Club’s signature cocktail called the Cup and another inspired by its 64-ounce Black Angus chargrilled Chuck Wagon platter.
“We treat our merch program like a gift shop, so we like to offer people a range of fun things at different price points, whether that’s a key chain you throw on your bag when you go to work, a hat you can wear to the farmer’s market, or a candle you light a home at the end of the day,” he adds.
Marketing—but make it fashion
For small businesses without large (or any) marketing budgets, clever merch can serve as free advertising.
“It helps get the word out—someone might see our logo on someone’s hat and look up the shop,” says Lee of selling branded Leftie Lee’s beanies, aprons, bandanas, and DIY tie-dyed t-shirts featuring characters designed by local artist Tiffblot.
Like Sasso, Lee equates collecting restaurant merch to purchasing a band tee or hat at a concert—a tangible takeaway from a great experience that signals you’re part of a fan club or community.
Jordan Chambers, owner of Midtown coffee shop and wine bar Larakin, says merch has become a great way for people to “rep the places they like to go.”
At Larakin, those merch items, including hats and t-shirts, are branded with a series of whimsical face outlines that, like Little Bear’s merch, were designed by Family Bros.
Chambers says the cartoon line designs representing different emotions are so popular, he and some of his employees and regulars got them as permanent tattoos. Even if merch isn’t super high-end or designer, Chambers says, people love to make a fashion statement and show off restaurants they love by wearing something cool with their outfit.
Stieber frequently receives orders from other states, a testament to the popularity of the restaurant’s merch and designs.
“My best friend lives in Asheville and he’s always getting compliments on our hats and merch; he’s like a walking advertisement for Little Bear,” the chef says.
For Stieber, the key to great merch is making it “so undeniably cute or cool that people will make it part of their everyday wardrobe.”
That’s Sasso’s goal, too.
“Great merch is a conversational piece. In a world where things are so ephemeral, merch is just a fun time stamp of an experience – it’s a souvenir and this tangible thing to commemorate an experience.”