J’s Mini Hot Pot Deluxe in Chamblee closed after 21 years in business on Buford Highway. A New York-based franchise, the Chamblee location was the first Metro Atlanta restaurant to serve Chinese-style hot pot when it opened in 2004, according to We Love Buford Highway.
Initially announced on March 27 via social media, Rough Draft Atlanta verified the closure with an employee on March 28. The employee did not cite a reason for the closure but said it had been a hard year for the hot pot restaurant.
The J’s Mini team will instead shift focus to the remaining Duluth location on Pleasant Hill Road, renovated in 2023.
The origins of hot pot trace back to 12th-century China. Today, the dish has a wide array of regional variants. Chinese hot pot, including the spicy Sichuan and Chongqing mala styles, became especially popular in Metro Atlanta over the last two decades.
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“We understand that when our businesses are gone, we really run the risk of losing this identity,” said Lily Pabian, executive director of local nonprofit We Love Buford Highway.
Pabian, who has lived in Atlanta since 1979, remembers visiting J’s Mini Hot Pot Deluxe when it first opened. “When it came here, we were all thrilled because we used to have to eat this stuff at home,” she said. “We always heard about the hot pot places in New York and other big cities.”
Pabian said that many of Buford Highway’s mom-and-pop restaurants are still dealing with the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes the rising cost of ingredients and increasing rent prices, particularly for businesses inside Atlanta’s perimeter.
“I hear [Buford Highway] tenants saying that their rent has gone up a thousand percent,” she said. “What do you do with that?”
As a result, these core businesses around the Buford Highway corridor, like Canton House and Royal China Eatery, are moving to or opening additional locations in areas with a lower cost of living and a more representative population, namely Duluth.
Buford Highway restaurants also face challenges with visibility, especially navigating marketing that’s increasingly dependent on technology. Immigrant-run businesses regularly have to make tough decisions, such as closing flagship locations in order to survive or thrive, Pabian explained.
Pabian hopes another immigrant-owned mom-and-pop business will replace J’s Mini Hot Pot Deluxe in Chamblee, helping the corridor maintain its identity for future generations.
“There’s very few places in the Southeast where you have such a vibrant corridor, and this identity was certainly built on the sacrifices and hard decisions of immigrants for nearly half a century,” Pabian added.
