Finally Friday
May 16 — It’s a busy weekend in Metro Atlanta with Virginia-Highland Porchfest, Kirkwood Spring Fling, Clarkston Makers Market, Marietta Greek Festival, and Atlanta Streets Alive. Find even more events at our How Do You Atlanta? events calendar.
☁️ Cloudy and 88° today. Thunderstorms are in the forecast this weekend with highs in the mid-80s.
🏟️ The Georgia Board of Regents signed off Thursday on a $70 million renovation to Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium.
💸 The Fulton County Board of Education approved a tentative $2.46 billion budget for this week, but a potential financial crisis is looming.
🗳️ Georgia Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch has announced his campaign for lieutenant governor.
🎓 Woodward Academy has appointed Dr. Chris Freer as the College Park private school’s eighth president.
🎸 The Brookhaven Cherry Blossom Festival in March broke attendance records with 61,000 attendees.
🏆 The Greater Perimeter Chamber is accepting nominations from Sandy Springs and Dunwoody for the 2025 Woman of Distinction Award.
💰 Atlanta Pride announced the recipients of $50,000 in grants for organizations across the state.
ELSEWHERE
⚖️ The Supreme Court expressed concern over President Donald Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship in the United States.
🚰 Florida has become the second state to ban fluoride in public water.
📺 HBO is rebranding its streaming platform as HBO Max (again).
🕖 Here’s what’s in today’s newsletter:
• Uzbek cuisine in Atlanta
• Adam Guettel talks ‘Millions’
• Film review: ‘Fight or Flight’
• The Sports Section
AND
• Top Stories of the Week
📣 Join Perimeter leaders on May 20 for bold talks on workplace culture, mobility, and placemaking. Hear from top companies and city leaders shaping the district. Save 15% with code ROUGHDRAFT. Don’t miss it – register now! SPONSOR MESSAGE
1. Metro Atlantans with a hankering for Uzbek cuisine finally have a place to go
😋 This story was first published in 285 South, a news publication dedicated to Metro Atlanta’s immigrant and refugee communities, and is part of a partnership with Rough Draft Atlanta.
Laghman Express – a new Central Asian restaurant in Atlanta – is an extension of a Brooklyn business founded by Atlanta owner Babur Akhmedov’s nephew. Within six months of launching in 2023, The New York Times named the Brooklyn restaurant one of the best in the city. Atlanta felt like the natural next step.
Babur moved to Atlanta from Kyrgyzstan more than a decade ago and has always bemoaned the lack of good Uzbek food. Islam is a major religion in Central Asia – Uzbekistan’s population is more than 90 percent Muslim – and, Babur noted, many of the Atlanta Metro’s Muslim populations overlap in northern Fulton County.
“We came up saying, okay, Alpharetta is the best place to open,” he said.
🍛 Read the full story from Gabriela Henriquez Stoikow here.
Summer wellness tips for your pup
SPONSORED BY SCENTHOUND
🐶 Summer is full of long walks, park playdates, and backyard barbecues. But as the temperatures rise, so do the wellness risks for your furry friend. Whether you’re a new dog parent or a seasoned pro, these tips will help keep your pet’s life safe and comfortable all summer long.
- Time walks wisely
- Hydration + healthy snacks
- Care for your senior sidekick
- Hygiene care and paw protection matter more in the summer
- Signs of heat stroke
🐾 Learn how to keep your pup happy, healthy, and cool this summer and discover the Scenthound difference at our Buckhead, Dunwoody, and Tucker locations.
2. Adam Guettel talks music, Catholicism, and ‘Millions’
VIA SCENE, A WEEKLY NEWSLETTER ABOUT FILM | SUBSCRIBE
🎼 Adam Guettel always writes the music first. Never the lyrics.
This makes sense. The musical theater composer is the grandson of Richard Rodgers of Rodgers and Hammerstein, the composer behind musicals like “Oklahoma!,” “South Pacific,” and “The Sound of Music.” Guettel’s mother, Mary Rodgers, was a composer in her own right, writing the music for “Once Upon a Mattress” and “The Mad Show.”
Guettel has written a number of accomplished musicals, like “The Light in the Piazza” and “Floyd Collins.” His newest offering, “Millions,” is based on the 2004 Danny Boyle movie and premiered at Alliance Theatre on May 9. The show will run through June 15.
💰 Sammie Purcell recently spoke with Guettel about his career and writing “Millions.” Check out that conversation here.
3. ‘Fight or Flight:’ kind of dumb (in a fun way)
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW | BY SAMMIE PURCELL
🛬 As one of the biggest fights in “Fight or Flight” comes to an end, Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett), the disgraced FBI agent at the center of James Madigan’s new airplane-set action comedy, does a little backwards somersault into a Spider-Man pose. You know the one – one hand on the ground, leg splayed, head up, and eyes alert.
Except when Reyes does the pose, things look a little different. First of all, he’s a little too inebriated to get through the somersault portion with grace. He’s the walking definition of rumpled, bleary-eyed, and puffy, and when he lands the pose, he very nearly falls over. As much as the pose might signal “hero,” Reyes is not the superhero type.
“Fight or Flight” is about as rickety as Reyes is in this moment. And yet, it’s still far more entertaining than the cleaner, higher-budget version of this movie.
👻 Click here to read Sammie’s review.
🍿 Stay in the picture with Scene by Rough Draft, our weekly newsletter about Georgia’s film industry. Subscribe for free.
4. WNBA season begins; Atlanta City Games tomorrow
BY MIA FISHMAN
🏌️♂️Venezuela’s Jhonattan Vegas leads the PGA Championship, which continues through the weekend (ESPN/CBS).
🏇 Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty will skip tomorrow’s 150th Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. Journalism is the favorite in the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown (NBC).
🏀 The 2025 WNBA season begins tonight, and the Dream travel to Washington to play the Mystics at 7:30 p.m.
🏃♂️ The adidas Atlanta City Games returns to Piedmont Park and the Midtown High School track tomorrow with professional events beginning at 1 p.m. (NBC).
⚾️ The Braves travel to Boston for a weekend series against the Red Sox beginning tonight at 7:10 p.m. (FanDuel Sports; 93.7 FM).
⚽️ Atlanta United will host the Philadelphia Union tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. (Apple TV+).
🏀 The Hawks will have two first-round picks in the 2025 NBA draft – No. 13 and No. 22.
🏈 The Falcons will play the Colts in Berlin this November for the NFL’s first-ever regular-season game at Olympic Stadium.
📣 Join Perimeter leaders on May 20 for bold talks on workplace culture, mobility, and placemaking. Hear from top companies and city leaders shaping the district. Save 15% with code ROUGHDRAFT. Don’t miss it – register now! SPONSOR MESSAGE
5. Top Stories of the Week
A look back at this week’s most-read stories from our website. Follow @RoughDraftATL on Instagram for regular updates.
① Paul Bianchi, Paideia’s founding head of school, dies at 79 (pictured)
② Original Taco Mac in Virginia-Highland closes after 46 years
③ DeKalb eliminates shredded paper, some plastics for residential recycling
④ Atlanta celebrates opening of Woodall Rail Trail segment
⑤ Public hearing set ahead of demolition of historic GSU buildings
📣 Join Perimeter leaders on May 20 for bold talks on workplace culture, mobility, and placemaking. Hear from top companies and city leaders shaping the district. Save 15% with code ROUGHDRAFT. Don’t miss it – register now! SPONSOR MESSAGE
💭 Test your knowledge of the week’s news in tomorrow’s News Quiz. Keep an eye out for our email at 8 a.m. or bookmark this page!
🔤 Don’t miss News Word Atlanta, our new, daily word game – Presented by Oglethorpe University, Atlanta’s premier undergraduate learning experience.