Kimball House receives a $50,000 historic preservation grant

Decatur’s Kimball House won a $50,000 grant from American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, part of the “Backing Historic Small Restaurants” program. Launched in 2020, the initiative began as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and has since provided more than $8 million to 180 restaurants in the United States and Puerto Rico. 

In addition to the grant, qualifying restaurants enjoy a free year of restaurant management app Resy’s software. Previous Metro Atlanta winners include Nakato Japanese Restaurant, Daddy Dzs BBQ, Sweet Potato Café in Stone Mountain, and Miller’s Soul Food in Dublin, Georgia.  

Kimball House partner Kizzy Patel said the funds will go toward maintaining the integrity and history of the building, a former railroad depot.

Preservation and sustainability have always been at the forefront of Kimball House’s ethos. In fact, Kimball House looks just as good as it did when it opened in 2013. Most of the items inside the restaurant, from the furniture to the glassware, are antiques. The dining room still features the original penny tile floors and tables made from the building’s own reclaimed heart-of-pine. What couldn’t be re-used (antique lighting, for example, is especially delicate) is period-accurate. 

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“There’s something that’s always been so charming about this building,” Patel said. The history of the 136-year-old building includes time as a functioning train depot and freight room. “These were Decatur institutions and places that people in the community just loved and meant so much to them.” 

When Bryan Rackley, Jesse Smith, Miles Macquarrie, Matt Christison, and their investor partners first inquired about the building, however, Decatur residents told them it was cursed, at least business-wise. But ties to the restaurant’s namesake, the Kimball House Hotel, were too strong to ignore.

“It fit so perfectly with the era of the original Kimball House Hotel,” Patel said. “And the history of the [two] buildings someone connected because this [train] line would connect to the main station in downtown Atlanta, which sat across from the hotel.” 

Much of the previous preservation work at Kimball House was done by the City of Decatur itself. After the East Howard Avenue area of Decatur was rebranded as the Old Depot District, Patel said, it experienced an explosion of local businesses.

“It’s been wonderful to see the neighborhood change from just Kimball House being on this side and Trackside Tavern [on the other side] to now being a whole host of really successful, thriving small businesses,” he added.  

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Without Decatur, Kimball House would not have been able to succeed, Patel noted, especially when the pandemic all but halted business worldwide for the restaurant industry. 

“We’ve always worked really, really well with the City of Decatur and the Historic Preservation Council to maintain the really important features and keep the integrity of the building alive,” Patel said. He also credited local businesses like Square Feet Studio, Dudley Sign Co., and Smithworks Iron and Design for maintaining the historic aesthetic at Kimball House. 

“John and Vivian Bencick [of Square Feet Studio] helped them create a space that felt a little bit out of time,” Patel said. “Instead of going for a contemporary restaurant design, [they chose] old wood, old leather [and] dim lighting just to fit the building.” 

And at a point when Metro Atlanta’s historic buildings are routinely razed, it’s refreshing, and even unexpected, to see some of these properties restored. For Kimball House, that’s all about diligence in the details. 

In the near future, diners at Kimball House can look forward to period-accurate reproductions of signs that once hung from the depot’s eastern and western facades. The Kimball House partners are collaborating with Dudley Davis to produce the signs, a key element of the building that no longer exists. 

“There’s so many things that add to the look and feel of this building and to be able to now keep improving and repairing those things because the repairs and maintenance on very old buildings, it’s tough,” Patel said. “It’s challenging, but it’s also extremely rewarding.”