DeKalb fire caused by lit menorah in Dunwoody home

Another chicken won’t be crossing the road

Dec. 17 — It’s Cathy from Rough Draft with my weekly newsletter on Dunwoody. Well, it’s been an interesting week in the city, with a little drama at the city council meeting and the end of an era at Vino Venue. Before we get to all that, here are a few tidbits for your consideration.

🥯 Goldbergs, which has a Dunwoody location in the Georgetown Shopping Center, announced its third annual Holiday Toy Drive to benefit the Foster Care Support Foundation. This Georgia-based nonprofit provides thousands of free items of clothing, infant equipment, and developmental toys to children in foster and relative care. Until Saturday, Dec. 20th, all participating Goldbergs locations (excluding the airport) will be collecting new, unwrapped toys, games, and art supplies for local children in foster and relative care. Each donor receives a free bagel and cream cheese.

🎁 On a related note, the Community Assistance Center’s Hope for the Holidays portal is now open. Sponsors choose a family, purchase physical gifts for the children, and deliver them unwrapped to the CAC Holiday Gift Center. CAC then coordinates pickup with the parents, letting them wrap and present their children with holiday gifts.

👻 This weekend is your last chance to see “A Christmas Carol” at Stage Door Theatre. Totally worth it! ICYMI, I wrote a review of the play last week.

👽 Holiday Lights at Brook Run Park, now in its sixth year, is fully installed with its Cosmic Wonderland theme. This year’s display features 100,000 lights that will shine nightly in the park until 10 p.m. through Dec. 31.

And now, here’s the news,
Cathy

🍑 Celebrate local flavor with Georgia Grown gifts! Build beautiful baskets or grab flavorful stocking stuffers from local craft makers. Enjoy chef demos, tasty samples, and meet the farmers. Visit us Sat., Dec. 20, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Cook’s Warehouse Ansley Mall. SPONSOR MESSAGE

This chick flick has ended

🙅🏽 The months-long chicken drive-though saga was put to “roost” on Dec. 15 when the Dunwoody City Council voted to deny a Special Land Use Permit for an 18-car double-drive through at a proposed Zaxby’s restaurant at the Ashford Lane complex.

The measure was defeated 4-3, with Rob Price, Joe Seconder, Stacey Harris, and Mayor Lynn Deutsch voting to deny the application. Tom Lambert, Catherine Lautenbacher, and John Heneghan voted to approve the application.

The restaurant itself is an approved use, but the construction of a drive-through lanes had to be approved with a SLUP.

I was somewhat surprised by the divided vote, as the council generally agrees on most issues. Add to the fact that Zaxby’s had agreed to all the stipulations that city staff had put before them, including “no-idling” signs that Heneghan said “seemed kind of silly.”

🐓 Here is the story.

Fashion meets art at the High Museum!

SPONSORED BY THE HIGH MUSEUM

👗 Experience Viktor&Rolf: Fashion Statements – a bold, breathtaking exhibition celebrating avant-garde fashion visionaries who blurred the line between haute couture and art. Only at the High, the exhibition’s sole U.S. stop.

➞ On view through Feb. 8, 2026.

Lit menorah guts home

🕎 DeKalb Fire officials say a lit menorah was the cause of a massive fire that gutted a Dunwoody home.

Units were called to the scene on Dec. 15 after a lit menorah fell over, which was located on the first floor of a home on Wilder Court off Vernon Lake Drive.

The fire quickly spread throughout, reaching the second floor of the two-story wood and stone structure. The occupants and the family dog all escaped without serious injury, officials said.

Vino Venue restaurant service closes

🍷 Following dinner service on Dec. 20, the full-service restaurant part of Dunwoody wine bar Vino Venue will close after 13 years.

According to an announcement on Instagram, Vino Venue will continue to host wine tastings and wine-centric events paired with food from Chef Patric Good, as well as its popular cooking and wine certification classes. Sunsetting the restaurant will allow Vino Venue’s owners and staff to focus on expanding the wine shop, catering, and private events operations.

People are pretty bitter about the end of the restaurant’s Brussels sprouts, as they should be about this often-misunderstood vegetable.

🌱 Here’s a brief story about it.

‘Colorful’ and ‘Spruce’ now grazing at Spruill

🐴 Dunwoody’s collection of public art has grown with the addition of two new sculptures outside the Spruill Center for the Arts on Chamblee Dunwoody Road.

According to an announcement by Spruill, the new installations take the form of two grazing horses – selected as a nod to Dunwoody’s Spruill family, which once occupied and worked the land surrounding the historic “Dunwoody Farmhouse.”

“These sculptures offer us the opportunity to beautify Dunwoody’s landscape while also paying homage to the city’s history and honoring the family for whom our organization was named,” said Spruill CEO Alan Mothner about the selection of these two sculptures.

The horses, named “Colorful” and “Spruce,” created by North Carolina artist Jonathan Bowling, will be on display for 18 months before they high-tail it on outta here.

🎨 Spruill always has something cool going on – check out its website here.

🍗 A not-so- tender goodbye