Fifteen years ago, asking where to find a food hall in Atlanta got you a blank look and directions to a mall food court. That is no longer true. The format has taken over group dinners, pre-event meals, and every night where four people want four different things, and downtown Atlanta now has the biggest version of it in the city.
CTR Food Works is the food hall inside the reimagined former CNN Center at 190 Marietta Street. Eleven chef-driven kitchens, 500 seats, and the largest bar in Georgia anchoring the atrium at the center of the hall. This guide covers what is actually in there, how to use it, and why the address matters more than you would think.
What separates a food hall from a food court
Worth settling first, because the two get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. A food court is a set of chain outposts sharing a seating area. A food hall is a set of independent, chef-run kitchens sharing a roof, usually with a real bar in the middle of it and usually built into a building with some history.
The practical difference shows up at the table. Everyone in your group orders from a different kitchen, nobody compromises, and you all sit down together anyway. Order at the counter, food arrives in minutes, and you leave when you are ready instead of when a server finally notices you. No reservation, no group menu, no one friend holding eleven people hostage over where to eat.
That is the whole pitch, and it is why the format wins any night with a hard start time attached to it.
The eleven kitchens
The lineup is built so that no two counters are competing for the same craving.
Southern and American. Southern Belle Chicken Co. is the marquee name: Michelin-recommended, James Beard-nominated Atlanta chef Joey Ward doing fried chicken through a well-traveled lens. Crispy sandwiches and hand-breaded strips start in Southern tradition, then pick up sauces from around the world. Next door, Patty & Frank's runs a modern American grill on smashed burgers, premium beef franks, and roadside-stand classics under the motto "Love In Every Bun."
Latin and Mexican. La Tropical is Chef Minelly Amador's celebration of Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Latin cooking: pressed Cuban sandwiches, crispy bacalaitos, mofongo, carne frita, and slow-braised ropa vieja. Mimi Taqueria is a female chef-driven kitchen serving modern Mexican street food, where Chef Mimi's tacos, burritos, and enchiladas lean on fresh ingredients and house-made sauces.
Asian. The Sparrow brings the bold, tingling flavors of Szechuan China in a fast-casual format: dumplings, wok-fired noodles, stir-fried specialties, and rice bowls with real depth behind the heat. Eggflip × SushiFlip runs two kitchens off one counter, with Korean-inspired egg sandwiches and breakfast bowls on one side and fresh sushi rolls and poke on the other.
Italian and seafood. Flora D'Italia handles handmade pastas, Neapolitan-style pizzas, and comfort staples like eggplant and chicken Parmesan. Fuzzy's channels the classic dockside oyster shack with fresh oysters, shrimp cocktail, and lobster rolls.
Dessert. Morelli's has been an Atlanta ice cream institution since 2009, scooping small-batch flavors like Blueberry Corncake and Salted Caramel. DessertBox covers the pastry side, where French technique meets everyday comfort in a case of cakes, cupcakes, fresh-baked breads, and seasonal specialties.
Still to come: Rivalry Beef, putting Philly cheesesteaks head to head against Chicago Italian beef. The full roster with photos and details lives on the Food & Drinks page.
The largest bar in Georgia
The CTR Bar is the heartbeat of the hall, and it holds the title outright: the largest bar in Georgia. It anchors the atrium at the center of the building, which makes it the easiest possible meeting point when half your group is coming from work and the other half from home. You do not text directions. You say "the bar," and everyone finds it.
It also changes what the hall is good for. A room full of counters is a place to eat. A room full of counters built around a bar of that size is a place to spend an evening: cocktails while stragglers straggle, a landing spot after a game, somewhere the group can keep talking long after the plates are cleared.
Hours, and how to time a visit
- Sunday through Wednesday: 11 AM – 9 PM
- Thursday through Saturday: 11 AM – 11 PM
Those hours reward a little planning. Thursday through Saturday the hall runs late enough to be both the before and the after, which is the right way to use it on a concert or game night. Sunday through Wednesday it closes at 9, so midweek it works best as the meal that comes first rather than the nightcap.
For a 7:30 event, the reliable rhythm is arrive at 5:30, eat at 6, and walk over at 7. That is a full sit-down dinner with room to spare instead of a scramble, and you skip the concession line entirely.
Why the address does the heavy lifting
Here is the part that no amount of good cooking can substitute for. Downtown Atlanta holds the events, and this building sits in the middle of them. Mercedes-Benz Stadium, State Farm Arena, the Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola, Centennial Olympic Park, and the convention halls are all within a few blocks. On a night with a start time, proximity is not a bonus feature. It is the entire plan.
We have written the specific playbooks for the two big buildings: eating before a Falcons game and eating before a show at State Farm Arena. Both come down to the same thing. Park once, eat a real meal, walk a few minutes, and get to your seats on time.
The daytime version works the same way. If your afternoon is the aquarium and the park, lunch is already handled without moving the car, and eleven counters mean the kid who only eats plain cheese pizza and the adult who wants oysters are both satisfied in one stop.
Getting there and parking
The hall sits at the corner of Marietta Street and Centennial Olympic Park Drive. For drivers, the simplest option is The Center Parking Garage, directly across the street, with the Omni deck and the decks around Centennial Olympic Park as backups on the busiest nights. The move is to park once and leave it there: eat, walk to whatever you have tickets for, and come back to a car that is already steps away instead of circling for a second space at 10 PM.
On MARTA, the CNN Center / GWCC station is a couple of blocks away, which makes this one of the few dinner plans downtown that genuinely does not require a car. Ride-shares drop at the Marietta Street entrance. Full directions, parking rates, and transit notes are on the Visit page.
How to work the room on your first visit
A hall this size rewards a lap before you commit. Walk the perimeter once, see what is actually coming out of each kitchen, and then decide. Most first-timers order from the first counter they see and spend the rest of the meal watching something better go past their table.
Split the ordering if you are in a group. Send two people to different counters at the same time rather than queuing as a unit, grab a table while the food is being made, and let everything land together. Five hundred seats means finding that table is rarely the hard part.
And treat dessert as a separate trip. The ice cream and pastry counters are their own stop, not an afterthought tacked onto the end of the first order.
Groups, kids, and everything more organized
Five hundred seats is the number that makes large groups possible. A crew of twelve walks in on a busy night without a reservation and still finds somewhere to sit, which is not something most restaurants downtown can promise. Nobody negotiates a group menu. Nobody splits one check twelve ways.
Kids are easy here for the same structural reason. Picky eaters get plain chicken strips or plain cheese pizza while the adults eat properly, and no one has to leave the table to make that happen.
For anything more formal, the hall books private spaces that scale from a reserved section up to a full buyout: every kitchen, the bar, and the atrium for the night. Client dinners, team outings, birthdays, receptions. Details and the contact form are on the Private Events page.
Plan the visit
An Atlanta food hall should do three things: feed a group without an argument, put a real bar in the middle of it, and sit close enough to the rest of your night that you are not driving between stops. That is what this one was built to do, downtown, inside a building most of the country recognizes.
Check the calendar to see what is happening in the hall this week, then get hours, parking, and directions and come hungry.