Two Urban Licks turns 20 years old next year. How is that possible? I remember how chic and cool everyone was when I went for the first time to this unknown corner of Atlanta. Flash forward two decades and Two Urban Licks still looks chic and cool and now it sits right on the Beltline in one of the most coveted locations in the city. Co-owner Todd Rushing sat down to talk with me about four decades in the restaurant biz, his very Southern great grandma, core food memories and so much more.
A masterful restaurateur and innovator, Todd Rushing grew up in Sandy Springs, the oldest of four. His dad is from Savannah and taught Economics at Georgia State University and UGA. His mom was an interior designer who worked for the renowned designer Stan Topol. She helped Stan decorate Elton John’s penthouse among other hot projects. She also bought Margaret Mitchell’s husband’s house in Ansley Park. “It was going to be condemned. It was so bad,” recalls Todd. “My mother talked my father into buying it, renovating it and they made it into something special.” The house in Ansley Park turned out to be smack dab, next door to Bob Amick’s house. At the time Bob Amick was a hot shot restaurateur with the Peasant Group.
Todd’s mom taught him how to design and outfit a restaurant, but it’s his dad who indirectly got him into the restaurant business. “I graduated in history and political science from SMU and was about to take the LSATs and get started on law school,” he says. But his dad said, “get a job and grow up and we can talk about law school after a couple of years.”
“My father [was out of town for] six weeks. He said, ‘When I get back, have a job.’ I walked next door to Bob’s house. He spent the better part of a day telling me no, you don’t want to work in restaurants. I convinced him to give me a job.”
It wasn’t Todd’s first restaurant gig. “My first job was at Banks & Shane [dinner club] on the corner of Roswell Road and Hammond Road. Remember that?” he asks. I do! “It was dinner and a show and they played every night. I got a job there and bussed tables and did dishes. Whatever I was told to do, I did. It was very social. I had a blast!” He continued to bartend and work in restaurants through college.
“Bob ran the Peasant Group and he let me into their management training program. I worked for them for 10 years. I left just shy of the Olympic games in 1996. Peasant had been sold to Morton’s. I didn’t want to work for a publicly traded restaurant group. I went to NOLA for a couple of years and worked for Al Copeland of Copeland’s and Popeye’s Chicken.”
“I was young, not married. I was having a good time,” Todd says. “I did get married there and my first daughter was born in NOLA.” More children soon followed.
Bob called Todd and said he had a project with Ray Schoenbaum, who was owner of Rio Bravo, Ray’s on the River and Ray’s in the City. “We created Killer Creek Chop House. It’s called Ray’s Killer Creek now in Alpharetta.” That was 1998. Todd moved to Roswell and all his kids graduated from Roswell High School. Bob and Todd parted ways with Ray in 2001 but the restaurant is still there.
“Bob and I started Concentrics 2002 and opened One Midtown Kitchen that year. It made a huge splash.” I vividly recall how hard it was to get a reservation there at that time. It was an independent restaurant that came out of the post-September 11th days. “We appealed to the Midtown crowd. We hired a chef out of New York City, Kevin O’Reilly, and it was a different approach. We were very successful. Bob and I were working every day running the dining room.”
One Midtown Kitchen was the success that led to Two Urban Licks. Todd and Bob opened Two on October 16, 2004. Trois, the third restaurant in the group, followed in 2006. “If 2008 hadn’t happened… that Recession just buried a lot of things,” says Todd. “Trois was ahead of what Atlanta knew. It was a New York-style restaurant. We were doing well in 2008 and then that Recession… I was watching the sales numbers and the corporate business just dried up overnight. I said, ‘this isn’t going to end well.’ We packed up on Labor Day of 2009. We moved out. But I loved the food there, bringing it all to life.”
However, Trois going under taught Todd some things: “We were confident from One and Two and thought ‘we can do this.’ For a while, it did all work. You’ve got to be successful in good and bad times. You can’t control fixed costs. The rent was too high when the Recession hit. Even in inflationary times like now, we can still satisfy the guests but make our margins [because our rent is manageable].”
The lessons paid off during the pandemic. “Those that survived, learned things. There’s some luck in there too. We’re extremely lucky that we created Two Urban Licks and nobody anticipated the Beltline or the growth around that area. Twenty years ago it was homeless folks and sketchy kids on the train tracks out back.” Today, it’s a hub for foot traffic and the area is packed every night.
“The whole world dealt with the pandemic, but we’ve had two of our busiest years in 20 years. That’s unheard of in restaurant business. The other lucky thing was people in 2021 couldn’t go anywhere. They were here walking around and we were a big place with lots of ceiling height and following guidelines and made people feel safe and we could open up the doors and separate the guests and we built confidence in people.”
So what is he up to now? He and Bob still own Bully Boy together too. “We’re still doing the consulting work. Right now we’re doing a Tuscaloosa hotel project—a rooftop and restaurant for that. We have a project in Daytona—a hotel group that wants a beach bar. An event space and restaurant both inside/outside,” he says, but adds: “We’re probably not going to do something ourselves again though.”
Instead, he has an exciting project in Roswell he’s working on with a couple of guys he went to high school with. “It’s a private social club right on Canton Street in the Old Founder’s Hall,” says Todd. “The original house was built in the 1850s. We’re returning it to its original state. It will be a membership-only club and have ten cottages, a pool bar and spa. We’re already selling memberships for it. Should open in the second quarter of 2024.”
Todd has so much good news on the horizon but I wanted to ask him about his past. So I peppered him with Two-Sided Southern lightning round questions:
What was it like growing up in Sandy Springs in the ’70s and ’80s?
There were three synagogues in Sandy Springs then. By the time I was 15, I could have been bat mitzvah’d and bar mitzvah’d with my friends. It was probably 60/40 Jewish to gentile in our area. I grew up in Atlanta, but not having school on Rosh Hashanah. It was a great experience and I liked learning about all these other cultures.
What is something your parents or family would do or make that strikes you as Southern?
My great grandmother, who was my father’s grandmother made lemon pound cake. We would visit her in Savannah. To me, it was everything that was Southern. You would get a piece of lemon pound cake for dessert. Then the next day for breakfast they would toast it and put butter on it. The ultimate Southerner, my grandmother would have those gallon jars in the front yard that were half full of sugar, water and tea bags. I didn’t like it as a kid. Give me water. I don’t like sweets. I’d rather have cheese at the end of the meal than dessert. There’s not a wine that goes great with dessert. Pair a great wine with cheese instead, I say.
Was there any place in your hometown that was distinctly Southern?
I did go to Pitty Pat’s… I wasn’t introduced to Mary Mac’s until I was older and was introduced to that by Steve Nygren’s wife. It’s her mom that ran it. I thought, “This is just food my grandmother makes. Creamed corn and collards.” I can get this food when I go visit my grandma.
My food memories weren’t those Southern style restaurants. My parents would take us to Mandarin China on Roswell Road. It had sizzling rice soup. I would ask to go there for my birthday. My mom would cook at home. We were that “Leave it to Beaver” family. You got a protein, a starch and you ate everything on your plate or you sat there. Nobody got options. So going to Chinese was a treat.
Favorite high-end Southern dish you love: Shrimp n grits. I think I can make it better than most places. So if I’ve had it better at a restaurant, then I dissect the recipe and do it better next time.
Favorite down-home Southern dish: A cheddar biscuit.
Favorite high-brow restaurant in the South: Commander’s Palace in NOLA.
Favorite low-brow restaurant in the South: In New Orleans in the Quarter there’s a place called Port of Call. It’s a dive. You don’t want to turn the lights on in the place ‘cause it would scare you. But it’s phenomenal. It’s open 24 hours. The beauty about NOLA is they’re passionate about food. It doesn’t matter where you are, they care about food. Even the 400 lb. man with no sleeves on just shucking oysters like a machine.
Favorite sports teams: Braves and Redskins or Atlanta United.
Favorite drink at a tailgate: Bourbon. On ice.
Are you a theater or concert person? Concert.
What are your fave shows or people to see? I am a huge, enormous U2 fan. Also I grew up seeing R.E.M., seeing them before they were big. Indigo Girls. I saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1983 play a tiny spot with no stage. Couldn’t be more than 200 people there. Love seeing new bands. Love music.
Most eccentric Southern person you know?
My great grandmother epitomizes the South. Her name was Momee Barnes. She was 102 when she passed. Born somewhere in the late 1890s. What she shared about how they grew and cooked their food and how you cured ham was important in my life.. Proteins… they didn’t have proteins much when she was in Savannah and my Dad was growing up. My dad’s father left when he was young.
What are some misconceptions you’ve encountered about people from the South?
I don’t have an accent. People meet me and think that’s odd because I was born and raised here. Stereotypically for those folks that don’t travel down here, the stigma is that we’re slower. New Yorkers like to pick on us, but I’ve done projects in Chicago and NYC and we don’t work at that same pace. Yeah, but we get more done. We don’t work at that pace, but we get more done.
