The next restaurant coming to Chastain Square already has a partner with a business in the center, one that has been there for decades.
Hero Boy Sandwich Co. signed a lease in October for a 1,500-square-foot space at 4279 Roswell Road and expects to open in early 2027, co-owner Greg Abel told What Now Atlanta. One of his partners is Mike Giovine, who owns the Wing Factory in the same center. Swoozie's, a few doors away, began at Chastain Square in 2001 and returned in 2025 under its founding family. Bertolozi's Pizzeria, the center's newest restaurant, is its owner's first brick-and-mortar shop. All three changes came from people with local roots. None came from a chain looking for an address.
A sandwich shop with a neighbor already inside
Hero Boy Sandwich Co. started in Roswell in 2023. Abel, Brad Kranz and Mike Giovine opened it to serve classic Italian subs and cheesesteaks. The Chastain Square shop will be its first expansion.
Giovine also owns the Wing Factory, which serves wings, burgers and beer in the same center and runs trivia, music bingo and family events. Abel explained to What Now Atlanta why the partners picked this site:
"He's had the Wing Factory for 30-plus years there, so as you would imagine, the roots kind of run deep. We know just about everybody around, and those folks that we have convinced into rolling up to Alpharetta to give Hero Boy a try have all come back with the exact same comment, which is that you guys need to open something down here ASAP."
By Abel's telling, customers who already knew the owners from the Wing Factory asked for the shop. The new room will follow the original. Abel described subway tile, a diner-style feel and an open layout where customers can watch their sandwiches being made. "We like to be light, bright, and a little bit of a nod to nostalgia without overdoing it," he said.
The partners told the outlet they plan to grow slowly over the next three to five years. Abel framed that pace around this kind of local connection: "We are very much people who like to be a part of the neighborhoods that we're in, rather than being a tenant that is an outsider looking in."
Swoozie's already showed how a store comes back
Hero Boy is new, but a comeback like this has happened at Chastain Square before. Swoozie's, the gift, stationery and party store, opened its first location here in 2001. Kelly Plank and David Dworkin founded it, and it later grew into a regional chain of about a dozen stores, Tomorrow's News Today Atlanta reported. The company had passed out of the founding family's hands. When it closed its stores in early 2025, the Chastain Square store closed in February.
The store reopened later that year in the same 5,200-square-foot space. Ashley O'Donnell, the daughter of co-founder Kelly Plank Dworkin, is running it. According to that ToNeTo report, she had worked at Swoozie's for more than eleven years. The Swoozie's store page calls the Chastain Square location the place "where the brand was born." In September 2025, Tomorrow's News Today Atlanta reported that O'Donnell had also reopened the Swoozie's at The Plaza at Preston Center in Dallas, and that she had no immediate plans to open more stores.
Bertolozi's made Chastain Square its first storefront
Bertolozi's Pizzeria followed a similar path. Owner Danny Huber started with a pop-up and in February 2025 moved to a food stall at Roswell Junction. He closed the stall in late October 2025 to focus on what Tomorrow's News Today Atlanta called the first brick-and-mortar location of his own. The shop is named for his mother, Joyce Bertolozi.
Bertolozi's took over the 1,200-square-foot space that Enzo's Pizza had occupied and opened on December 20, 2025. It makes Chicago tavern-style pizza with a cracker-thin crust cut into squares, a style ToNeTo notes was designed so a slice can be held in one hand. Huber also announced Italian beef sandwiches, Chicago dogs and salads for the new menu. Pickup orders go through its online ordering page for Suite 101.
Why change at the center comes from within
The landlord's own numbers help explain this pattern. Regency Centers owns Chastain Square, and its property page lists the Publix-anchored center at 91,671 square feet with no spaces available. The same page reports about 2.09 million annual visits. With every space leased, a new business can only arrive when an existing one leaves, and most of the spaces are small. Here is how Regency's tenant table sizes the businesses in this story, next to the grocery anchor:
| Space | Tenant | Square feet |
|---|---|---|
| 10–11 | Publix | 37,366 |
| 20–22 | Atlanta Ballet | 7,742 |
| 38 | Swoozie's | 5,200 |
| 18–19 | The Wing Factory | 2,700 |
| 36 | Hero Boy | 1,500 |
| 1 | Bertolozi's Pizzeria | 1,200 |
A 1,200- or 1,500-square-foot space fits an operator moving up from a food stall or a single suburban shop, which describes both Bertolozi's and Hero Boy. Regency already lists Hero Boy on its site plan, ahead of the opening What Now Atlanta reported for early 2027. The full roster shows how many errands one parking lot covers. It includes Pho Dai Vietnamese Restaurant, Tacos & Tequilas, Nobi Cha, OrangeTheory Fitness, Animal Urgent Care of Buckhead, Scenthound, The UPS Store, Prime Cleaners, ATL Tailor Co and Jilli Boutique, along with a Chick-fil-A on its own parcel.
The same lot, through the holidays
For the next several weeks, Chastain Square is a gift-shopping stop as much as a grocery run, and the businesses with the deepest local ties are the ones set up for it.
- Swoozie's, 4285 Roswell Road NE #10, is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. The store offers personalized stationery, party supplies, a rotating selection of gifts and complimentary gift wrapping. Its social feed is already promoting its holiday gift guide.
- Wild Birds Unlimited, Suite 603, is run by franchise owners Mamie Kerr and Timothy Baranowski. Weekly hours are posted on the store's locator page.
- Atlanta Ballet's Buckhead Centre, Suite 703, is one of the studios of the company's Centre for Dance Education. Programs run from Creative Movement for young children through the student division, the Academy and Atlanta Ballet 2, with adult classes and summer programs.
- The Wing Factory runs trivia, music bingo and family events, and it caters. Its website has details.
By the time Hero Boy opens in early 2027, the Wing Factory will be one of its neighbors in the same strip.
The agents at Dorsey Alston Realtors keep up with these changes as closely as they follow the homes nearby. If you would like a guide who knows the Chastain area down to its shopping centers, we would be glad to talk. Work With Us.
