Manuel's Tavern is pouring beers for a 70th birthday this week, and the Poncey-Highland institution is marking the milestone with four straight days of live music, throwback t-shirts, and food and drink specials that kicked off Thursday and run through the weekend.
The celebration includes performances from the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable and the Four O'Clocks, along with commemorative t-shirts designed by artist R. Land, according to CBS News Atlanta. The tavern has served beers in the neighborhood for seven decades, and current owner Brian Maloof says the business has always run on family labor. “All of us in the family have worked here at some point,” Maloof told the outlet, recalling that he once earned a quarter for washing a rack of glasses as a kid.
Manuel Maloof founded the tavern, and his father — a Lebanese immigrant who ran a billiard room in downtown Atlanta — supplied more than just inspiration. The tavern's central wooden bar counter was salvaged from that old downtown billiard hall, and the building itself is a 1920s Stone Mountain granite structure that once housed Harry's Delicatessen, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Manuel Maloof had worked as a beer delivery driver for the deli before buying it in 1956, the paper reports, and he later trained his son Brian to run the restaurant. Brian's brother Robert joined the business two years after it opened, and both brothers are memorialized inside the tavern today, per CBS News Atlanta's report.
A Bar Woven Into Georgia Political History
Manuel's Tavern has long doubled as an informal clubhouse for Georgia Democrats. Jimmy Carter frequented the tavern, and both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have patronized it as well, according to CBS News Atlanta. Carter actually launched his 1970 gubernatorial campaign inside the tavern, a moment that helped cement the pub as a primary gathering spot for Georgia Democrats for decades, as reported by The Nation. Obama made an unannounced stop at Manuel's during a 2015 Atlanta trip, chatting with patrons and even playing a game of darts, according to the Journal-Constitution's earlier reporting.
The tavern's civic pedigree runs deeper than presidential visits. Founder Manuel Maloof served as DeKalb County Commission Chairman and CEO from 1974 to 1992, a tenure during which he spearheaded major regional projects including Atlanta's Spaghetti Junction highway interchange, according to Atlanta Magazine. Maloof was widely considered the godfather of Georgia Democratic politics, the magazine notes. In 2020, that legacy earned the tavern a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, an official recognition from the National Park Service of its central role in the city's political and social history since 1956.
Decades-Long Staff and a Final Resting Place
Some employees have been pouring drinks at Manuel's for longer than many regulars have been alive. The tavern employs multiple staffers who have worked there for more than 40 years, and bar manager Matt Shelton has been there for nine years himself. “I feel like I'm part of the family,” Shelton told CBS News Atlanta. He has a toddler son named Mic, and Brian Maloof's own daughter now works full-time at the tavern, with her father saying she understands the history and importance of the place.
The tavern's ties to its regulars run even further than employment. According to CBS News Atlanta's report, some customers have chosen Manuel's as a final resting place, and the tavern contains roughly four unidentified urns among its décor. Brian Maloof's father was in the hospital on the tavern's 50th anniversary and died the day after, in 2016 — a detail that adds weight to the bar's role as a family touchstone across generations.
Surviving Renovation, a Pandemic, and Inflation
Reaching 70 hasn't been simple. In 2015, the Maloof family sold the 1.6-acre property beneath the tavern to Green Street Properties and Selig Enterprises to fund a multi-million-dollar renovation and townhome development, while keeping full ownership of the tavern business itself, according to the Journal-Constitution. The building closed for seven months during 2015 and 2016 for electrical, plumbing, and HVAC overhauls. Before that construction, researchers and students from Emory University and Georgia State University built a 3D digital archive called “Unpacking Manuel's Tavern,” cataloging thousands of historical items on the walls so that every photo and artifact could be rehung in its exact original spot, per the Atlanta Studies Network.
The pandemic brought a more existential threat. Tavern sales plummeted by more than 60 percent during shutdowns, and loyal patrons responded in December 2020 by raising over $180,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to keep the doors open, an effort later bolstered by a $130,000 corporate grant from Planters in February 2021, according to WSB Radio. Election nights, meanwhile, have proven to be the tavern's biggest business driver — the 2016 Election Night brought in more than 3,000 people and marked the highest single-day revenue in the tavern's history, with general manager Steve Pitts telling Inc. Magazine that a single election night can equal three full weekend days in sales.
More recently, inflation forced another hard call. In April 2023, Brian Maloof announced menu price increases, calling the move an “absolute necessity” to cope with rising costs and retain staff, and comparing the decision to alter long-standing pricing rules to “rewriting the Constitution,” according to 11Alive. Regulars responded warmly, voicing strong support for the tavern online, the station reported. The bar has also weathered less predictable trouble — Hoodline previously reported on a graffiti incident before a mayor's visit in early 2024, tied to a public safety training center dispute. Through renovation, a pandemic, and inflation, the family-run tavern is still standing — and this weekend, it's celebrating that fact with beer, music, and a room full of memories that span 70 years.
