Things to do in Atlanta

Parent Cafe
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Second the suggestion to eat at the Flying Biscuit Cafe. Several locations, including Roswell Road sort of near Perimeter. Use a GPS to route you. Roswell Road is always crowded.

Coca Cola museum is overrated. Georgia Aquarium is worth the price. You can get in free at aquarium on your birthday with proof of DOB.

Hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts will change your life forever. The doughnuts are made in each store, and a marketing genius came up with a Red Neon flashing sign “Hot Doughnuts Now” when they are making them. You can watch the staff pick the hot ones off the line and put them into the box for you.

There are pockets of green all around the metro area, so check out each area and google for parks, trails, etc.

IKEA store downtown is a fine way to waste time and spend money. Great restaurant, and at the checkout are they also have a small cafe to sell hot dogs and ice cream and sinfully delicious cinnamon rolls.

The Varsity Restaurant in Atlanta near Georgia Tech campus is a real Atlanta landmark famous for drawing all the big name politicians. You will find signed photos on the restaurant walls. Very greasy food, hamburgers and hot dogs. And the staff yells at you “what’ll you have?” As their greeting. This is their way of getting orders quickly because there is always a crowd. Frosted Orange drink is top seller. Onion rings are the best. But you will need a bottle of tums if you eat there. Delicious going down, though.

Fox Theater is another famous historic landmark, but you most likely won’t have enough time to devote to attending a program or concert there.

Six Flags over Georgia is a great amusement park on west side of metro Atlanta, but again may take more time and energy than your baseball players can afford.

Lots of small suburban towns have a nice ce town center with grassy fields to throw frisbees, or water splashing fountains for kids to run through. Movie theaters show cheap priced family movies during the summer. Check out Atlanta on the Cheap website for current listings of concerts, movies, plays, etc.

22

It’s extremely uncomfortable down here right now with the heat, humidity, and light winds. We had thunderstorms/rain almost every day in June and that bumped up the humidity. This is about as bad as it gets … the temps may be higher in late July/August but the humidity is usually lower.

I’d plan on indoor or water activities (e.g. tubing on the Chattahoochee river). I’d skip tourist traps like The Varsity and go to a nice restaurant in Buckhead like Hal’s.

There’s a front headed this way on Friday/Saturday and that’ll trigger thunderstorms in this tropical soup. If you happen to be under one of them, you’ll get a ton of rain and lightning.

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If the Moms want a neighborhood to wander go to Decatur which is near Emory University for restaurants, local shops, a great bookstore, etc. Many places to duck into if it rains.

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IMO Hal’s is overrated and outrageously expensive for a steak. Its good, but not worth the $$$$$.

Flying biscuit is good, but so is the Thumbs up Diner. Both have several locations. Note- Some of the Thumbs Up locations don’t take credit cards .

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There is every kind of food and every price range. All ethnicities, farm to table, fancy or hole in the wall. You tell us what you want and we can give you some options. Everyone has there own favorite BBQ place. You should plan on eating some BBQ while you are here. Fox Brothers or Jim and Nicks are my favorites.

Heat, humidity and thunderstorms. You will experience the South at its summer peak. Hopefully you will also experience some friendliness, some genuine southern hospitality, and some glorious shade with a side of cool breeze.

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Thank you all so much for these great suggestions. We are from SoCal, so bracing ourselves for the heat and humidity. I am excited to check out some of these places, depending on the weather and the baseball schedule. Happy 4th of July everyone! We head to Georgia tomorrow.

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@jym626 – aren’t all restaurants “overrated”? As @powercropper noted, you can find just about any type of restaurant in north ATL. For special occasions, we like the restaurants in the local Castellucci Group: https://chgrestaurants.com/

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@jym626 I love Thumbs Up. It’s pretty much a dive with really good breakfast food. I always get the fish and grits. I don’t think any of the locations take cash but they do have an ATM in the back.

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I also like Mr. C’s restaurants (Castelluci). His son went to Cornell Hotel management, IIRC. But I could not disagree more about whether all restaurants are overrated. There are many fabulous restaurants, local favorites, hidden gems, and expensive ones worth every penny. IMO Hal’s is not one of them. It had been on my bucket list. I was quite disappointed. It was not worth the $$$$ and they were very full of themselves, which was undeserved. JMO.

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Was going to mention Fox Brothers BBQ. If you go the the Krispy Kreme on ponce, you can eat at the one down there on Dekalb ave. If you go to the Battery at the baseball stadium, you can eat there. But there I prefer the pizza place there (Antico). The original antico is by ga tech. Both are great.

31

Well, I live here and hate it, but I do love kids’ playing baseball, and we just did the 14U version of what you’re probably doing this week, so I’ll chime in with a couple of notes.
If the Braves are playing, the Perimeter area is very close to their new stadium. The Battery is the shopping/dining complex connected to the stadium. It’s what you would expect, all shiny and new and soulless. If you can’t make a Braves game, there is also an AAA team, the Gwinnett Stripers, that’s probably 30-40 minutes from you, and a AA team (I think they’re AA), the Rome Braves, that’s probably an hour’ish. Both are a lot of fun. Tickets for Atlanta United, the soccer team, are difficult to get, I hear, so that may be off the table on such short notice.

Someone mentioned the Cyclorama, which is cool, but I don’t think it has been reopened yet. The Atlanta History Center, where it is being moved, is nice, and that is also where the Swan Coach House is, which is good for a moms’ lunch. (The SCH is on the grounds of the AHC, but AHC admission is not required to eat there.)
I assume you’re playing a PG tournament, so there is a cable wake boarding park right across from the fields at Lakepoint. It is supposed to be oodles of fun.
If you need baseball gear (and who doesn’t?), you’re pretty close to a “baseball superstore,” Better Baseball. There also are tons of vendors at Lakepoint as well, so bring your $$.
I wouldn’t tube in the Chattahoochee this time of year–brutally hot, and this is the time of year for bacteria to be really nasty.

Now, for some baseball survival tips: I assume you are flying, so if your schedule has you playing at local high schools, you’re going to want to pick up a shade tent. They’re about $35 at Dick’s now, and there’s a Dick’s everywhere you turn. I would pick up a couple and prepare to set them up over bleachers. If you have games at ECB or Lakepoint, they have covered seating. It’s the other fields that usually do not. Also, some of these high schools PG gets to host games do not have concession stands, so you also want a personal cooler for ice and drinks.
And I apologize for the traffic. It’s awful. But welcome to Atlanta, and good luck with the baseball!

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Traffic isn’t as bad in the summer. And we were just in Nor Cal (Silicon Valley/San Francisco). Traffic was worse there.

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We were just there visiting our daughter. We stayed in Buckhead. We toured the coke museum and got a kick out of the tasting room, we ate an excellent dinner at le bilboquet - a charming french restaurant. That area in there has fabulous shopping - I even got some jimmy choo’s on sale. Cute brick streets, fancy restaurants. We got the best massages of our lives at the Mandarin Oriental. They also have a few good malls there. I live in the middle of nowhere so having access to nice stores is a treat for me.

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I thought of this thread last night as I sat in the Atl airport waiting to pick up my daughter, whose flight was over two hours late. We could pick out the high school baseball players who were coming and going, and it wasn’t just because they had bats sticking out of their luggage. Good luck to the OP’s son and his team!

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@planit: Why do you hate living in Atlanta ? Is it the weather & traffic ? Feel free to PM if you do not want to post on this thread. Thanks !

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OP - I am at the Battery. Any chance you are here? @scorekeeper1 . It is a hoppin’ place!

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Thank you all for this great list. So far we have been too busy with baseball, double header yesterday with a long lightning delay. Exciting for our boys to see lightning. We don’t get a lot of that at the SoCal beaches. We are looking forward to checking out a lot of your suggestions.

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Fat Matts ribs place - OMG YUM.

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Fat Matt’s Rib Shack.
It had a fire last year but its recovered, IIRC.