Kizzy Patel and Jesse Smith, are among the co-founders of a beloved Decatur, Georgia oyster pub called Kimball House. Operating out of a beautifully restored historical train depot, Kimball House is the recent recipient of a historic grant from American Express and the National Trust. It has also received glowing customer reviews, national recognition, and a place of high regard in the greater Atlanta food scene.
But as Jesse told hosts Claudia Saric and Spencer Michiel on So You Want To Run a Restaurant, “It's definitely been a windy road.”
Jesse and Kizzy joined our podcast to highlight a few of the twists and turns on that road.
That windy road actually began long, long before our guests made the decision to launch their own restaurant. In fact, Kizzy explained, “our building was built in 1891 and it's been in continuous use in some way, shape or form since then.”
Today, the Kimball House evokes all of that history with its rich wood textures, leather tufted booths, and book-lined shelves. But with floor-to-ceiling windows bathing the beautifully restored space in natural light, it also feels distinctly fresh and inviting.
Still, converting a 130-year-old building comes with some quirks. Kizzy called it an honor to be a part of the building’s long and colorful story. He added, “It is charming, but it's challenging as well. There isn't a week, a month, or a quarter where we don't have something that springs up that we have to take care of.”
Fortunately, American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded Kimball House a $50,000 grant as part of its program to help small and independent restaurants restore historical spaces.
“This grant has really allowed us to take on some projects that we ordinarily wouldn't have been able to,” said Kizzy, “including restoration and some design work and updates to the building. It has helped us restore some features that were original to the building 130 years ago.”
[Check out the whole episode above to find out what kinds of ghosts haunt this century-old train depot.]
Today, that restoration effort is winning Kimball House industry awards and rave reviews. But let’s take a look back at how they got here.
“Getting to the opening point was pretty interesting,” Jesse told us. “And then the fact that it ended up being this amazing building, and the fact that we own it — it’s just a crazy and unique circumstance.”
That crazy and unique circumstance began with a shared vision.
Jesse noted that there are three other founding partners involved in Kimball House — Bryan Rackley, Miles Macquarrie, and Matt Christison. They all got their start in the industry by working out on the floor together. Jesse recalled, “We started talking about it when we were in our early 20s, when we were just serving and bartending.”
From there, Jesse explained, “it took us about nine years to get Kimball House going.”
But even at that early stage, they talked above creating something that was more than just a restaurant. Jesse explained, “Before we opened Kimball House, it was about the setting and having a place that was transformative. So all of our different ideas over the years were focused on this one idea that when someone enters the room, they're swept away.”
While Jesse and his friends had been cultivating this vision for years, Kizzy was the first outside person to be captivated by the idea. So when he saw an opportunity, he jumped at it. He confessed to us that he was in Decatur’s Brick Store Pub, eavesdropping on a conversation between a few of the bartenders on a Monday night in 2013. He decided to take a chance.
“I had a career in a completely different field, and I was having this moment where I didn't know if I wanted to keep doing it,” said Kizzy. “I asked them, ‘Hey, are you guys opening up a bar in Decatur?’ They said yes. And I literally put my hand in the air. I said, ‘I want to come work for you guys.’”
“Now, 12 years have gone by, and I was able to come in as a partner and became one of the owners a couple years ago, right around the time that we had the opportunity to buy the building,” said Kizzy. “It's just been a dream come true. It’s been as exhilarating as it's been exhausting.”
While a historical building like Kimball House comes with its own natural warmth and charm, there’s also an incredible amount of work that goes into transforming an old train depot into an oyster house. It helped that the city trusted Jesse and his partners to take on the project while preserving the building’s legacy.
“It was deemed historic. So there was a lot we had to work with the city on, as far as anything cosmetic was concerned,” explained Jesse. “But when the actual sale went down, I think that the city was comfortable with it because they knew we would be good stewards and because of what our idea behind the restaurant was.”
Even with that support, revitalizing an old train depot is a huge job.
“We built the bar. We had to reposition where the bathrooms were. We added all the hardwood flooring and all the tile,” Jesse explained. “There was a ton of work that went into it.”
Remarkably, it was the ownership group’s commitment to historical revitalization that gives Kimball House a timeless feeling. This was a very conscious decision. As Jesse pointed out, “We felt like most cocktail bars at the time were very modern. So we were really thinking back to what was classic, and what was going to be trend-proof.”
Even as the team worked to update the space, every design and aesthetic decision was made with a focus on authenticity. The result is a kind of timelinessness that doesn’t run the risk of becoming passé. Kizzy observed, “The room has always felt a little bit out of time with the old wood and the leather and the dim lighting. With a lot of restaurants these days, if it's contemporary in design, it can feel dated in a short amount of time.”
Kizzy marveled that Kimball House looks as good today as it did when it opened more than a decade ago. This, he explained, “is because those things are already out of time. They're classic, and they just fit the nature of the building so well.”
As Jesse and Kizzy explained, the logistics of running an oyster house can be somewhat challenging. Freshness is everything, and this does require an extremely dynamic supply chain.
As Kizzy explained, “it takes a lot of organization to get things shipped in a day out of the water, with really short tag dates and constantly cycling out the menu. We'll sell them out, 86 them by the end of the night, and then new oysters come on the next day. It's a lot of work.”
However, the effort is well worth it, not just because of the extremely high quality of the oysters themselves, but also because it allows the Kimball House to deliver a unique and memorable dining experience. With a menu of roughly 15 to 18 items, along with a selection of more than 20 kinds of oysters every night, Kizzy told us, “It’s really exciting for the guests and for the staff as well.”
“When you have that many oysters on a tray, and that many options, people will want to try as many different kinds as they can,” Jesse added. “It’s a great introduction to a meal, because it opens your mind to the idea that you're going to be trying new things and paying attention to the food and drink in a different way than just for sustenance.”
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