A Michelin honor with a hefty helping of ATL

The Michelin Guide has always been a passport to great world travel. It’s a compass pointing toward the best sites, the best way to get around, and of course, the best food at fair prices.



From Paris, to Istanbul, to Singapore, to Atlanta.



Clutch a Michelin Guide on your trip, and your journey will be markedly easier.



The annual Michelin/Bib Gourmand Award is highly coveted by world restauranteurs, it signifies good quality, good value cooking with community resonance.

It tells visitors, “This is the place!”



There are a few Atlanta establishments on the 2024 list, most notably, one of the city’s oldest restaurants (1947), the storefront, diminutive Busy Bee off MLK Jr. Drive, next to the HBCU’s and in the shadow of Mercedes Benz Stadium.



When you operate a restaurant once frequented by Dr. King who organized in the small dining room, perhaps, a French culinary award is small potatoes.



“Does it matter to us? the Michelin honor? Yes and no,” said Busy Bee Chef Robbie Burton, “it gives us recognition we are on the right track, and that we are being acknowledged for the love and care we put in the business.”

Mr. Burton is a Savannah native who joined the restaurant this past summer, “Where we spend our time cooking, we don’t care 2-cents about it (Michelin award), we do what we do everyday because we love it, and our community.”



Awards for the Busy Bee as familiar as oxtails, chicken and waffles, shrimp, collard greens and sweet potatoes. 

In 2022, the restaurant received a James Beard Foundation Award, “…for timeless appeal with quality food, that reflects the character of the community.”



“Here is an example of how we do business,” Chef Burton told me, “Our owner, Tracy Gates, along with Miss Ann didn’t like the taste of our sweet potatoes, we started over, everything has to be right.”



The restaurant began 77 years ago in the west end of Atlanta, then Hunter Street by Lucy Jackson. In 1968, she sold the business, in 1981, Milton Gates assumed ownership, with his daughter Tracy taking over in 2022.



Ms. Gates told the AJC years ago, “Soul food and southern cooking needs attention, it’s not a burger you can throw out on a grill, there is a lot about this style of cooking to learn. I’ve embraced the challenges of this cuisine.”



Among the challenges for the Busy Bee, Covid. The dining room remains closed, the food is takeout only with benches and a picnic table outside.



The restaurant has an active catering business, a former employer of mine would order a spread for the staff prior to a big event.



The food would be ravenously devoured with seconds and thirds gobbled by television station employees.



So good, no one wanted to go back to work.



As I was waiting on my order, I was scouring the walls looking at the framed famous patrons, thinking about the passage of time.



I’ve been working in Atlanta media 40 years, and had the honor to have met and known many of these extraordinary men now passed on—-Rev. Hosea Williams, Mayor Jackson, Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, Congressman John Lewis.

Atlanta lives changing so much. 



The restaurant walls displaying a modern history of black Atlanta that can be viewed through the photos of the celebrated Busy Bee patrons.

Gladys Knight, Ambassador Young, Dr. Lowery, Dominique Wilkins.



The intoxicating aroma of fried chicken, interrupting my reflection, its powerful scent wafting, overpowering the senses at lunchtime.



Our complicated Atlanta history always mellowed, soothed by chicken, sweet tea and peach cobbler.



“Everyday we come in here, there is a responsibility toward our history, we put our heart and soul into this place,” Chef Burton told me, “and yeah, the award is great,” he said with a laugh.



As for the menu, never ever change anything, the Busy Bee is a timeless Atlanta classic.