Hillary Brown, Flagpole Magazine Journalist Profile

Articles

Metro Diner’s Middleground, and More Food News

1 week ago | flagpole.com | Hillary Brown

METRO DINER (3075 Atlanta Highway, 706-708-9243, metrodiner.com): It’s quite possible that Metro Diner is the most aggressively normal restaurant I’ve ever eaten in. Opened last year in front of Target, in a space that was previously Hardee’s, it is a franchise out of Jacksonville, FL.
New Locations for Your Bubble Tea Fix

3 weeks ago | flagpole.com | Hillary Brown

I’m not much for a fancy beverage that’s not a cocktail (recognizing the legit need for mocktails) and never have been. It’s not that I’ve never been to a Starbucks, but for the most part I make my own coffee, and if I do happen to go to a coffee shop to get my caffeine fix, my order is rarely more complicated than “black, no sugar,” maybe iced if it’s hot out. While I take my children to get bubble tea, I don’t really get or participate in that phenomenon either.
Baddies Burgers Will Replace Winghouse Grill This Summer

3 weeks ago | flagpole.com | Hillary Brown

About five years ago, Winghouse Grill opened a location in Normaltown, in the space formerly known as Ike & Jane (and as Black Forest Bakery before that). Yesterday its owners confirmed via social media that that location will close May 1, running limited hours (11 a.m.–3 p.m.) and serving out of its food truck until then. The locations in Hull and Watkinsville will remain open.
Foxtail Coffee Opened, Three Buddies Has Come to Baxter Street, and More Food News

1 month ago | flagpole.com | Hillary Brown

Foxtail Coffee Co., a Florida-based chain, has opened on West Hancock Avenue in the bottom of the Hancock House apartment building. In addition to serving a traditional coffee shop fare, Foxtail’s menu includes beer, wine and 10 flavors of gelato. After a long time being “temporarily closed,” Ponko Chicken on Baxter Street closed for real (is it possible that the only chicken fingers that can succeed within a stone’s throw of UGA’s high-rise dorms are those made at Raising Cane’s?).
316 Caribbean Cuisine Brightens Mall, Plus Beechwood’s Family-Friendly Mexican Restaurant

1 month ago | flagpole.com | Hillary Brown

316 CARIBBEAN CUISINE (3700 Atlanta Highway, 404-904-3574, @316caribbeancuisine): In a time when what’s left of the Georgia Square Mall calls to mind Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, it’s nice to find a bright spot: an entrepreneurial setup serving tasty Jamaican food out of the nearly abandoned food court. Sure, the lights seem to be off in the cavernous space, and the only other eatery around is Jack’s Cheesecake. Even the pretzel stand is closed.
Pretty Boy's Youthful Atmosphere and Explosion of Flavors

2 months ago | flagpole.com | Hillary Brown

Pretty Boy (247 Prince Ave., 706-850-0938, prettyboyathens.com): It was a long wait for Kenny Nguyen’s Vietnamese-with-a-twist restaurant to open. Then it was a long wait for me to get to it—sorry! Life gets in the way sometimes. It’s inevitable, given the clientele (young Millennials, old Gen Zs) and the East Asian focus of the food, to compare it to Puma Yu’s, but they have different vibes. Pretty Boy is a little younger in its feel and its audience.
Georgia Museum of Art lifts up Ukrainian art in ‘gesture of solidarity’

Jan 31, 2025 | news.uga.edu | Hillary Brown

With war raging in Ukraine since 2022, numerous works of art, monuments and historic sites are facing destruction. The Georgia Museum of Art is striving to help preserve Ukrainian art and to show its beauty and variety with the exhibition “The Awe of Ordinary Labors: 20th-Century Paintings from Ukraine,” on view through June 1. Forty-four Ukrainian paintings from between 1930 and 1980, all from the museum’s collection, capture varieties of socialist realism.
2024 Athens Restaurant News Roundup

Jan 22, 2025 | flagpole.com | Hillary Brown

What even was this past year? An interregnum of sorts, especially in its waning days. A place for high hopes, many of which didn’t pan out. A space for mourning beloved restaurants home.made and Pulaski Heights BBQ, both of which closed after many valiant efforts. A time when a thousand bubble tea and fast casual breakfast chains flowered. Still, there were bright spots.
Georgia Museum of Art presents ‘Beyond the Medici: The Haukohl Family Collection’

Jan 19, 2025 | news.uga.edu | Hillary Brown

The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia will present the exhibition “Beyond the Medici: The Haukohl Family Collection” from Feb. 1 to May 18. The exhibition comes from the largest and most important collection of Florentine baroque art outside of Italy, assembled over more than 40 years by Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl, an art collector and cofounder of the Medici Archive Project.
Local Thanksgiving Roundup for Picking Up or Dining Out

Nov 12, 2024 | flagpole.com | Hillary Brown

It’s your annual Turkey Day round-up of local businesses offering sides, turkeys, full meals and desserts for pickup, or that are open on Thanksgiving Day to serve you a feast. We’ll update the version of this article that appears online at flagpole.com if your favorite isn’t listed here.