Expansion of the Busy Bee Cafe offers lesson for the new year

Credit: NATRICE MILLER

Credit: NATRICE MILLER

I returned to Busy Bee many times after that with guests from out of town, guests from outside I-285 and sometimes just on my own. My affinity for the eatery was fueled by memories of the soul food restaurants of my youth, where the food was intimately connected to the evolution of the community.

So, when Busy Bee announced plans for an expansion into new neighborhoods after almost 80 years of operation, it was a pivot I didn’t see coming.

In 2026, the restaurant will open at Atlantic Station and the following year, a quick-service restaurant and bar will join the lineup at the Mitchell, a luxury residential and retail tower that opened in September at Centennial Yards.

This news felt like meaningful inspiration for the new year: another Atlanta legacy moving forward with purpose, progress and expansion at an advanced age.

January is the month when many of us launch ambitious goals to expand the areas of our lives where we may feel we are falling short: health, relationships, work, leisure. Change feels hard, particularly when you have developed habits that become ingrained over years, decades and centuries. But 2026 is a year that will likely demand expansive thought and behavior from all of us, no matter our age.

We tend to fall back on the saying about old dogs that can’t learn new tricks, but that is a 16th century proverb that has outlived its usefulness in our rapidly aging society.

I went searching for evidence that we can change even as we age, and found it in a January 2024 article from Psychology Today. The author notes that older adults, those 65 and older, don’t learn as quickly as younger adults from feedback — likely because of cognitive changes or a slower speed of processing information — but they bring with them a lifetime of knowledge and experience. And they can call on that knowledge to help them learn new skills and develop new habits.

Older adults are apparently also better at setting goals and are more likely than younger people to focus on intrinsic rather than extrinsic goals. They are more committed to the goals and to reaching them.

I’m at least a decade away from being classified as an older adult, but maybe these are lessons that I can use right now to jump-start my own goals.

Moving isn’t always easy for a writer who needs to be sitting at a computer to do the thing she is supposed to do, but when I saw the doctor’s notes from my latest physical, the words hit hard: “Reports difficulty losing weight but she really hasn’t tried.”

Yikes! Time for me to stop reading books about how to incorporate exercise into a busy life and start relying on my years of accumulated knowledge about movement and time management to help me do it.

It is not lost on me that my latest nudge to get healthier was inspired by the expansion of a soul food restaurant, but sometimes we take inspiration wherever we can find it.

This was on my mind as I thought about the changes Busy Bee is making after so many years in the hospitality industry.

Busy Bee was founded in 1947 by Lucy Jackson, a self-taught cook who aimed to feed anyone in the community. The restaurant was on what was then called Hunter Street, one of the few places in the city where Black-owned businesses could thrive.

In the 1980s, Milton Gates purchased the restaurant, and since 1987, his daughter, Tracy Gates, has been blazing new trails for the iconic eatery by earning a 2022 James Beard Award, a 2023 Michelin Bib Gourmand award and a place in the Atlanta Hospitality Hall of Fame.

Credit: NATRICE MILLER

Credit: NATRICE MILLER

I imagine there are many lessons Gates had to learn in the process of elevating Busy Bee’s profile from a local establishment to one that is widely recognized on a national scale. And some of those lessons are rooted in the institutional knowledge of a business that has lasted 80 years.

In a statement, Gates said the restaurant would hold on to its roots while welcoming new guests at its new locations.

How do you need to expand your life in 2026? Whatever it is that you need to change, take inspiration from the Busy Bee and the many older adults who have committed to doing something new and relied on their inherent knowledge to get them there.

If they can do it, then there is hope for rest of us.

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