Pullman Yards Attracts 50K Visitors to AlcoHall

An innovative and expansive bar room and entertainment space at Pullman Yards in East Atlanta’s Kirkwood neighborhood has become a major attraction since it opened just over six weeks ago. The new facility, AlcoHall, which takes up more than 17,000 square feet, is patterned after the food hall concept, a favorite of developers like Jamestown Properties at its Ponce City Market, and The Works, a Selig project on the West Side of Atlanta.

As its name would suggest, AlcoHall sells an assortment of adult beverages from a series of independently owned leased spaces. The facility where it’s located was once an upholstery and repair shop for the Pullman Rail Car company, whose name still graces the site.

Since opening June 10, Adam Rosenfelt, the owner of Pullman Yards, estimates that 50,000 visitors have sampled the seven brands that have signed on as tenants.

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“This project has been fully embraced by the city, the state and the entire Southeast, really.”

AlcoHall is a 17,000 square-foot entertainment and bar complex that features seven different vendors.

To go with the drinks, the thousands of square feet of floor space in the newly remodeled building make it possible for the room to be turned into an entertainment space.

Coming up on Aug. 3-4, there will be a two-hour performance of what’s called the Pullman Pops Orchestra led by three-time Tony Award nominee, and Michael Feinstein’s conductor, Larry Blank. The 45-member ensemble is presenting a Broadway Spectacular with vocals from recent favored show tunes that you can accompany with a drink from the various bars and food from Pullman Yard restaurants.

“This is one of the biggest pop symphony orchestras in the country, Rosenfelt says. “We fly in Broadway singers. This is the third year for these Broadway programs. They are very successful, very popular, really great shows.”

The growing popularity of the new AlcoHall is welcome news to the companies that have signed onto get their products in front of the attractive demographic that Pullman Yards is reaching.

The international Japanese whiskey producer, House of Santory, is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year with a new presence at AlcoHall. Their Pullman Yards opening is part of a $77 million investment in newly revamping distilleries and a newly created marketing campaign that is scheduled to begin this fall. Other international brands participating in the AlcoHall concept is a South African vineyard, Babylonstoren Winery, and Don Papa Rum, from the Philippines. There are also a couple of bourbon brands, Short Barrel Bourbon, a local operation from Norcross and Three Clouds, which is owned by singer and songwriter Pat Benatar and her husband.

Rounding out the offerings are drinks from Desert Door, a distilled product made from sotol. That’s a desert plant that is often compared to the agave cactus used in the manufacture of tequila. For beer lovers, there’s Wicked Weed Brewing, from Asheville, N.C.

A popular attraction at AlcoHall is the mechanical bull.

The 27-acre site on which AlcoHall is located was largely an abandoned industrial area until Rosenfelt and his Pullman Yards and Atomic Entertainment companies redeveloped the property and opened for business in May 2021.

The facility has hosted the North American premiere of the multimedia presentation, The Van Gogh Experience. To celebrate its second-year anniversary, the site welcomed “Jurassic World: The Exhibition” in May of this year. The exhibition, which has numerous locations around the world, is set in Isla Nublar — the home of the fictional island’s most interesting creatures, including a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex and Little Bump from Camp Cretaneous.

In just over two years since its opening, Pullman Yard has attracted a total of 2 million visitors. About 40 percent of them, Rosenfelt says, comes from the Atlanta area; 30 percent are from the metropolitan area, and another 30 percent are regional travelers who have made it there from as far away as northern Florida, eastern Texas, and Louisiana.

The former railroad yard has also been a favorite location for visiting film and TV crews. It’s been the location for filming of “The Hunger Games,” “Baby Driver,” and “Fast and Furious 5” and an immersive experience of Netflix’s “Stranger Things.”

A network of some of the leading research universities, including Emory University in Atlanta, has created a Science Gallery Atlanta, which has a 9,000 square-foot exhibit about justice. It examines the question of how we live with one another and how those relationships influence the world. It’s part of a multi-disciplinary approach to a range of issues that are expected to be examined in the field of public health, biology, and the social sciences.

“What we say is you can come for an AlcoHall event, and you might end up staying for something entirely different,” Rosenfelt says. “We’ve had two U.S. presidents here since we’ve been open. So far, it’s s been a really good run.”