About

Named for one of the first churches to serve the Summerhill community immediately following the Civil War, Wood's Chapel BBQ uses traditional wood-fired pits to prepare an extensive barbecue menu including whole hog, prime brisket, salmon, and turkey.

Barbecue is primal.  It is meat; it is fire; it is smoke. 

Barbecue is community.  It is food of gatherings and celebrations.  You don’t cook it for four, you cook it for 100.  It is church suppers and political rallies.  It is not just food, it is an event.  

Barbecue is America.  It has touched and been touched by indigenous peoples, Spanish explorers, European settlers, enslaved Africans and free people of color, and all of their descendants.  It moved from the Caribbean to the Colonial south, then west and north.  Along the way, it adapted to what the land provided and who settled the land.  It traces our messy history, from the valleys to the mountaintops.  It is food of the people, whether their means are modest or great.  It has caused and continues to cause debate between regions, between states, within states, within towns, within families.  It divides and it unites.   

Summerhill was established in 1865, just after the Civil War, and was settled largely by the formerly enslaved and Jewish immigrants.  Within a year, a church sprung up to serve the new community:  Wood’s Chapel.  The adjacent Washington-Rawson area became one of the finest early residential neighborhoods in Atlanta and was early home to enduring Atlanta institutions including The Temple (the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation) and the original Piedmont Hospital (then the Piedmont Sanitarium).  But advent of the streetcar and the automobile began to lure the more affluent residents away from the city center to newer “suburbs” such as Inman Park, Ansley Park, and Druid Hills. Nevertheless, the area remained a vibrant working class neighborhood with busy commercial corridors.  Dominance of the automobile, however, eventually led to construction of the interstate highway system and to mixed use areas becoming disfavored among city planners.  Race and economics made the area a target for aggressive “urban renewal.”  Residents were forced out and the land cleared for interstates, a stadium, and parking lots.  The vibrant fabric of these neighborhoods was torn.  

Following the Braves’ departure from Turner Field after the 2016 season, a development team consisting of Carter, Oakwood Development and Healey Weatherholtz Properties is redeveloping the 72-acre site with Georgia State University as the anchor.  Part of the project will turn 35 acres into a mixed-use area including offices, multifamily apartments, student apartments, and neighborhood restaurant and retail. 

This is a proud area with a rich history that has taken a lot of hits, but refuses to stay down.  The redevelopment will help reconnect these neighborhoods and add to the building energy in the area.   Wood’s Chapel BBQ is excited to bring new commercial life back to this part of Georgia Avenue and looks forward to being a contributing part of this historic community. 

Todd Ginsberg, Shelley Sweet and Jennifer and Ben Johnson opened Wood’s Chapel BBQ in June 2019. The four also are partners in The General Muir, TGM Bread, Fred’s Meat & Bread, and Yalla — collectively “Rye Restaurants.” (Sweet and the Johnsons also are partners in West Egg Café). 

For a beautiful, interactive, informative, sensitive, and thought provoking digital history of Summerhill and Georgia Avenue please visit Streetscape Palimpsest: A History of Georgia Avenue (narrative and design by Marni Davis, Associate Professor, Georgia State University; interviews and photographs by Richard Laupus, documentarian and longtime Peoplestown resident).