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feast your eyes on the convenient, modern location. Revel in the exceptional customer service and superior food experience. Cheer on the shows in our Cobb Energy Centre. Engage your audience in ways they’ll always remember. The word is out: one meeting place has it all.

Community rallies around Marietta Book Nook to keep it open

The Marietta Book Nook on Roswell Road is open for business.

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain quipped, when news of his death reached him on a trip abroad.

A similar experience occurred to Alexa Dunford, manager of the Marietta Book Nook, when she read that her store was closed.

There are three Book Nook locations: Decatur, Marietta, and Lilburn. The first store opened in 1973.

The owners of Book Nook had written a letter in November saying the Marietta Book Nook, open since 1996, would be closing in the near future due to heavy financial losses during the pandemic.

However, this did not happen. As word of a possible closure hit the store’s loyal customers, the community acted.

“Through community donations and sheer force of will, we’re still here,” Dunford said.

“The community has rallied around us,” Dunford said. “It has been a life-affirming and faith-restoring experience. I can say with confidence we will be here through the summer and hopefully much longer.”

A self-described lifelong bibliophile, Dunford is from Marietta and has “distinct childhood memories” of visiting the shop.

“This is a community bookstore,” Dunford said. “Our inventory is a direct reflection of the members of the Marietta community.”

The store has had to reduce its hours, now open Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. However, the store will open for private browsing by appointment. The Marietta location no longer buys items for cash — only trades are accepted.

There is currently a 50% off sale on all items except vinyl, comics and graphic novels.

The best way to find out what is happening at the store is to get on the newsletter mailing list by emailing mariettabooknook@ gmail.com.

There will be programs to build relationships with local writers and artists in the community, according to Dunford.

“My goal is to feature local artists and create regular book clubs and swap meets,” Dunford said. “We are looking for folk music performers, and really trying to bring this place to life. We are in the process of building our social media.”

Alfred “Mr. Barney” Barnhart, 77, has been a bookseller at the Marietta Book Nook for 15 years.

“I just love coming here,” Barnhart said. “It’s lots of fun working here. Alexa has done a fantastic job resurrecting the Book Nook. Now we just want to make sure it stays open for the community.”

Smyrna down to four finalists for memorial to Fanny Williams

A Smyrna city committee is considering four proposals from artists for a monument to Fanny Williams, namesake of Aunt Fanny’s Cabin.

Williams, a cook and maid for Smyrna’s Campbell family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has been credited as an early civil rights icon in Cobb County who took on the Ku Klux Klan and helped found the Cobb Cooperative in Marietta, the state’s first allBlack hospital.

She also helped establish the comfort food outpost that came to be known for its mouthwatering home cooking and glorification of the Old South.

The committee, chaired by Smyrna Mayor Pro Tem Tim Gould, budgeted $125,000 for the memorial, which Gould said will be adjacent to the Smyrna History Museum on Atlanta Road.

On March 16, the committee presented four artists it has chosen as finalists for the project to the City Council.

They include Vinnie Bagwell, a Yonkers, New York-based sculptor whose work includes a Sojourner Truth statue in Highland, New York; the team of David Wilson, Stephen Hayes and Michael

Gonzalez, who have worked on memorials in North Carolina and Texas; Frederick Hightower, a West Virginia-based sculptor, and Martin Dawe, whose Atlanta-based Cherrylion Studios is responsible for the bronze Martin Luther King Jr. statue at the Georgia State Capitol.

Penny Moceri, Smyrna’s deputy city administrator, told the council the four finalists will present their concepts to the committee on April 26, which will then be displayed the following week in City Hall.

At the council’s May 11 work session, the committee will present its recommended artist and concept, and the council will then vote on that recommendation at its May 15 meeting.

Gould’s hope is that the tribute could be completed by the end of this year.

When the dilapidated cabin bearing Williams’ nickname was torn down by the city in August, there was outcry from some community members, led by former Smyrna Councilwoman Maryline Blackburn, that the demolition was a destruction of history.

Others, like Lisa Castleberry, a member of the committee organizing the tribute to Williams, were glad to see the cabin go.

“Friday was a good day for me. I was happy. I wanted that building demolished,” Castleberry said just days after the cabin was torn down.

Castleberry at the time also expressed her excitement for the committee’s work, which had already been underway for months: it was established by Mayor Derek Norton on Valentine’s Day 2022, and its first meeting was a week later.

Throughout the process of determining how best to honor Williams, the committee has been assisted by an expert panel in reviewing proposals from artists “as local as Smyrna and as far away as Spain,” Moceri said.

Henri’s Bakery & Deli in Marietta Square Market closes

Henri’s Bakery & Deli, which opened in the Marietta Square Market in late 2020, has closed. The restaurant, which served sandwiches and salads as well as an array of baked goods, announced it was closing its Marietta location for good with a note attached to the entrance of the store March 13.

“We were unable to come to terms on a new lease renewal and for that reason have chosen to close our operations at the Marietta Square Market,” the note said.

Henri Fiscus opened the first Henri’s at the corner of 10th and Peachtree streets in Atlanta in 1929, according to the company’s website, and moved its location several times.

Marietta Square Market did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Henri’s thanked its customers in the announcement and said it is “actively looking for other locations in the area.”

Marietta attorney Tyler Browning was one of those customers.

Browning said he stopped by the deli to grab a bite on March 13 and tugged on the door before realizing it had closed. He would often pick something up at Henri’s other metro Atlanta locations when he went into Atlanta for court or to stop by a law firm, and he “was ecstatic when they built one here.”

“It’s just a shame that we don’t have any quick deli places anymore for the courthouse crowd who may have only an hour break from court and need to grab something to eat and you can go in there and five minutes, walk out with a sandwich and be ready to go,” Browning said.

He hopes they are able to find a new location somewhere near Marietta Square soon.

Henri Fiscus opened the first Henri’s at the corner of 10th and Peachtree streets in Atlanta in 1929, according to the company’s website, and moved its location several times.

Born to French and German parents, Fiscus came to the U.S. after World War I and worked in restaurants in New York and Rhode Island before moving to Atlanta and serving as the pastry chef at the Biltmore Hotel.

In 2016, the Henri’s in Buckhead moved to its current location on East Andrews Drive.

It was more than 50 years after the first Henri’s location opened that a second one came to the Atlanta area, this time in Sandy Springs in 1984.

Another store opened off Marietta Boulevard in Atlanta’s Upper Westside neighborhood in 2017, before the Marietta location came in October 2020.

Most recently, Henri’s opened a store on Ashford Dunwoody Road in Brookhaven in December 2022.