Abbadabba's Featured in Dansko's Blog: "The Foodie's Guide to Atlanta"

This entry was posted on January 31, 2015 by Kristen.

Atlanta shoe-store chain, Abbadabba’s, was started by Janice Abernethy (it’s her high school nickname) while husband-to-be Bill Carmichael was finishing up school at Emory University. The business started off as a tiny little crafts shop near Emory’s law school in the 1970s, later expanding into a booth at the Atlanta Flea Market, which was unfortunately displaced by MARTA’s rail station on Piedmont Road. After trying other flea markets, in 1981 Janice opened her first “real” store in Little 5 Points, Atlanta’s “alternative” neighborhood (one part Berkeley, two parts Greenwich Village, a splash of Coconut Grove and toss with Tara.)

The original Little 5 Points store was a flea market in itself: toys, cards, gifts, jewelry, and some “funny looking shoes” in the back. In 1986, Bill left a career at Georgia-Pacific to join Janice full time, and the decision was made to focus on footwear. Within a year, shoes accounted for most of our sales. As Little 5 and its surrounding neighborhoods were rebirthed by urban pioneers in the early 1980s, the business, and its reputation for shoes that made sense, grew. In 1988, so did Janice, who gave birth to their daughter, Abba Charice Carmichael, on September 8, 1988.

In the ensuing decades the business grew, and Abbadabba’s opened several more stores throughout metro Atlanta. They may have started off as a quirky, catch-all “gift shop-come-shoe store,” but their popularity and evolution into Atlanta’s premier source for innovative and comfort footwear took hold.  Today there are four Atlanta locations, as well as an online store coolshoes.com.

Abbadabba’s customer base is diverse as Atlanta, itself.  Customers range from the young and hip, urban to suburban, aging hippies who have shopped the store for 4 decades, to Baby Boomers and soccer moms from the ‘burbs. It’s an eclectic family from its staff, its customers and the surrounding communities of each store.  To quote one of Abbadabba’s store managers, Ian Franco, (speaking to a customer) “We’re one big family here.  And now you’re a part of it, too!”

As the customer base is diverse and eclectic, so is the shoe selection. As the focus of the store shifted to footwear, Abbadabba’s found its niche as an innovative and comfort shoe store.  They were the first to introduce “European-style comfort shoes” to Atlanta and the surrounding Southeast region.  They were one of the first retailers to stock Dansko footwear, and it has remained one of its top five brands for the past few decades.

One of the biggest consumers of their Dansko clogs are the employees of the ever-growing -- and quite renowned -- Atlanta restaurant scene.  Atlanta has been named one of the top “food town destinations” in the US by Huffington Post and has been featured in many national publications from the New York Times to Bon Appetit. Abbadabba’s has been a proud supporter of its local food service industry “from the ground up” - or “feet up”, rather! - by carrying shoes that are perfect for those long hours in the kitchen.

{Photo Credit, bottom left: Lauren Holley via Flickr, license]
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What better way to share the enthusiasm and support for Atlanta’s vibrant food scene than giving you 5 ways to “eat your way through Atlanta”!
1. Check out Eater Atlanta’s “Eater 38” for a list of the top 38 restaurants in Atlanta, updated regularly.  Some favorites include: Bocca Lupo, Cakes & Ale, Holeman & Finch, Muss & Turners, and St. Cecilia
2. Visit Southern Living’s #1 Best New Restaurant of 2014: Kimball House
3. Visit Bon Appetit’s Top 10 Restaurant of 2013: The Optimist
4. Take a stroll through Krog Street Market, a foodie’s paradise of food stalls and sit-down restaurants
5. Shop one of the many farmers markets throughout the year for locally-sourced produce and homemade eats
We hope you can check out all that Atlanta has to offer - both in shoe selection and good eats! And if you can’t make it to Atlanta, you can always shop Abbadabba’s Dansko selection, as well as all their offerings, online at coolshoes.com.

[Photo Credit: Atl10Trader via Flickr, license]

Thank you for spotlighting us, Dansko!

This entry was posted in About Abbadabba's, Atlanta, Dansko, Travel and tagged Bill Carmichael, Janice Abernethy, Little 5 Points on January 31, 2015 by Kristen.