Nearly seven years after its announcement, Redacted Basement Drink Parlor has opened in Summerhill. Designed as a neighborhood bar–Summerhill’s first true bar–Redacted offers cocktails, wine, and local beer with charcuterie plates five nights a week.
Expect cheekily named spins on classic drinks (Not Your Sister’s Amaretto Sour, Downstairs Old Fashioned) as well as in-house trademarks, like the F’N Froot Loop Milk Punch, a clarified milk punch featuring cachaca, Earl Grey syrup, and a fancy toothpick lined with colorful pieces of cereal. The mezcal-based Judy Tuesdays comes mixed with lime, Luxardo cherries, agave, pineapple, and blood orange.
Located below street level on Georgia Avenue, the atmosphere at the underground cocktail bar is comfortable without inviting rowdiness, a starkly different vibe from other venues where owners Judy Ho and Jake Karmin (Hand-in-Hand Pub, Euclid Avenue Yacht Club) learned the ways of bar management.
Karmin and Ho first announced their plans for Redacted back in 2018, one year after the Atlanta Braves departed Turner Field in Summerhill for Truist Park in Cobb County, and two years before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“After the Braves left, this was a free-for-all with the land,” Karmin said of choosing Summerhill to open the bar. But unforeseen hurdles meant it would take a while to get Redacted open in Summerhill.
In 2019, Karmin shared that he and Ho switched gears after receiving a cease and desist notice from a developing business, also named Conspiracy. With the initial opening timeline blown, and with everything the world has endured since 2020, Karmin and Ho decided to ditch the conspiracy theory theme for the bar, changing the name to Redacted.
“2018 and 2019 [were] a different atmosphere socially and politically,” Karmin said. “How about our kitschy little theme bar becomes just a basement cocktail bar in a neighborhood that really doesn’t have many bars in it?”
Ho and Karmin’s biggest obstacle to opening, waterproofing the basement of the old building, consumed much of the last two years. Now, on a stormy night, Redacted is so secure that a squall outside sounds more like running water from a nonexistent restroom upstairs.
With Redacted’s major challenges out of the way, the rest came easily, including finishing the design of the bar, thanks to Laurie Daniel of Revived Architecture.
In mid-March, Karmin and Ho teased Redcated’s impending opening on Instagram, leading some commenters to joke about being gaslit or to ask if “coming soon” meant opening in 2026. Most people were simply excited to see progress made on the upcoming Summerhill bar.
“Honestly, almost any bar could have opened up and I would have been excited,” said Jillian Le, who moved to Summerhill in 2022. “Everything is sleepy and not open late, so it’s a very exciting addition to the neighborhood that I thought was never going to happen.”
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After a year peppered with restaurant closures, new restaurants falling through before build-outs, and an increase in commercial rents and paid parking throughout Atlanta, Summerhill business owners are perhaps the most excited to see Redacted finally open on Georgia Avenue.
At the end of December, Junior’s Pizza closed its Summerhill location after five years. Alabama-based Pihakis Restaurant Group closed Hot Dog Pete’s beside its other Summerhill restaurant, Hero Doughnuts, on the western end of Georgia Avenue, replacing it earlier this spring with Greek restaurant Psito. Then, in late March, a parking lot nearby rescinded validation, a concern for local business owners.
“Redacted opening is a major breath of fresh air and a huge success story for the block,” Little Bear chef and owner Jarrett Stieber said of his restaurant’s new next-door neighbor. “Jake and Judy have been through so much over the last few years trying to get their bar open, and they’ve managed to persevere through tremendous obstacles, which is commendable and inspiring.”
As Little Bear is one of the few businesses open after 9 p.m. on the block, Steiber is thrilled to have another set of owners bringing nightlife foot traffic to Georgia Avenue. “Hopefully, we can work together to help build up the evening scene in Summerhill and get more people walking around the block and enjoying drinks and snacks later each day,” he said.
Stieber isn’t the only business owner hoping Redacted’s presence will lead to an increase in nighttime patrons on Georgia Avenue.
“We don’t have a full bar-esque place here, so I think it’ll help bring people out later,” said Chef William Silbernagel of counter-service restaurant How Crispy Express. “I think the neighborhood needs businesses that’ll be open a little later.”
Ho and Karmin said they’re open to Redacted customers bringing in outside food, especially from Summerhill restaurants, as long as people clean up after themselves. But providing a haven at Redacted for area restaurant workers to grab a post-shift drink remains key to the bar’s business later in the evening.
Redacted joins nationally acclaimed restaurants Little Bear, Talat Market, and Southern National in Summerhill, along with neighborhood staples like How Crispy Express, JD’s Summerhill Variety & Deli, Little Tart Bakeshop, Wood’s Chapel BBQ, Halfway Crooks Beer, and Big Softie ice cream shop.
Redacted Basement Drink Parlor, 63b Georgia Ave., Summerhill. Open Tuesday – Saturday, 5 p.m. to 12 a.m.