Vela Park Food Works Gave East Lake a Weeknight Calendar, Not Just Six Kitchens

Vela Park Food Works is open near East Lake Golf Club: six kitchens, a full bar, a patio and a large green space. The food hall was created by Robert Montwaid, the operator behind Chattahoochee Food Works and CTR Food Works Downtown. It sits inside Perennial Properties' new community, which carries 328 apartments and townhomes.

The programming is already running, almost every weeknight:

• Mondays: trivia

• Tuesdays: taco specials

• Wednesdays: Sounds on the Green

• Thursdays: Yappy Hour

• Fridays: live music

The manager said lunch service has started and brunch is being planned.

I have been twice in two days, and what stood out was not the food count. It was that people were outside with their families and their dogs on an ordinary weekday evening on a site that sat empty for a long time. East Lake has had the golf club and the neighborhood for years without a shared room in the middle of it. This is that room, and it comes with lunch already going and brunch on the way.