Since opening Seed Kitchen & Bar at Merchant’s Walk Shopping Center in 2011, Doug Turbush has dramatically influenced the restaurant scene in East Cobb.
He talks about his “modern American cuisine” menu being the result of having “a big sandbox to play in” as a creative chef.
The phrase also could apply to the community where he, his wife and son live, and that has long been a bastion of family-friendly, chain and franchise restaurants.
After serving as executive chef at now-closed Nava and Bluepointe—once part of the Buckhead Life Restaurant Group empire founded by Atlanta dining impresario Pano Karatassos—Turbush wanted to create an eclectic neighborhood dining atmosphere close to home.
He did market research and worked up a business plan, consulted with his former boss, Atlanta restaurateur Kevin Rathbun, got a small-business loan and became a first-time restaurant owner, near the spot of the former Merchant’s Walk library branch.
He recalls eating at Red Sky Tapas & Bar on Johnson Ferry Road and being told by someone there not to open a restaurant in East Cobb for what he had in mind, that it wouldn’t make it. Turbush had done his homework, and thought otherwise.
“The market was there,” Turbush said in an interview with East Cobb News. “We knew we didn’t have the expense account [diners]. We knew we didn’t have the Buckhead singles scene. What we wanted to do was to bring some sort of personality to the neighborhood.”
While Turbush admits he’s “a little jealous” of the vibrant restaurant scenes in Marietta and Roswell that sandwich East Cobb, “they don’t have the market we have.”
Mostly, he said, it was the revamping of Merchant’s Walk, anchored by a new Whole Foods store, that convinced him the time was right, in more ways than he initially imagined.
His background blending Asian, Latin and Southern flavors and locally sourced ingredients turned out a menu that has remained relatively consistent in eight years of business.
In stepping in an area that hasn’t been a haven of adventurous cuisine, Turbush has succeeded in creating something of a sandbox of his own in affluent East Cobb.
“I wanted to have a quaint little bistro in East Cobb,” Turbush said. “What I got was a really busy restaurant.”
In 2013, he opened the Stem Wine Bar next door to Seed and Drift Fish House & Oyster Bar at The Avenue East Cobb opened in 2016.
Last fall, he was named Restaurateur of the Year in the small and independent category by the Georgia Restaurant Association, and recently was recognized for that award during a legislative session at the Georgia Capitol.
On Tuesday, Drift will mark its fourth anniversary with a Bluegrass Birthday Bash that includes a special oyster, crab and lobster menu, drink specials and live music.
Seed’s emergence as a restaurant that drew notice from dedicated Atlanta foodies was followed by some other chef-driven concepts in East Cobb. Some of them, including Zeal and Common Quarter/Muss & Turner’s, have closed in the same Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
Turbush, a Wisconsin native, relocated to Atlanta for his wife’s work (she’s now retired from the Coca-Cola Co.) and they moved to East Cobb as they have raised their son, who’s a student at the Wheeler Magnet School.
“With each new place, we’ve brought something that wasn’t here,” Turbush said of his three restaurants.
Turbush began making plans for Stem soon after opening Seed, in part to accommodate diners turned away when his original restaurant was at capacity.
While there’s still some of that overlap, Stem also has special wine tastings to attract another kind of diner, with a menu of small plate offerings.
When Drift opened in March 2016, “there was no dedicated high-quality seafood place here,” Turbush said. “I could have put a steakhouse there, but there’s a steakhouse on every corner in Atlanta.”
Drift underwent some growing pains, and Turbush encountered a rarity— a one-star review—from noted dining critic Corby Kummer, who briefly lived in Atlanta.
“I don’t know what happened there,” Turbush said. “I took everything he said to heart, but we reviewed those items and we still have most of them on the menu. Everyone’s got an opinion and he’s got the pen.”
Drift is the only restaurant in Georgia that’s listed by a seafood watch organization for following sustainable seafood practices.
Turbush attributes his longevity to focusing on satisfying the locals.
“I would hope that we’ve helped elevate the dining scene in East Cobb,” Turbush said. “But the biggest reward is someone who’s been living here for 20 years, who says thank you.”
He regularly gets offers to expand, open a new restaurant somewhere else, or entertain a new concept, but he’s leery of many of those pitches.
He said he wouldn’t rule out adding to his business, as long as it’s an opportunity that doesn’t require a lot of capital and time.
“We have aspirations for growth,” he said, but he can’t say for now what possible opportunities those might be.
The restaurant industry is suffering a decline in the full-service area, but Turbush said “we’re not seeing that yet.”
An advantage he feels he has is that “our biggest customers become our greatest ambassadors.” Those local diners spread the word, and now he’s seeing the grown children of some of his original customers come in for a bite to eat.
What do those diners like when they come to Seed?
“Our No. 1 seller is the Chicken Schnitzel,” Turbush said, without hesitation, a dish made with miso mustard, oven-dried tomato arugula and parmesan and cooked in wine. Popular side dishes include the caramelized brussels sprouts and cauliflower.
Turbush said roughly two-thirds of the menu “I can’t change much,” due to customer demand. Most of what does change is the seasonal part of the menu.
“The reason that so many restaurants fail is that anyone can get in the restaurant business,” Turbush said. “I watch a lot of restaurants get away from their core business. These are my core businesses.”
The question he says he keeps asking when potential suitors approach is: “Are we the best version of ourselves?”
It’s a question he also puts to the test in adapting his business to changing demands in the restaurant industry, including an appeal to a younger generation of up-and-coming diners.
“I’m very calculated and cautious about what I’m doing here,” Turbush said. “I have a good thing going and I recognize it.”
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