Photos by Christina Hodgen
By John Fleming
Sean Germain is pulled back to those places of his youth, to the plazas of Little Five Points, to the shops, the sidewalks, the roll and the rumble of the neighborhood’s energy.
See him most mornings now out in Gregory Davis Plaza, tidying up from the turnabout on Seminole to the sidewalk fronting Moreland. He looks after the space and cares for it as he always has, because Little Five is a place, he insists, that changed his life.
It all started when he was 11, having recently moved to town with his family from Syracuse, N.Y. One day back in 1987, he and some pre-teen pals took a bus to the area. He was impressed.
“I had never seen a place like it,” Germaine shared recently. “It was a place full of creative energy. There was music, art, performance, and independent thought everywhere you looked. Davis Plaza and Findley Plaza were full of people creating and engaging with one another.”
He fell in love with the place and spent much of his time, as he puts it, “skating through the squares, hanging out in the shops, taking naps in Findley Plaza… and getting into trouble.”
He’s back now, to this familiar stomping ground. Not to make trouble, hang out or sleep, but to open the Little Five Points Diner.
That’s the new bright yellow space on Davis Plaza. So yes, that kindness he shows the sidewalk and the Plaza, is partly business smarts. But make no mistake, Sean Germain cares about the neighborhood.
When he came to the area years ago, he says, the neighborhood took him in and allowed him to find himself. Now this is the area where Sean, 48, and his wife Amber Chaney Germain, now 44, chose to raise their children, Gabby 23, Justine 18 and Aidan 17, all graduates of Mary Lin.
“I don’t know another place in Atlanta, or possibly the country, that is such an independent place… with an independent bank, independent radio station, independent pharmacy, two independent theaters… Individual-owned businesses and buildings all collaborating in an effort to make something special and unique for all of Metro Atlanta to enjoy.”
But enough about Sean. Those are his words. And that means starting with the name of the new restaurant. You may know his current place, at the corner of McLendon and Oakdale already, name of Sean’s.
That Sean’s branding is going to happen at the new place in L5P. He was lobbied by his wife and partners to splash “Sean’s” on the new place, stencil it in the windows, and paint it on the doorway. But he wasn’t having it.
“I felt like it should all come down to who should get credit for this place. “In the end it was Little Five Points, not Sean’s,” he said.
He and his… he calls them collaborators, have since been remaking the space. Piling on that bright yellow paint. Long-time friend and artist Will Mitchell is working up the signage, including a catchy Welcome in cursive in the entryway.
All the effort is aimed at getting the place open soon. He won’t be specific about that and he won’t push a menu item, though he will prattle on about his menu philosophy: “Not book-like, more compressed and well-executed.”
The speciality? Well, that, he says, is more for the customer to decide, not for him or his collaborators to choose. He does, however, speak poetically of pancakes. The landscape of his, for example, is rife with nooks and crannies, … the thick, smooth and fluffy does not appeal to him.
The Seminole Avenue Pancake will be fast out of the gate.
So when is the opening, when are the pancakes, the eggs, the omelets, the burgers, etc, when is all that going to be ready to eat? When will the Little Five Points Diner open to the public?
That was what Taylor Massey and his wife Julie wanted to know on a recent morning. The Inman Park Couple walk by here daily, taking their two kids down Euclid Avenue to the Montessori School.
“We’ve been watching it come along,” said Julie, standing by waiting for Sean to give her the rundown on his opening plans.
He speaks in non-specifics, but you can read that as: Sometime in early March. The hours are specific, at least right now.
In early March, the L5PDiner will see you anytime between 7 am and 11 PM. Every. Single. Day.