At 6 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 1, the lights came on at 5580 Wren Street. Chick-fil-A Bethelview & Castleberry opened as the first business serving customers at Southard Exchange, the commercial center that has been under construction for months at the corner of Bethelview and Castleberry roads. Real Forsyth marked it as the moment the project "officially comes to life" after years of planning and construction.
With one restaurant open and four more businesses announced, the plan for the corner already shows what it is meant to be. Southard Exchange is designed around pickup lanes and the commute, which gives the west side quick, convenient stops close to home.
Five drive-thrus on one triangle of land
The developer, Abernathy Development, describes Southard Exchange as a triangular site of about 16.94 acres with eight outparcel buildings at the Bethelview and Castleberry intersection. North Atlanta Star reported that the project was approved with room for five drive-thru businesses and that construction started going vertical this spring. Real Forsyth put the total at about 59,000 square feet of restaurant, retail and office space, approved by county commissioners in 2024.
Five drive-thrus across eight buildings is a strong signal. For comparison, a classic strip center lines its storefronts up behind one shared parking field. Here, each building stands on its own pad, and most are planned around a car lane.
Location explains a lot. In its September coverage of the project, North Atlanta Star noted that Forsyth County's restaurant growth has historically clustered around Ga. 400, The Collection at Forsyth, Market Place Boulevard and newer developments to the south. Meanwhile, the Bethelview-Castleberry corridor serves a large residential population to the west, where new subdivisions have spread faster than major dining districts. The intersection already sits between Kroger- and Publix-anchored shopping centers, so the people passing it are mostly on grocery and errand trips. A corner built for quick stops fits how that traffic already moves.
Where every tenant stands as of Oct. 11
Here is the tenant list, with how firm each timeline is according to the most recent reporting:
- Chick-fil-A Bethelview & Castleberry: Open since Oct. 1. Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., with dine-in, drive-thru, mobile pickup and delivery.
- Maepole: Under construction. The company's Cumming page says it is opening in late 2026, with no exact date.
- Shake Shack: A permit filed with Forsyth County places it at Southard Exchange. No opening date or construction schedule has been announced.
- 7 Brew Coffee: Announced. An August roundup said a September opening was likely but cautioned that the date could shift, and no confirmed opening has been reported since.
- Fifth Third Bank: Announced, with no public timeline.
Real Forsyth also reported that more space is still available. North Atlanta Star wrote that more retail, medical and grocery-oriented space has been marketed for the project. So the five names above are what has been announced, not necessarily the final lineup.
Chick-fil-A's opening came with about 110 new jobs and a $25,000 donation to the Atlanta Community Food Bank, according to the company's announcement. Kristie Bergstrom, a Marietta native who came back to Georgia in 2024 after running restaurants in Southern California, is the local owner-operator.
The one tenant using this corner as a test
Most of the lineup brings a format that already works somewhere else. Maepole is the exception, and its plans make the case for the drive-home design more clearly than anything else at the site.
Maepole was founded in Athens and serves build-your-own bowls with a modern take on Southern cooking. Its Southard Exchange restaurant will be its first standalone location with a drive-thru pickup lane, along with a full dining room and an outdoor patio, QSR Magazine reported in September. The company calls the building a purpose-built prototype meant to serve as the model for future company and franchise locations across Georgia and, eventually, the Southeast. Tony Townley, a co-founder of Zaxby's and a principal investor in Maepole, is backing the expansion.
Founder and culinary director Chef Peter Dale explained the choice of Cumming to QSR Magazine:
"We want to be just as useful on a busy Tuesday night as we are for lunch on Saturday. Sometimes that means sitting down with your family, and sometimes it means picking up a great meal on your way home."
That quote describes the corner as a whole. North Atlanta Star read the move as Maepole testing whether its vegetable-heavy menu can work in a setting built around the drive-thru. If it does, the Forsyth restaurant could become the model for expanding beyond traditional storefronts.
The menu sets it apart from the national names around it. Collard greens, chow chow and Hoppin' John have appeared alongside quinoa, kimchi and globally inspired sauces. The company says it offers a wide range of gluten-free, vegan and keto-friendly options and runs a 100 percent peanut- and tree-nut-free kitchen. The Cumming restaurant will be its fourth in Georgia, after two in Athens and one in Atlanta's Summerhill neighborhood.
Construction was visibly underway on Sept. 3. North Atlanta Star's Sept. 28 coverage still described the target as fall 2026. The company's own wording is "late 2026," and its Cumming page links to open jobs. Hiring is usually one of the clearer signs that an opening is getting close, but there is still no date.
Down the road, a bagel shop that opens at 6:30
The day after Chick-fil-A opened, a second new stop arrived a short way along the same road. Jeff's Bagel Run opened Oct. 2 at 5610 Bethelview Road, Suite 700, in Steeplechase Plaza, and it's open every day from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Real Forsyth reported that the shop makes bagels from scratch, mixing, boiling and baking them throughout the day, and serves them with house-whipped cream cheese, coffee and specialty drinks. The roughly 1,200-square-foot space used to be Bethelview Pharmacy.
Jeff's is a fast-growing chain, not a local independent. The Cumming shop and a new location in Brandon, Florida, bring it to 41 shops in 10 states, and the Bethelview store is its second in Georgia after Acworth.
Because both new places open early, the corridor now has two early-morning options within a short drive of each other: Chick-fil-A from 6 a.m. and Jeff's from 6:30. Chick-fil-A's posted hours run Monday through Saturday, so on Sunday mornings Jeff's Bagel Run is the only one of the two serving customers.
The timelines to hold loosely
Shake Shack will be Forsyth County's first location of the burger chain, and so far all that exists on the record is a permit, which Forsyth County News reported first. Final building details have not been released. Based on the site layout, North Atlanta Star expects a freestanding restaurant with a drive-thru, similar to the chain's Alpharetta location on Haynes Bridge Road, which has a drive-thru, patio seating and a separate pickup lane. That's a reasonable guess from the site plan, not a confirmed design.
Before Chick-fil-A opened, the most precise forecast for 7 Brew Coffee was an August roundup's "likely coming in September, but date may shift." September is over, and none of the local reporting since has confirmed an opening. North Atlanta Star describes 7 Brew as a brand that has grown quickly through small coffee shops built around the drive-thru, so it fits the corner's design whenever it arrives.
The same August roundup expected Chick-fil-A "this fall" and Maepole "likely this fall." Chick-fil-A arrived on Oct. 1. Maepole is still described as late 2026. A roundup like that captures plans at one moment, and so far the tenants at Southard Exchange have arrived on different schedules.
North Atlanta Star summed up where things stand: with Chick-fil-A open first and more restaurants on the way, the long-developing corner is "now shifting from construction site to active commercial center."
West Forsyth's commercial corners, including Bethelview and Castleberry, are changing quickly, and those changes affect daily life in the neighborhoods around them. At Katharine McQueen, we follow those changes closely for the clients we advise across Cumming and North Georgia. If you'd like to talk through what's taking shape near your home, let's connect.
