A pharmacy on Broad Street sold hoodoo supplies and home remedies for decades. In 1999, Paul McCartney spotted bath salts labeled “Run Devil Run” in its window, bought them and used the name for his next album. The storefront appeared on the album cover with “Miller’s” changed to “Earl’s.”
That address now seats 40 people and serves lunch.
Mule Train opened Sept. 30 at 87 Broad St. SW, where Miller’s Rexall Drugs operated beginning in 1965. Miller’s did not close. The company says it moved to 4584 Memorial Drive in Decatur.
The new restaurant is the first permanent location from Mike and Shyretha Sheats, the husband-and-wife team behind The Plate Sale pop-up. Together, they bring 26 years of restaurant experience across Atlanta, Athens and Charleston.
Mike worked at Muss & Turner’s and helped open Staplehouse’s original restaurant. Shyretha graduated from Georgia State University and entered the food industry after volunteering with Crop Mob Atlanta following a corporate layoff.
The Mule Train name comes from a family gathering place in Oglethorpe County where relatives cooked barbecue, played pool and drank moonshine.
What you can get, and when
Mule Train is open from noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
That makes it primarily a lunch destination for now. Downtown workers, Georgia State students and people running errands nearby can sit down during the day. Weeknight dinner is not part of the current schedule.
The menu draws from Northeast Georgia food traditions and changes with the farms supplying the kitchen. Lunch follows a rotating meat-and-three format rather than a fixed list of permanent dishes.
The shotgun-style dining room has direct views into the kitchen, walnut walls and blue leather and velvet banquettes. NO Architecture designed the 40-seat space.
Mike Sheats has said a developer approached the couple about opening a restaurant before a broker brought them to Broad Street. The partnership included a fully built-out restaurant, an arrangement he acknowledged is uncommon for a first-time operator. His public account does not identify who financed each portion of the build-out.
This is another table, not the first one
Mule Train joins a restaurant cluster that already includes Brewhouse Cafe, Delilah’s Everyday Soul, Broad Street BBQ, Glide Pizza, El Tesoro, Bottle Rocket, Spiller Park Coffee, The Junction and Tyde Tate Kitchen.
That matters because Mule Train is not being asked to create a dining district by itself. It adds another reason to visit one that is already forming.
It also opens at a different point in South Downtown’s development cycle.
Atlanta Ventures founder David Cummings and partners acquired the former Newport portfolio in January 2024. After spending roughly $140 million on Phase I, SoDo ATL laid off four project managers in July 2026 and paused new construction beyond work already underway.
CEO Jon Birdsong described the next step as allowing the market to absorb what the company had finished. Twenty-five of the portfolio’s 58 historic buildings were in development when that pause was announced.
Mule Train was already moving through construction, so opening after the pause is not a contradiction. It is part of the leasing and operating phase SoDo said would follow the construction push.
Why lunch is the real test
In January, Birdsong told ATL Vibes & Views that South Downtown already had thousands of potential weekday customers within walking distance, especially government workers. What the district lacked was a dependable collection of places to eat, grab coffee and spend time outside the office.
He pointed to Tyde Tate Kitchen’s lunch business as evidence when recruiting other operators.
Mule Train is that argument turned into a 40-seat restaurant.
The limited schedule may also reflect what South Downtown currently has more of: workers during the day, visitors on weekends and a residential population that is still developing.
The first test is not whether Mule Train becomes a weeknight destination. It is whether the customers already downtown can keep its lunch room busy enough for the restaurant to extend its hours later.
A restaurant opening is more useful evidence than another tenant announcement. The doors are open, the food is being served and the schedule matches the customers South Downtown says are already there.
Mule Train should not have to prove the entire district works. Its job is smaller: fill 40 seats, build repeat business and find out whether lunch can grow into dinner. If that happens, the expansion of its hours will tell us more about South Downtown’s progress than another construction rendering ever could. Would a restaurant open primarily for lunch give you a reason to spend more time on Broad Street?
