After a successful stint with World Cup crowds, Beltline pop-up LikeMinds will extend its residency in the former BrewDog space through the end of the year, just in time for football season.
Cofounder Kelly Campbell, best known for Westside Motor Lounge, said the extension was a “collective and collaborative” decision among the local partners. Originally, LikeMinds was only supposed to run for 120 days.
LikeMinds is a collaboration between Westside Motor Lounge, Smith’s Olde Bar, Frazie’s Meat & Market, Bunker Design and other local partners.
But the concept paid off more than the cofounders expected. During the World Cup, Campbell said the bar filled up to its 700-person capacity on game days. They even had to close the doors.
Campbell said the philosophy was that “we just need to hang on until the end of this thing.” The bar opened at a breakneck pace after BrewDog’s abrupt closure on the Eastside Beltline trail in March. Campbell said he only had about six weeks between being awarded the space and opening LikeMinds.
But he already had the concept. Before the Beltline spot opened up, he had been toying with the LikeMinds brand as potential merchandise, or a festival, or an event series. It was a natural fit for a pop-up bar and restaurant.
“The idea was about collaboration, and being around like-minded people, and celebrating our similarities and our differences,” he said.
Campbell also wanted to introduce Atlanta to the World Cup crowds. He worked with local restaurateurs and bartenders to create a menu packed with Georgia-based liquors and beers and Atlanta food partners. LikeMinds even started producing its own THC drinks in-house.
To draw in crowds and fill the 12,000 square foot space, the team brought in entertainment: a stage, a DJ booth, video games, pool tables, a golf simulator and a massive 16-by-9 foot television screen.
“This is a large space that needed to be activated like an event,” Campbell explained.
But LikeMinds couldn’t really explore event programming until after the World Cup. Now the bar’s calendar is packed with different happenings, from Love Island watch parties to DJ sets and live music.
The extended residency gives LikeMinds more time to explore. They recently expanded the food menu, and have added a weekend “Funk Brunch” complete with clips of “Soul Train” from the 1970s.
“I think everybody saw what it could be, and we all felt good about how we handled the crowds and the response to the food, the response to the space,” Campbell said. “We all circled back up and said ‘hey, we have a desire to stay til the end of the year.’”
Campbell insists LikeMinds won’t extend again, though. He doesn’t want to be the permanent tenant of the BrewDog location. “We’ll end the pop-up with a bang at the end of the year,” he explained.
Still, he hopes LikeMinds will live on. He sees it as a potential festival for Westside Motor Lounge, or the original event series concept. The pop-up worked as an unplanned incubator for the brand itself. Now he gets to take LikeMinds past the Beltline.
“We’ve got a million things we’re probably doing wrong, or a million things that we would do differently, but we are really proud of what we accomplished in such a short time,” Campbell said.
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