On weekends and weeknights alike, many Athenians can be found walking through the doors of Emporium, Sandbar, Double Barrel, Woodford or Paloma Park. All these bars have one thing in common: they are owned by Hospitality South.
Jason Dunn, the owner and proprietor of these establishments, moved from his hometown of Roswell, Georgia to start his journey in Athens as a student. He began his first business in 2003: a tea and coffee shop called Infusia. By 2004, Dunn shifted his focus from coffee, tea and food to a bar atmosphere, which has since merged into Double Barrel in 2026.
In 2007, Dunn opened Sandbar with the aim to "diversify his portfolio." Dunn said the bar was inspired by his dream to own a tropical-style beach bar one day. The next bar to open up was Double Barrel, with the name "[paying] homage" to the city of Athens, Dunn said. The name is inspired by the life-sized replica of the double barrel cannon outside of the city hall.
"We wanted to make different concepts to attract different clientele and different demographics," Dunn said.
Woodford was added to Dunn's string of bars in 2015. In 2021 and 2022 respectively, Paloma Park and Emporium opened their doors.
"[Paloma Park] was kind of paying homage to, again, Infusia," Dunn said. "But also to create something that's unique in Athens that hopefully attracts not just one demographic, but a very diverse crowd, like adults, students, locals, out-of-towners…anybody."
Hank Sewell, the head of restaurant operations for Paloma Park, met Dunn through his time barbacking, bartending and managing Woodford while he was a student at the University of Georgia. Sewell moved from Athens in 2020, but returned in 2021 to lead Paloma Park's operations.
"Paloma [Park] is the conglomeration of a million ideas that me and Jason have talked about since 2016," Sewell said.
Sewell said his goal for Paloma Park is for its visitors to feel "overwhelmed" by the good drinks, food, hospitality and environment for any kind of event or social dining experience they are looking for. He said the place is a "catch-all" type of environment that "attracts everybody."
"It's not always about what we want, it's about how you respond to what the customers want," Sewell said. "So we just kind of pivoted into something that people will want more consistently; not just on Saturdays, but hopefully on Sundays and Fridays and Thursdays, Wednesdays, Tuesdays, all that there is."
Sewell said some of his favorite memories at Paloma Park are spending his off-days watching games, like the Atlanta Braves championship in 2021, which was "a prelude to what the [SEC] Championship was going to be," referring to the electric atmosphere of the restaurant filled with excited sports fans.
Conor Busby works as the director of operations for the bars in the Hospitality South portfolio. It is important to not only efficiently manage the bars, but it is crucial that the establishments keep up with the ever-changing nightlife scene in Athens.
"In all of my time working for Jason [Dunn], the thing that has always given me a lot of confidence in the business that we do is that we avoid complacency," Busby said. "We challenge ourselves to become better or more efficient in some aspect every day."
Busby said he has watched the culture of downtown Athens and the bar scene change greatly over the years, stating that college students go out less frequently than they used to, but that "when they do, they're certainly going to all the spots that you would assume that they go to."
"The school demographic has begun steering towards the higher GPAs and the more studious minded folks, and that's certainly had an effect on how downtown works," Busby said.
Additionally, Dunn also feels that the atmosphere downtown has changed but in a slightly different way. He said that the younger crowd that goes out has a different taste in drinks than before.
"People are a little bit more health conscious, when they drink they're drinking things like seltzers… definitely a more health conscious selection of alcohols," Dunn said.
Dunn said that Hospitality South has turned into a large operation over the years. According to Dunn, one of his favorite parts of his job is watching past employees take the skills they learned in their time with Hospitality South to pursue new dreams, or watching his current employees rise in the ranks from bartenders to management positions. Dunn said he now depends heavily on Busby and Sewell to run much of the business.
"Hopefully I'm giving [Busby and Sewell] the resources they need on my end to basically think big picture, doing things that will hopefully benefit the direction of the company," Dunn said.
Dunn said that Hospitality South has new concepts "in the works," and that they want to create establishments that have a positive impact on the Athens community.
"We all have really strong ties to this town and this community," Busby said. "We like to see that the projects that we do consider and we do put our efforts behind are things that will contribute to making Athens the special and amazing place that it is."
Adapted from the original article in The Red & Black.
