TIS-016 - Farewell Double Trouble, Downtown Athens Barberitos Edition

Author

Lou Manglass
August 11, 2026

The Things I’ve Seen

“I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed.” - Marco Polo on his deathbed, 1324, apparently? Uncharted said so.

“I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain.” Pierre de Fermat, though that was about maths.

I wasn’t planning on doing another one of these. I have three stubbed out articles that I really need to finish. The way things work, though, I don’t get to choose where and when local events happen. Being honest, it would be really helpful if I did get a certain amount of mastery of the world around me. I don’t, I won’t, and an Athens institution has closed its doors forever. This is another swan song for another local business, Barberitos, though at least this time it’s only one location.

A Brief History of Barberitos

Downing Barber was looking for food on a budget1 . He took inspiration2 from what he saw around him and decided burritos would be the way to go. Wikipedia says inspiration came from Aspen, Colorado, but it also says “citation needed”. I have no doubt that other places in the U.S. found a way to make cheap meals, and potentially in burrito form. It’s not a unique vision. At the time in Athens, the University of Georgia (UGA) served a meal called a “Dawg Dish” at their on campus restaurants. It was a burrito bowl: rice, black beans, salsa (and its accompaniments like onions and such), and cheese. It was delicious. It was cheap. It primed me for cheap tex-mex, and in January 2000, Downing Barber opened a restaurant in downtown Athens that was right in my ballpark.

Barberitos—Barber’s Burritos—was a hit as I recall. I might be biased. You could get your fix any way you wanted, and it was a pretty good deal. He landed his first goal of good food on a budget. I promised this isn’t another death of a whole business: Barberitos has since franchised and there’s several in Athens, and more in the Southeast outside of Georgia. The franchise itself is still alive and well. I might be getting ahead of myself, though.

Keith Neace had a similar idea, though his idea was more along the lines of “I could work making cheap, good meals while I go to UGA.” I don’t recall when the chain really broke out, but Neace apparently purchsed that original store in 2001. According to the Athens-Banner Herald article I used (there’s a few, see references) he ended up owning two locations. I don’t know what the other one was, but the downtown location was Neace’s baby from 2001 until a week ago.

I don’t know what happened, but I do know that Downing Barber sold Barberitos in 2022 to WOWorks, which describes itself as “a growing family of fast-casual, better-for-you restaurant brands that meet the needs of today’s health-conscious, on-the-go guest.”3 All the article says is they decided not to continue Neace’s franchise agreement for the downtown location. That’s a real darn shame, because it’s a heck of a place.

The Downtown Barberitos

Nestled on Clayton Street, the downtown Barberitos was a fixture that you just kind of assume would be there forever. It’s the flagship! Or, it was: the chain had a final day of July 31st, 2026, after which their franchise license expired and they were officially out of business. I don’t know what Neace’s second location was, or what happened to it, but there was nothing quite like the downtown location

Clayton Street, facing West on the corner of N Jackson Street (towards College Ave). You can’t see Barberitos from here, but it is on the right in this image.

Barberitos, as seen from across the street. It may appear as “Barberito” because a street light pole is in the way of the “s”.

Barberitos sign, in its red edges and yellow lettering. The brown roll-down screen is closed, as it was already out of service when I arrived.

I read about it Tuesday the 28th, and decided I would take a trip down on Wednesday for lunch. Surely that was enough time…except it wasn’t. They ran out of food during Tuesday’s service, and were shut down when I arrived. The front porch was shuttered, though the door was unlocked and I saw a few people go in. I figured maybe they had just slacked off on operations, given how things were turning out4 , but it turns out that I saw employees coming in to do some final cleanup.

Walking in through the porch area, you see the interior doors to Barberitos.

The interior doors opened up into the dining room. I took this through the big glass pane to the left of the door. The seating area rolls back to the buffet-style bar where you’d build your custom dish.

They were very clear that I wasn’t allowed to go in. Fortunately, it’s a pretty standard quick service floor. You ordered your dish along the counter. By the end of its run, you could get burritos, tacos, nachos, a bowl (crunchy taco bowl or just the interior ingredients in an inedible bowl)…pretty much any way you wanted it. I’m sure even if you haven’t been to Barberitos, you’ve seen a similar style of “pick your base and your toppings” sliding service cafeteria. The rest of the lobby is a pretty standard set of quick service booths and tables stationed as to be compliant with relevant occupancy and ADA regulations. I was able to snap a few pictures, particularly of the porch, and the iconic Barberitos Sun

The porch, a great day to sit on not a summer day. The roll-down door is closed forever.

The Barberitos Sun is painted on the ceiling, circular with a “man in the moon” face and rays like petals. The sun is in grayscale but color radiates out red, then orange, then yellow.

The exterior door: a poster says “Thank You for 26 years” and features Pepe the Chili Pepper.

Parting Words

I leave you without content often enough, so instead of forcing more praise on a single location of a chain that’s now climbing its way up the corporate conglomerarchy5 , I’ll leave you with Neace’s words as posted in The Flagpole:

Dear Athens,
Change is inevitable. It’s as certain as death and taxes, and a “wise man” taking credit for saying it. But enough with using an attempt at humor to mask forlorn relatability. With a slightly saddened soul, a false stoic demeanor (we’ve already cried it out), and a clear conscience, we announce that the Neace family will no longer own and operate the original, the one and only, Barberitos in Downtown Athens as of the end of this month.
I started working at Barberitos in May of 2000. It seemed appropriate and efficient as I was living downtown and nearly all my classes were on North Campus. Other than for a brief stint training franchisees and opening their locations, I’ve been true to downtown the entire time.
This has been my home, and I’m very fortunate downtown Athens has been so incredibly good to me. I lived downtown, I went to school on the edge of downtown, I worked downtown while in school, I got married downtown, we had our reception downtown, we owned a business downtown, and we built a life downtown.
In addition to a restaurant and our livelihood, we’ve experienced life in this physical space; all three of our children’s first birthday party, a homebase for so many families during homecoming and Christmas parades, we’ve been a landmark for directions, a downtown industry juggernaut, a firm and willing stepping stone for brilliant employees before they go on to bigger and better things, and place of refuge for kids waiting for a ride to leave downtown when it got a little too intense.
As we are a franchise and as ownership has changed, at the end of the month I will no longer have a license to operate the business to which I’ve dedicated my professional life. Before we close the doors and flip the breakers for the last time, I wish to express my appreciation to all of Athens.
THANK YOU for the last 26 years! We have been undeniably privileged to epitomize the phrase “living the dream” by running this restaurant in downtown Athens. Any restaurant surviving and thriving for 26 years is rare, especially in an environment as such. When I reflect on what has been accomplished, I’m humbled and truly grateful. For Downing Barber (Barberitos’ founder with whom I worked and from whom I learned so much), for all the bar tenders, bouncers, and service industry who dodged bullets with us on late nights (fa real) and toiled with us in the trenches of Game Day madness, for all the employees who became part of our family throughout the years, for all the other business owners with whom we endured hardships and losses and also celebrated success, for all our beloved customers; for UGA faculty, staff, and instructors who walk the extra distance to patronize our establishment, for all the Law School
students studying quietly for hours in the lobby, for the courthouse workers we’ve served for years, for the smiles we’ve received and compliments we’ve been paid, for all officers stationed downtown (we always joke you’re here for one of us), for the legion of lawyers, for all of City Hall operating OUR local government, for CCSD for everything you do everyday for the children and families in OUR community and for supporting our family business, for all those whose hands we held when they were new to a participatory concept, for anyone impressed with simple authenticity in food and in people, for parents on college tours who chose to support local business instead of filing like lemmings into homogenized corporate replicas, for those who’ve trusted us and honored us with the opportunity to cater your receptions and birthdays and graduations and special moments in your life, for townies and regulars whose order we know when you walk through our door, for athletes we see only once every year at Twilight or everyday like clockwork because you need real food for fuel, for bands on tour that still come
see us when you’re passing though town because a moment we shared 25 years ago still lingers fondly, for all the families we know who would deliberately go out of their way driving into downtown to support us during COVID times (we truly appreciate your love), for all the parents who trusted us to employ and teach your young, innocent kids, many for their first real job, in a restaurant in downtown Athens (I hope we didn’t corrupt them… too much), for every one of you who deserve credit for educating me or influencing me or helping me, but I will not mention by name because I did not ask your permission and I refuse to drag you into my drama, and for anyone I’m forgetting because the deluge of memories overwhelm me with emotion and my keyboard is blurry… THANK YOU! Thank you for all you’ve given me and my family, and thank you for all you’ve taken away. This balance is essential to our experience. Thank you for being the reason I chose this path, along with the movie Office Space. Thank you for being the reason I chose to stay the course. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your lives. Thank you for the true community. Thank you for the acceptance, the love, and the entire adventure.
Most importantly, I need to thank my wife. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for riding shotgun on this insane journey. I didn’t realize when I was younger and self absorbed and was filled with delusions of grandeur, but you are the reason for my hard work and my success. You’re the reason I’m so motivated. You’ve always been the subconscious inspiration that empowers me each day. I love you! Thank you for everything.
I’m fond of poems and words crafted to evoke reflection. I thought of closing with any number of quotes about endings and transitions. Most were too dramatic for my sentiment, or too profound to represent a guy who rolls burritos for a living, or just not good enough for the people who will read this. I leave it simple. In the immortal words of Dr. Seuss, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

Athens, we love you!
Keith Neace and Family

That’s About It

Alright, enough on that! Support your local news. I have a subscription to the Athens Banner-Herald6 , and I’ve donated to The Flagpole. The Flagpole is an independent magazine for the Athens, GA area. They do incredible work, and if you want to know what’s going on around town, that’s a place to start. Who’s doing good work in your town? Give ‘em a boost!

References

  • Shearer, A. (2026, July 31). Customer had one last burrito on Clayton. Athens Banner-Herald. (but don’t pay for the archive access, I can send you a copy of the article)

Thanks for joining me, where I’m one of today’s lucky 10,000! I hope you enjoyed it. Here’s all the beehiiv stuff that is required to be here.

— Lou

1  So was Jake Stanfill, co-founder…I don’t know anything about him and I didn’t look further and that may seem unfair, but Downing Barber is about out of this story as well so it is what it is.

2  Who knows what this means, but suffice it to say: he had the brilliant idea to sell food to people in a fast way, cheaply. I’d say the true success here was, he actually succeeded. It’s a difficult market segment to break into.

3  They mention salads many times, which is funny because I don’t really know what this word salad actually means. I braved LinkedIn so you didn’t have to. Seems like a fun group of smaller quick service chains though.

4  An “I assure you, we’re open” kind of scenario. Bunch of savages in this town.

5  I have no clue what this word is, but it popped into my head, so now you have to suffer.

6  From the Athens Banner and the Athens Daily Herald. Pick a lane!