Future Of Aunt Fanny's Cabin, A Reminder Of The 'Old South,' Up For Consideration

SMYRNA, GA — Aunt Fanny's Cabin was once one of the best-known restaurants in the Atlanta area and a Cobb County landmark. A slew of celebrities graced its presence, with hundreds of autographed photos lining the walls near the front: Doris Day, Walt Disney, John Wayne, Andy Griffith, The Beach Boys and former President Jimmy Carter to name a few.

Now a task force will decide whether to demolish the house, which is the cheapest route; repair it, which is the most expensive option; or preserve historic features of the house to build a replica in the future.

People traveled from all over to taste the southern cuisine served at Aunt Fanny's Cabin, which was located on Campbell Road in its heyday and seated up to 200 people, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. But it also garnered infamy for using derogatory depictions of Black people to entertain dinner guests.

The house was named after Fanny Williams, a longtime servant of some of Smyrna's first settlers: the Campbell family, for whom Campbell Road and Campbell Elementary School are named, Mike Terry, a former chair of the Cobb Planning Commission and unofficial city historian told the MDJ.

Williams was a beloved figure in metro Atlanta, and was even considered an early civil rights advocate who spoke out against Cobb County's Ku Klux Klan and helped raise money for the state's first all-Black hospital in Marietta, according to the AJC. But she was reduced to a mascot of sorts for the cabin, which had Old South aesthetic that many other restaurants mimicked, Councilman Lewis Wheaton told the news outlet.

When heading inside even now, there are still reminders of the shameful slavery period in American and Georgian history. Councilman Travis Lindley said he came across a placemat which depicted children in blackface advertising Aunt Fanny's Cabin's hot biscuits, charbroiled steaks and other menu items.

"Why would we want to memorialize that, spend money on it, and stick a city of Smyrna sign on it like, 'This is our history, and we're proud of it,'" he said during a Nov. 18 task force meeting. "There is nothing to be proud of."

But Terry said the cabin should be preserved because it's still part of the city's history, and Williams deserved to be memorialized and honored for her part in Smyrna's heritage, the MDJ reported.

When the restaurant closed in 1992 — and after most of its structure was stripped away or torn down by 1997 — the city bought the front porch and a room near the entranceway, and relocated them to the cabin's current spot on Atlanta Road, according to the AJC.

The relocation was botched though, the Marietta Daily Journal reported, because it wasn't placed on a foundation. The city of Smyrna also hasn't maintained the building, and it could cost up to $600,000 to renovate it.

The now-dilapidated building, which also once served as the city's welcome center, is in shambles — so much so that the city closed it to the public about a year ago, according to the MDJ.

Mayor Derek Norton created a 20-member task force in August to consider what to do with Aunt Fanny's Cabin. Atlanta Renovations, a Marietta contractor, determined a restoration cost between $480,000 and $520,000, or as much as $390,000 to tear it down and rebuild it.

The task force has already met twice, and will meet again Monday at 4 p.m. Terry told the MDJ that they plan to make a decision and recommendation to the city of what to do with the cabin by then.

“Exactly what are we preserving? That is still a conundrum for me,” Wheaton told the AJC. “We still have not nailed that. And the fact that we haven’t nailed that, for me, is indicative of the problem.”