Plans to open a restaurant owned by celebrities from “The Walking Dead” in the historic Choo Choo building have revived after the pandemic put them on hold for much of 2020.
“COVID stopped us for six months,” said David Valentine, vice president of operations for Nic & Norman’s. “Now we’ve started up again.”
He expects to open the restaurant next week, on a reservation-only basis at first, Valentine said. The restaurant is co-owned by “Walking Dead” actor Norman Reedus and director and special effects guru Greg Nicotero. Their restaurant in Senoia, Georgia, where much of the series is filmed, opened in 2016, and they settled on Chattanooga for their second location.
They inked the deal last fall to open the restaurant and fill in the last major vacant space in the Choo Choo complex, with plans to open in spring of 2020. That wasn’t how it went.
When everything shut down as the pandemic took hold, the restaurant crew spent a couple of months selling groceries out of a trailer in front of the Choo Choo. Now workers are inside putting the finishing touches on the restaurant, which features plenty of repurposed and salvaged features from the original building.