Butter.ATL’s 2021 Holiday Wish List

‘Tis the season to look around and realize we deserve more, and that somebody oughta be resolving our issues, because #lawd has it been a couple of years here in ATL, and kinda everywhere. We don’t feel like we’re asking too much to ask for a whole lot, and since you asked (you may not remember but you did), we have quite a list of requests demands in order to be fulfilled and blessed and highly favored and abundant and all the extras. 

So we made a wish list. And yes, we’d love a new pair of dunks but we don’t mean just the sneaker shop in L5P — we mean real, trill wishes. They might not be easy to deliver, but neither are the wings at Magic City if you’re trying to get Uber Eats (#wisdom), and somehow they make it happen, so we feel entitled to more. 

Here’s our list of wishes. 

Can we deal with the traffic? 

Look, it shouldn’t take an hour to get from East Atlanta Village to Tassili’s, just like it shouldn’t take two highway switches and Fast & Furious style driving to get from Lenox to Grant Park. How the hell do we get caught in traffic in the dead of night? Who do we need to talk to to make Atlanta’s streets great again?

Potholes

Speaking of driving, can you imagine driving without having to worry about craters on every road? Can we make the potholes disappear (without just getting a steel plate overtop of it).

Omicron

Can Miss Rona sit the f*ck down please? She done spun the block on us one time too many, and all we wanna do is smoke our hookahs in peace. 

Free Gucci’s… entire crew.

The East Atlanta Santa assembled the Trap Avengers and before they got to save the world, the feds did what feds do. Half of Gucci’s current and former crew members are on lockdown — Pooh Shiesty, Foogiano, Hoodrich Pablo Juan, Ralo, Yung Mal — and we can’t help but feel like the world would be saved from these pandemic woes if they were free. (Okay, we’re joking. But also, we’re not).

Ban influencers from the Jackson Street Bridge – ASAP

Lissen. Who isn’t tired of seeing gaggles of gentrifiers and out-of-towners, with their selfie sticks and DSLRs, huddle together taking pictures of that same damn view?! ?️ THERE ARE OTHER VIEWS OF THE CITY SKYLINE AND OTHER PLACES TO TAKE PICTURES ?️

Bike lanes

Someone somewhere might feel like Atlanta’s a bicycling town, but real ones know it feels like playing a less-fun game of Frogger trying to share the road with aggressive ATL drivers. Can we get some protected bike lanes, the kind that don’t abruptly end in the middle of the road? Maybe we can learn a thing or two from Decatur…

Can WaHo bring back their full menu?! 

We’re tired of these lil’ COVID mini-menus and inflation prices. 

Bring back the Zestos in L5P. 

It just left, but it feels like we’ve been apart for a lifetime. All that love tourists give to Varsity should really go to Zesto’s; that Chubby Decker with a Coke ice cream float has been holding it down for decades! ?

PARKatlanta goes bankrupt 

… or catches these hands. Either way, remember a time long, long ago, when you could go somewhere without having to pay for parking? How the hell do we get them up outta here? 

RHOA, but make it drag?

Okay, hear me out… Atlanta’s not called the “Black gay Mecca” for nothing, and having some of the best drag performers in the world without a full TV production around them is just untapped potential. VH1, Bravo, BET, some network needs to put Tamisha Iman, Taylor Alxndr, LaLa Ri, Kylie Sonique Love, and JayBella Banks in a reality show gatdammit!

Less luxury condos – PLEASE

If the rent is more than $700 a month, we don’t want it. And the way the housing market’s looking, an entire street full of signs selling “affordable (and adorable!) bungalow starting in the low-900’s” is probably our 2022 future. At this rate, we’re all gonna be selling Pooh Shiesty mixtapes in the Greenbriar parking lot to pay our bills.  

Bring back Follie’s

Strip Club Queen said it best on that Childish Gambino song: “Follies is my favorite strip club ever, in Atlanta… I swear to god Follies is the realest, more-so because they have international b*tches in there, you got b*tches from Cambodia, you got b*tches from f*cking Italy, you got b*tches from f*cking Africa, you got b*tches from…Kansas, you got b*tches from everywhere in Follies.” Her words, not ours, but we stand in solidarity.

Drivers need to learn how to drive in the rain 

…and use their blinkers. Pretty please. 

Make it illegal for out-of-towners to call buggies “shopping carts”

Are we joking? Maybe. But it’s called a “buggy” and anyone using anything else needs to have a serious talk with the person in the mirror. And while we’re outlawing atrocities, let’s throw “Hotlanta” on the list of banned words. (Sorry, Sanaa. We still love you though).

Fix the 75/20 merge 

It feels like a fight for my life every single time. I’m going to start blaming my high blood pressure on this right here. 

Make Usher Ursher again

Let’s be real, when was the last time you heard “Ursher baby” at the beginning of the track, and you got excited because you knew he was about to put it down? We need the ATL R&B legend to come back, A-Town stomping, dancing with his shirt unbuttoned, leaving the one he’s with… all that. Don’t forget: before Summer Walker aired out her baby mama drama, Usher was confessin’ and messin’.  

A new OutKast album, a single, an instrumental, anything…

We don’t even need to say much here. We’re looking at you, new mayor Andre Dickens, to make it happen. 

Fix every road in the West End

ATL’s West End neighborhood is too rich with Black history, dope culture, and great food for the roads and sidewalks to look the way they do. Put some respeck on them streets that Imam Jamil Al-Amin walked on! It’s like living on a prayer every time I go to Wadada. 

Bring back the Thrashers

Most ATLiens can’t tell you the first thing about hockey, but the real ones remember how fun it was going to the Atlanta Thrashers games and watching those grown men fight it out in ice skates. 

Help the Falcons make the playoffs

Let us know if we’re asking for too much with this one. 

Bring back the Daiquiri Factory 

… and The Sound Table, Proof, JCT. Kitchen, Buckhead Diner, Einstein’s, Parish, Ebrik, Chanterelles, Octane… we can keep going so just start reopening our spots, Shawty. 

Free lemon pepper wings on 404 Day

The City already officially recognized 404 Day (you’re welcome); now let’s take it a step further. Do we get off work on 404 Day? Free lemon pepper wings for everyone? Or was it all a dream?