Hey.

Welcome to ATL Grind.

I’m Andrew (your host) who’ll be showing you the best events, news, jobs, and more in Atlanta’s business world. Let’s get started.

ATL Grind Coffee

Something new. We're hosting ATL Grind's first in-person meetup. Saturday morning, April 18, with all the other ATL Grind readers. We’ve been talking about this for a while now, and I’ve finally set a dater. If you’re looking to meet fellow professionals, founders, operators, executives, investors, Claude Code users, this is for you.

No agenda, no presentations, no pitch. Just show up, grab a coffee, and meet the people you've been reading about.

9:00 AM. Free. 30 spots. Please show up.

The MMA fighter turning wastewater into gold

A decade ago, Jahanzeb "Jahn" Khan was ranked #2 in Georgia at 145 lbs as a professional MMA fighter. His plan: make it to the UFC, build a platform, and use that platform to tackle the biggest problems the world was facing.

Then, he had a moment of clarity. He was hurting people, injuring himself, why not skip the platform and go straight to solving the problem through technology?

Khan enrolled at Georgia Tech, earned degrees in environmental engineering, started a PhD, then dropped out when he saw how broken the industrial water space actually was. Solutions were complicated, expensive, and took forever to build. In 2020, he founded 4Earth to fix that.

The flagship product is Ginseng: a fully automated, modular water treatment system that ships inside modified containers. Plug it in, and a factory can recycle its own wastewater on-site. Behind Ginseng sits the Thinking Factory, an AI-powered intelligence platform that deploys sensors across a plant floor, creates a digital twin of the entire operation, and feeds insights to everyone from the plant manager to the C-suite. Think of it as one central brain for a factory's water system, decreasing cost and downtime, increasing efficiency.

The client list is already stacked. Mercedes-Benz deployed 4Earth in South Carolina. Cox Enterprises ran the first commercial pilot through the Cox Cleantech Accelerator (which came with a $100K investment), treating 2.5 million gallons per year at Manheim Nashville. Siemens is a partner, and so are Central Life Sciences and Ruby Collins.

4Earth is live in four states: Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, and South Carolina, with expansion planned across the U.S. All hardware and software is designed and manufactured in-house at their Kennesaw, GA facility. Khan calls it a SpaceX mentality: control the full stack.

Read more here.

Ghee Indian Kitchen

Ghee Indian Kitchen opened at Star Metals late last year, and it's already one of the hardest reservations on the corridor.

Chef Niven Patel and restaurateur Mo Alkassar built Ghee in Miami's Dadeland neighborhood in 2017. It earned four consecutive Michelin Bib Gourmands and landed on the New York Times' "25 Best Restaurants in Miami" list. Atlanta is their first expansion outside Florida.

Patel sources from his own organic farm in Florida (Rancho Patel) and partners with local Georgia growers. The interiors are warm, yellow limewash walls, terracotta accents, turquoise wood banquettes, and a repurposed Indian chest as the host stand.

Read more here.​

Director, Software Engineering at OneTrust (~$194K–$291K). Lead the AI platform engineering org at Atlanta's governance unicorn. Set technical vision, hire engineers, ship products used by 14,000+ global enterprises. Equity RSUs, 14+ weeks parental leave, hybrid Midtown HQ. Apply here.

Director, CX Sales at OneTrust. Lead go-to-market strategy for Professional Services, Premium Support, and Customer Success packages across North America. Hybrid Atlanta. Apply here.

Senior Director, Product Management at The Home Depot. Lead product strategy and roadmap for Homedepot.com and mobile apps. Digital commerce serving millions of customers and Pro contractors. Hybrid Atlanta HQ. Apply here.

Sr. Director, Global Email & Marketing Automation at Global Payments. Lead email and marketing automation strategy across all business segments. Data-driven campaigns, customer engagement, revenue. Hybrid Atlanta. Apply here.

Vice President, Construction at JLL. Drive project management for major construction and development projects across the Southeast. On-site Atlanta. Apply here.

Director, Sales Commissions at Samsara. Design, implement, and manage sales comp plans and commission structures. Partner with Sales, Finance, and HR leadership. Hybrid Atlanta. Apply here.

Director, Climate Impact at JLL. Lead climate strategy and sustainability for commercial real estate clients. Carbon reduction roadmaps, ESG reporting. Hybrid Atlanta. Apply here.

How the Atlanta coffee grandmaster runs his place

Dale Donchey has been making coffee in Atlanta for over 20 years. Started at Starbucks in 2002 as a second job. Helped customers open their own cafes. Ran barista competitions. Co-owned a coffee food truck called Rattletrap. Opened Steady Hand Pour House in Emory Village in 2011. Ran the coffee program at Hugh Acheson's Empire State South. Then in 2015, he and Acheson, the James Beard-winning chef and Top Chef judge, opened Spiller Park Coffee inside Ponce City Market.

That 500-square-foot kiosk in the middle of PCM's food hall became a phenomenon. Acheson and Donchey parted ways amicably in 2019, and Dale kept building. Today, Spiller Park has four locations across Atlanta: Ponce City Market, Toco Hills, Moores Mill (Upper Westside), and the newest on Historic Hotel Row in South Downtown, inside a century-old building with original penny tile floors and a tin ceiling that Donchey refused to touch. Atlanta Tech Village founders David Cummings and Jon Birdsong took over the Hotel Row redevelopment, and Donchey was one of the first tenants in.

The name is pure Atlanta. R.J. Spiller bought Ponce de Leon Field after it burned down in 1923 and rebuilt it into the most advanced stadium in the country for the minor league Atlanta Crackers. He pushed for equal seating during segregation. Donchey, a self-described history buff and baseball obsessive, named the shop after that story of rebuilding something better from what burned down. Baseball runs through everything: trading-card business cards, pine-tar-stained paneling, the bear mascot Hoolie from the 1933 Spiller Park Hooligans.

What to order: The Shake Shake is the signature. Smooth, frothy, perfectly balanced. Hungry? Avo Toast for savory, Big Boi muffin for sweet. Spring rotation right now includes a Strawberry Matcha with white cake cold foam and the Fields of Green latte. Online ordering just went live at the Midtown location (weekdays only for now).

Donchey still does the thing himself. Pulls shots, bakes bagels in small batches at Moores Mill, and has plans for a full bagel shop and Jewish deli when he gets enough kitchen space. He also runs Spiller Lite, a mobile espresso cart that shows up at markets and events across the city. The slogan hasn't changed in a decade: "Coffee so good, we drink it ourselves."

Read more here.

2660 Peachtree Rd NW, Unit 23A, Atlanta, GA 30305

Park Place on Peachtree. 23rd floor. 2,403 sq ft. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. Sweeping views of the downtown Atlanta skyline, the Galleria, and Kennesaw Mountain from two private terraces. Freshly updated with refinished hardwood floors, new lighting, and fresh paint throughout. Spacious primary suite with walk-in closet and full bath. Park Place just completed a $15 million renovation of common areas: new elevators, landscaped gardens with event lawn and grilling area, heated saltwater pool with expanded deck, new porte cochere. Atlanta's first luxury high-rise, 40 stories in the heart of Buckhead. Walking distance to restaurants, Peachtree Rd Farmers' Market, and Duck Pond Park. Concierge, valet, fitness center, wine cellar, guest suites.

See the listing here.

5 other headlines to snack on:

Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing $1.4M in debt to the SBA and Georgia tax authorities. The once-$100M-valued vegan chain has shrunk from 14 locations to roughly five. She's also joining the cast of Real Housewives of Atlanta this April. Read more here.

Atlanta City Council approved the city's first-ever open container district in South Downtown. 16 acres near Mercedes-Benz Stadium, just in time for the FIFA World Cup. Read more here.

Wayfair opens its second-ever physical store, a 150,000 sq ft location at The District at Howell Mill, on March 31. Read more here.

MARTA launched MARTA Reach, an on-demand transit service covering 12 zones with curb-to-curb van pickups via app. The biggest bus network overhaul since the 1970s. Read more here.

That’s it.

What’d you think? Reply and share some thoughts.

See you next Tuesday.

Andrew