The Restaurant Built from Atlanta's Own Trees
When Ladybird Grove & Mess Hall opened its West Midtown location in Atlanta’s Star Metals District in October 2026, the room itself told a Georgia story. The walls, the tables, and the bar were all built from local trees — trees that came down in metro Atlanta and were custom milled and kiln dried by Meriwether Millworks in Canton, Georgia, working with David Dorsey of Harvest Custom. This is the full project: three features, three trees’ stories, one restaurant.
HOW IT CAME TOGETHER
Every feature in the room followed the same path: a fallen urban tree, a trip to our Canton sawmill, time in our dehumidification kilns (with the end-of-cycle heat treatment that sterilizes the wood), then to Harvest Custom’s shop for the build and install. Ladybird is owned by Electric Hospitality. Milling and kiln work: Meriwether Millworks, Canton, GA. Char work, booths, and tables: David Dorsey, Harvest Custom, Cartersville, GA.
Building a restaurant, office, or home with a story? Start with the trees already on the site. Meriwether Millworks offers custom sawmilling, kiln drying, live edge slabs, and dimensional lumber across metro Atlanta and North Georgia. From fallen trees to stories.
THE BAR — A 215-YEAR-OLD WHITE OAK
The bar top at Ladybird is built from slabs of a white oak that sprouted near Marietta around 1811. It was already a massive, mature tree when Sherman marched through Georgia in 1864, and it stood for more than 160 years after that.
This is not a story about a healthy old tree cut down for a bar. Disease had gotten into the oak, and a weakened tree that size is a danger to the homes and people around it. It had to come down before it came down on its own. Rather than see 215 years of Georgia history go to firewood or a landfill, the owners sent it to us. We milled it into live edge slabs and kiln dried them here in Canton. Harvest Custom cleaned up and prepped the slabs, and the restaurant’s own team installed the bar — where that old oak now serves dinner every night.
THE WALLS — SHOU SUGI BAN PINE
The walls of Ladybird’s West Midtown dining room are covered in about 1,800 square feet of shou sugi ban — pine boards charred in the traditional Japanese method, where fire burns off the soft grain and leaves a hard carbon finish. No stain, no paint: the fire is the finish.
The pine grew in South Fulton, about 19 miles from the restaurant. Trees like these usually end up chipped or hauled to a landfill. Instead they came to Meriwether Millworks, where we custom milled them on our Wood-Mizer sawmill and kiln dried them. David Dorsey and the Harvest Custom crew then burned every single board, and installed every piece by hand — the walls, and the booth and bench seating built from the same charred pine.
THE TABLES — PINE AND WHITE OAK
The restaurant’s tables carry the same story in smaller pieces: pine and white oak, milled and kiln dried at Meriwether Millworks from Georgia timber, and built into tables by Harvest Custom. Local trees, local mill, local craftsmen — the whole room stayed inside metro Atlanta.
Building a restaurant, office, or home with a story? Start with the trees already on the site. Meriwether Millworks offers custom sawmilling, kiln drying, live edge slabs, and dimensional lumber across metro Atlanta and North Georgia. From fallen trees to stories.