If you’re an intown parent, you’ve likely attended a birthday party at Buck’s Sports Barn, a tucked-away venue that offers kids’ circus, ninja, and tumbling classes and camps. The kooky space is the brainchild of Paul Rodgers, a businessman who owned restaurants in Florida 30 years ago. Recently, Rodgers returned to the hospitality industry with the opening of an Italian restaurant, market, and wine bar called Cucina Baci.
Located in the same red brick building as Buck’s Sports Barn, it was initially created to provide pizza for the birthday parties next door. “Ninety percent of the food people want to serve at birthday parties for their kids is pizza, so it made sense to go that route,” Rodgers explains. “I considered opening a little pizza place, but Atlanta has very few specialty markets for Italian products.” So, he decided to merge the two.
Cucina Baci first opened in September 2024 for all of one week. Then Hurricane Helene hit, and the space flooded, ruining the pizza oven and destroying the market. Rodgers rebuilt but lacks the funds to purchase another pizza oven. Instead, he soft-launched Cucina Baci for a second time—this time as a sit-down cafe with sandwiches, salads, coffee, and wine, as well as an Italian market.
Courtesy of Cucina Baci
“I was raised by Italians and spent four summers in Italy in my youth,” Rodgers says. “Our chef, Michael Shea, studied with Emeril Lagasse and has been making pasta since he could stand after his grandma developed arthritis.”
The menu features 42 sandwiches served on bread baked by Michelle Corb of Lake Rabun, Georgia. Some meats are local, others are imported. “We’ve resourced from the best places we can,” Rodgers says. One of his favorites is the house-roasted turkey breast, piled with red peppers, mozzarella, and pesto.
Plans for breakfast include sandwiches and granola, and an espresso bar is currently up and running. For dinner, there will be three or four pastas, plus protein-forward entrees like branzino, steak, and scallops. The sandwiches and salads will be offered, too.
Courtesy of Cucina Baci
Rodgers still hopes to be able to serve pizza eventually. “We lost our very expensive pizza oven in the flood and it’s going to be a while before we can get that back,” he says.
Currently, there’s a small stage with a baby grand piano, where live music will play on weekends and during wine tastings. “I have an endless stream of actors and musicians who do the circus to pay the bills. They can perform at Cucina Baci,” Rodgers says.
Wine tastings will feature three pours. They may be organic or traditionally produced—80 percent are Italian. Former Atlas sommelier Nathan Rose created the wine menu with nearly 350 bottles. Many of these are sold in the market, alongside beer, specialty coffee dispensers, Italian pottery, and children’s toys.
Once Cucina Baci is fully open, it will accept reservations for cheese-pairing, charcuterie-making, and mozzarella-making classes, in addition to wine tastings.
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