Kaleidoscope Bistro & Pub, Growing Old with Brookhaven

Joey Riley knew from an early age that he wanted to be a chef.  He started working in the kitchen of a family restaurant when he was just 11 years old.

“I got stuck in the back of the kitchen and I either washed dishes or cleaned lettuce or did something and it just became something,” Riley said.

It became the Kaleidoscope Bistro & Pub, a chef-driven neighborhood bar and restaurant that opened in 2010.  

“I decided that I finally wanted to do something on my own and I wanted to do it in Brookhaven,” Riley said.

Though a native Floridian, Riley moved to Atlanta for work after culinary school and has been a Brookhaven resident for 14 years.

He opened Kaleidoscope on Christmas Eve of 2010 when the property owner of the space in Brookhaven Village approached Riley.

“They wanted more of a chef-driven concept,” Riley said. “So, we decided to do a bistro and pub and do chef-driven food from around the country.”

The name kaleidoscope correlates with the constantly changing menu including foods and flavors from around the world.

“If you look in a kaleidoscope and switch it, it changes often but it always works,” Riley said.

The menu changes five or six times each year, but their award-winning burger has remained the most popular dish at Kaleidoscope. In 2012 alone Riley sold 57,000 burgers.

“The whole concept of kaleidoscope is local comfort food,” Riley said.

Riley believes that the people and the community are more important to the success of his business than the food.

“It really is the people and the neighborhood that make the place,” Riley said, noting the many customers who sit at the communal table by the full bar, sharing appetizers and making friends with the neighbors who take a seat beside them.

“You never know who’s going to sit to the right of you, to the left of you or in front,” Riley said. “I’ve met a lot of very good friends on this table in the neighborhood.”

Customers who come in for a bite and his employees make Kaleidoscope for Riley, who comes in hours before the place opens to prep with his team in flip-flops with music blasting. 

“It’s nice to work for yourself and take a chance very now and then on something you believe in and feel the rewards of it from time to time,” he said.

For now, he’s chasing the dream of growing old with the neighborhood and become the social center of Dresden Drive.

“We hope to weather and tatter and grow old with the neighborhood,” Riley said.