Wagon Wheel closes doors after more than 40 years

As Dahlonega local Buzz Comstock stirred through what was left of his black-eyed peas last Thursday afternoon, he did so with a somber tone.
Because for him, and many around town, a chapter of Dahlonega history was about to close forever, as were the doors of the Wagon Wheel Restaurant. 
After 45 years in business, Ronnie Fortner and his beloved restaurant located just on the side of North Grove Street closed for the last time.
Once it was announced that Thursday would be the restaurant’s last day, customers packed the building with the line extending out the door both at breakfast and lunch.
“I heard they were lined up out the door at 7:10 this morning,” said Wayne Mooney, who sat at the front table exchanging stories between bites with Comstock and Craig Mullinax for one last lunc.
Fortner was humbled by the amount of people in the community that came to send his restaurant off in style.
“It really makes me feel good,” he said. “I’ve had a real good time doing it. It’s been good to me. I’ve enjoyed meeting people and it’s just really been good.”
Although, for the three men at the front table, they probably would’ve been there anyway.
“I’ve been coming here for 20-something years,” Mullinax told the folks at the table.
“I eat here three times a week,” Comstock added.

ONE LAST SPIN

For Fortner, the massive crowd reminded him of his first day, as he joined the front table to talk.
“It’s amazing, the first day I opened it was like this,” he said. “And I didn’t have a third of the food I needed.”
Thanks to an emergency run to a food wholesaler in Canton with a pickup truck, Fortner was able to keep operating for the day and then the four decades that followed.
Eugene Pruitt, who eventually dropped in to eat his final Wagon Wheel meal said he was there for that first day, “many moons ago.”
“I remember when he first opened up here,” he said. “They said he’d never make it.”
And while he did make it, Fortner said it wasn’t always easy.
“There’s been some good times and some sad times,” he said. “When I first got started, I borrowed money from everyone that would loan it to me. It’s been good to me.”
Fortner said he’d always wanted to start a restaurant since getting into the food industry while working across town at The Smith House while he was in high school. The name Wagon Wheel was inspired by a restaurant he visited while in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. However, to some the beloved restaurant was always known as simply, Ronnie’s.
Moving from the front table, past the stuffed mountain lion and mounted whitetail deers hanging on the wall toward the back of the building sat a group of church friends similarly enjoying one last meal at The Wheel.
“There’s a saying, on Sunday’s after church you had two options to eat,” said longtime customer Sally Kelley. “You could go to Ronnie’s or you could go to The Wagon Wheel.”
For Kelley, who reminisced on old memories like the time her grandson accidentally shattered the back window of a car with a rock from the parking lot, it was more about the experience of who you were eating with instead of what you were eating.
“It’s not about the food, it’s the community,” she said. “You see people from all walks of life here. I was born here. This is where I see my people.”
And it’s not just about dining in at the restaurant. Kelley said both she and her daughter both worked at The Wagon Wheel at one time or another, calling the restaurant a “family affair.”
Wanda Bryant added that “it was a rite of passage for young girls to work here.”
Their pastor, Michael Rodgers also enjoyed one last meal at The Wagon Wheel, sitting in the same spot where he said he ate his first meal in Dahlonega. He worries the community whose hub was The Wagon Wheel will now be disbanded.
“Now you won’t be able to see anyone,” Rodgers said, “unless you go to Walmart.”

CIRCLING THE WAGON

In the front of the restaurant, Mullinax, Mooney and Comstock said it was both “good food and good fellowship” that kept them coming back all these years.
“There’s not many of these places left where you can get a meat and two vegetables,” Mullinax said. “And their fried chicken is probably the best around.”
As the folks at the table laughed, with Mullinax jokingly telling the wait staff “I ain’t coming back here no more,” and the rest of the room finished their final meals, Fortner and the crew went outside to take a photo with the sign. Minutes later, the staff cleaned up one last time. By Friday night, the sign was gone and the building awaited its new ownership.
While rumors have circled the town about what the new business will be, Fortner said that even he wasn’t sure.
“I don’t know what type of food he’s going to serve, I don’t,” he said. “But I understand that he’s going to keep it on as a restaurant.”
As for Fortner, he said he plans to spend a good deal of his retirement hunting and fishing, and still plans to “do a lot of cooking at home.”
“I’m not planning on going to work,” he said. “…I’m looking forward to retirement.”