Downtown Forsyth is growing. Here is what’s attracting businesses and customers

Forsyth’s main downtown square, centered around a historic courthouse, features restaurants and retail shopping that have evolved in recent years. The square and blocks around it are dotted with more than a dozen unique shops and eateries, new and old alike.

While many of the stores in downtown Forsyth are relatively new, Jonah’s on Johnston opened more than a decade ago as a bakery. It’s been fairly well-liked since then, but it wasn’t until Eric and Laurie Thomas bought the pizza joint in 2018 that it truly became a Forsyth staple.

“We both had full careers when we bought this place, you know, but we thought it would be good and we wanted to build the community,” Eric said on why they bought the restaurant. “We wanted to make a high-quality product and have a place people can hang out.”

When they revamped the space and added things like a new roster of beers, affordable daily specials and more outdoor seating, it wasn’t long before popularity grew.

“It’s just become a place for people to gather, if you come in here on a Friday night when it’s really going, there are plenty of people who stay for hours,” Laurie said.

Jonah’s now draws a crowd almost every weekend and sees a lot of lunch business thanks to nearby workplaces, including the law enforcement training center in Forsyth. With their business growing, Eric and Laurie enjoyed seeing other businesses pop up to join them.

“We don’t see it as competition,” Eric said. “We see other businesses opening up as a really good thing for Forsyth and the people here.”

One business they watched make an impact was the Old Mill Market, a local marketplace and general store that opened just outside the main square in 2021. The market sells their own baked goods, meats and other items while also renting booths to more than 50 independent sellers.

“Most of our products are local, either from Forsyth or Georgia-grown, because we want to support local people,” Eddie Rowland said. He owns Old Mill Market with his wife Kathy Rowland and his daughter Katie. “The booths give independent sellers flexibility.”

Sellers can rent a small space and see how they like it, with the option to expand or stop selling always open. Some sellers even moved on to open their own storefronts.

“It’s really good to give people that opportunity, because it’s not always an easy thing to come by,” Rowland said. “We’ve always told people, ‘If that’s your desire, we’ll help you get there.’”

Rowland is also a county commissioner for Monroe County, which motivates him even more to keep his business locally focused. He’s seen the city of Forsyth grow in recent years, a phenomenon that the city’s economic development director Cody Ellis says is driven by population.

“We’ve seen a lot of people move here, growing the population outside of downtown. We’re a good place for families who might need to commute,” Ellis said. “For businesses, they look at the people moving here and see a market. They ask ‘what’s your head count?’”

With a growing population, it was only a matter of time before new businesses sprouted.

New on the square

Two new businesses have opened in recent months on Forsyth’s main square, and each has a unique offering to the city’s growing downtown area.

Navy and Gray Designs, a home decor and interior design studio, opened its storefront in November as part of Forsyth’s Small Business Saturday event. Owner Lindsey Barnes said watching her business and other shops bloom in her hometown is a thrill.

“I started with a small office in Macon and now that I’ve moved here, it’s been great,” she said. “Just in the last 10 years, there have been a lot of young business owners getting footing.”

Barnes “stumbled into” design while she was in school, eventually starting her work with a small office in Macon and even selling items out of Old Mill Market’s booths for a time. Moving to her own storefront and office space allowed her to serve that incoming population Ellis described.

“I can help make people’s homes a peaceful, happy place. We do everything from paint to flooring to furniture, and it can help ease people’s minds when they’re setting a place up,” Barnes said.

Lindsey’s husband Will has his own business called Old Oak Renovations in the same office space. She also employs a junior designer, Lauryn Stevens, to help form a trifecta of designers and renovators that fill the building’s office space.

Just three doors down from Navy and Gray sits Jamie Kay Grubb’s Blue Morning Boutique, a stylized clothing store with a focus on colorful arrays of merch for classic artists including The Who, Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton among others.

Grubb is originally from Thomaston but noticed a market in Forsyth while she was in college. Once she met some people from the city who noted the lack of retail stores, she knew her idea for a nostalgic boutique had promise.

“I opened online in July, then I was in the physical store in October,” Grubb said. “I was noticing things popping up, and I just saw a market for it…and I found a place right on the square. It was perfect.”

Blue Morning’s storefront is a former probation office, but the decoration doesn’t show it. Grubb loves seeing patrons come into the store and make conversation about the colorful walls and posters.

“It appeals to a lot of people at once and I love to see everyone come in and look at everything here, because it’s very me,” she said. “Like, talking to people even if they don’t buy anything is just who I am. It’s so much fun.”

Numerous other restaurants and stores surround the square, but Forsyth’s roots are still clearly visible. The city’s small-town charm is a big part of its appeal for many.

“We wouldn’t exactly want a Home Depot in the square, you know, because we like our small town atmosphere and it draws people in,” said Ellis, who is also a zoning officer who approves businesses in the downtown area.

With things on the up-and-up, Ellis and the city are already making it easier to open a business, whether you’re moving up from a small booth at Old Mill or starting from scratch. They even offer insight if you’re building from the ground up.

“We have what we call a first-step meeting, we meet with department heads for the city, stuff like fire and sewer… to give people an idea of what they need to build a business and make their own structure,” Ellis said. “Then I act as the liaison and can get people started on their building process.”