Voting opens tomorrow, and Spiced Right says goodbye to Crabapple

Best of Milton

The ballot is set

Nominations closed at midnight with a final count of 312 write-ins across all 29 categories, from Best Overall Restaurant down to Best Pet Groomer. The late surge was real: 27 nominations arrived in the final hours on Monday.

Here is how the next two weeks go: finalists are announced Wednesday, voting opens the same day and runs through Sunday, August 10, and winners are revealed in the August 16 issue. Fair warning, your favorite businesses may start campaigning. That is allowed, encouraged, and honestly kind of the point.

The ballot, by the numbers

Where the fights are: Best Overall Restaurant drew the most write-ins at 21, with Best Pizza right behind at 20 and Best Bakery at 18. Those finalist lists were hard to make. At the other end, Best Kids' Birthday Party Spot drew two nominations all season, and Best Equestrian Stable four. In this town, those races are still personal.

Crabapple Corner

Spiced Right serves its last ribs at Six Bridges

Sunday was the last day for Spiced Right Ribhouse at its Crabapple home beside Six Bridges Brewing's taphouse, the end of a four-year partnership that put smoked ribs next to local pints. "We are grateful for the shared success, memories, and community support over the years," the closing announcement read.

What happens next is genuinely unclear, and the announcement keeps it that way: "our kitchen will undergo a brief renovation," it says, with updates to come. Whose food comes out of that kitchen afterward was not said, and Six Bridges is keeping it that way for now. "We are not ready to announce yet, but we will be posting updates on our socials," AmyNoelle Haygood, general manager of Six Bridges Crabapple, told The Roundabout on Monday. Spiced Right's Roswell restaurant continues on. We will pass along the announcement when it comes.

per the businesses' closing announcement

The Drive

Crabapple Road gets its first red light at Green Road on Thursday

If you drive Crabapple Road, Thursday changes your commute. The new traffic signal at Green Road is set to go live July 30, per GDOT message boards that went up late last week, and for the first time Crabapple Road traffic can catch a red light there. Flashing yellow may show up in the days before full activation.

The signal is a GDOT safety project built in collaboration with the city. Until now, Green Road drivers faced a stop sign and had to judge their own gap in Crabapple Road traffic to pull out. Once the light is active, the signal does the judging. Give that intersection extra patience the first week; a brand-new stop where nobody has ever stopped takes some getting used to.

per the City of Milton

On the Market

Fourteen Milton homes hit the market in the last seven days, from a $350,000 entry to a listing just under $4 million. The middle of that spread is where the school-zone shopping happens, and every one of them is filterable by high school, neighborhood, and acreage in the Milton Homes directory, updated nightly.

One Quick Question

A Roundabout first. Six Bridges is not saying what comes next for that kitchen, which makes this a guessing game, and we want your guess on the record. One tap counts it:

🍖 More BBQ 🌮 Tacos 🍕 Pizza 🎲 A surprise

The crowd's guesses run Thursday. And when Six Bridges announces the real answer, we find out together how good Milton's instincts are.

Civic This Week

One date to circle: Council meets Monday, August 3 at 6 PM, and the agenda includes the Comprehensive Plan public hearing we flagged back in July. That is the meeting where the draft short-term work program, the one that shapes what Deerfield becomes, gets its public airing. If you have opinions about Milton's next five years, that room is where they count.

Milton joins the push to unfreeze Fulton tax collection

Fulton County has not finished its 2026 tax digest, so it legally cannot bill this year's property taxes until a Superior Court judge approves temporary collection. City Council voted July 22 to join the county's petition, and the hearing is Monday, August 4 at 4 PM. If the order is granted, interim bills go out this fall at 2025 tax rates, with a true-up notice to follow. What it means for your bill, including the different math if your assessment is under appeal: full decoder in Thursday's issue.

This Week in Milton

• →Wed, Jul 29: Best of Milton finalists announced, voting opens (your inbox, 7 AM)
• →Wed, Jul 29 · 4:00 PM: Learn to Fish, ages 8 to 13 (registration required)
• →Wed, Jul 29: Junior Ranger Academy
• →Fri, Jul 31: Parks and Rec Scavenger Hunt, last day (free)

See the full Milton calendar → · Got an event? Submit it