Two Washington Road Restaurant Sites, Two Different Stories

Drive Washington Road past Davis Road on any given month this year and you might catch a different name on the same building. As reported by Augusta Business Daily, first it was Canales Deli. Then it was Angie's Kitchen. Neither made it a full year. Now the space is getting a third tenant, a caterer with a track record and a plan that looks nothing like the two attempts before it.

A few minutes down the same road, a burger joint held its spot for more than a decade before anything changed hands at all.

The two locations offer a useful comparison of how restaurant sites and business models differ along Washington Road.

The Same Storefront, Three Names in Two Years

The strip center sits directly across from the McDonald's on Davis Road, a small plaza with limited parking and, according to local business reporting, a lot that can be a bit of a challenge to enter and exit from Washington Road itself. Canales Deli tried a take-out lunch and casserole concept there. It didn't last a year. Angie's Kitchen took the same space with a similar approach, also take-out lunches and casseroles. That didn't last a year either.

This fall, the space gets a third try, and this one comes from an operator who already knows how to run a business without relying on walk-in dine-in traffic. Marie's Creole & Catering is moving in with a chef who spent 20 years in corporate restaurant kitchens and another five running a food truck and catering operation with steady contracts at Wellstar, Bridgestone, and Kimberly Clark. The storefront won't be the whole business. It'll be a hub, a kitchen base for the catering and food truck side, with some take-out built around it: shrimp po'boys, jerk chicken tacos, and a seasoned egg roll that's already part of the catering menu.

The former Gary's site offers a different point of comparison.

A Few Doors Down, the Opposite Story

For more than ten years, the building at 3909 Washington Road, next to Abilene Baptist Church, was Gary's Hamburgers. It built the kind of following that shows up in review after review: regulars who ate breakfast or supper there once a week for years, people who'd drive across town for what they considered the best burger in the CSRA.

Gary's didn't close because the location stopped working. It closed in the summer of 2025 over staffing, plain and simple. The notice on the door said the restaurant planned to reopen once new employees were hired. That reopening never happened. A few months later, new signage went up announcing Chicken Fingers was coming.

Chicken Fingers' first location opened on Evans to Locks Road near the Lakeside Schools in May 2017. In February 2026, it opened a second location in the former Gary's building on Washington Road.

Same Street, Different Site

The two sites have different physical settings: the Davis Road strip center has limited parking and challenging access from Washington Road, while Gary's occupied a standalone building next to Abilene Baptist Church.

Canales Deli and Angie's Kitchen both offered take-out lunches and casseroles, and neither lasted a year. Marie's Creole & Catering combines take-out with catering and food-truck work.

What It Means for Anyone Watching That Corner

If you've noticed the sign changes at the Davis Road strip center and wondered whether that stretch of Washington Road is struggling, the honest answer is more specific than that. The two sites offer different settings and histories: the Davis Road strip center has limited parking, while the former Gary's building housed a restaurant for more than a decade before Chicken Fingers opened there.

That's worth knowing if you eat on Washington Road regularly, which most people in this part of Martinez do. It's also a reminder to consider parking and access as part of a restaurant site's setting.

Marie's Creole & Catering is expected to open this fall. Chicken Fingers has been open on Washington Road since February, serving 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday, the same simplified menu of chicken tenders, sandwiches, and salads it built its Evans location around. Between the two, this stretch of road is worth watching again, for reasons that have nothing to do with which sign lasts the longest.

If you already call this part of Martinez home, you probably knew half of this story already. If you're weighing whether a corridor like this one, with its mix of long-running local businesses and new operators still finding their footing, is the kind of place you'd want to put down roots, that's a conversation Tonda Booker Real Estate Group is glad to have. Let's Start a Conversation.