Edward J. Negri: Restaurateur, Community Leader

Edward J. Negri, ME 47, of Atlanta, on April 28. As owner of Herren’s restaurant on Luckie Street, Negri witnessed many Atlantans pausing for their midday meals. But one day in the early 1960s, he watched a group of construction workers break for lunch and indirectly became a local pioneer. After seeing the white workers file into a nearby restaurant and the black workers decamp to the back of a pickup truck, he was moved to desegregate Herren’s—becoming the first Atlanta restaurant owner to do so voluntarily.

In addition to being the vivacious public face of Herren’s, which closed in 1987, Negri served on a number of boards and community organizations, including the Camp Fire Girls, the Atlanta Convention Bureau and the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. He was chairman of the Food Service Advisory Committee for the Atlanta Vocational-Technical School and of the Atlanta Regional Food Committee for Disaster Preparedness. Negri served, too, as president of the Atlanta Restaurant Association (1958-59), president of the Georgia Restaurant Association (1965-66) and director the National Restaurant Association (1968-74). In the 1980s, he was instrumental in resurrecting two Atlanta landmarks: the Fox Theater and, on the West End, the Wren’s Nest house museum. He was involved in the formation of Atlanta Landmarks, Inc., and served on its Board of Trustees.

Negri also served in the Army Air Corps. In 2006, he published his memoirs, Herren’s: An Atlanta Landmark.

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