Dan F.
Yelp
Somebody already said it, but this is not a place to go to for adults getting together. I'll start off with the good things... there was a guy playing guitar... more places should have live musicians, so good job there. Also, the coffee place that has beers inside is good too.
OK, let's frame it up now...this is my first time ever at Halcyon... and really first time ever doing anything in Cumming. Saturday evening, drove there, parking is a bit strange in layout (tried avoiding the parking garage, but if you do that it ends up spitting you out the exit and you have to u-turn a couple times to get back in, so I advise you just go straight to the parking garage). There are sanitation stations, but nobody uses them and I can count on one hand the number of people that were wearing masks, so if you're all about Covid safety, not a place for you.
Met up with a couple of other couples (we're all young 30's), and couldn't get into Cherry Street (which is what everybody talks about... seemed like any standard brewpub, but unfortunately can't tell you more than that), because it was packed inside and out... and a lot of people just standing around outside too. I was disappointed, because I heard the food is actually pretty good there, but didn't get to try anything...no bar is worth that kind of wait. Really all we could do was just grab a table outside of the food court area and sit there for an hour and a half after we put our name in for a restaurant, because there is literally nothing to do except sit there, which is fine if the atmosphere is cool and you just want to hang out, but I was not a fan.
We all split off to go get drinks at the 3 or 4 places to get a drink; I like cocktails more than beer, but there isn't anything besides the most standard cocktails... tried friends' beers... again, they were fine, but nothing special to talk about here. I can forgive some of the environment if food and drinks are great, but this is not the case. Went to dinner at Ocean and Acre, and it was just ok. It thinks it's fancier than it is, so it's a bit overpriced, and I get it, these little mini shopping areas are pricey anyways, but the quality just wasn't there.
Now we come to why I will not return here... the kids. I don't have kids, but they're fine if you're at a place that caters to families. Looking around Halcyon, there's nothing there that would indicate it's geared towards families. Halcyon is a small outdoor space with a couple of average restaurants and a couple of average bars, but the entire place is just little kids running around, throwing rocks from the flower beds, kicking balls into the middle of other groups, flinging sand from a sandbox (yes, somebody thought it would be awesome to put a small sandbox outside the entrance to a bar),etc., while bored parents sit there hoping their kid doesn't do something too terrible.
I'm from the Perimeter area, and I usually don't head up North unless it's to meet friends or family that are up there, but I would rather meet up at Avalon over Halcyon any day of the week.