Malick’s, a family restaurant remembered by many in Hinesville for its simple but “dressed up” buffet and hometown friendly atmosphere, was torn down last week. In its place, an urgent-care clinic will be built.
The 1.33 acre-property at the intersection of East Oglethorpe Highway and East General Stewart Way sold for $474,200, local real estate agent George Holtzman said. The man who bought the property, Dr. Brian Kornblatt with Georgia Emergency Associates, said he had looked at several other sites in Hinesville but chose this location for its high visibility and central location.
“This is the fourth urgent-care clinic the group is opening,” Kornblatt said Tuesday. “We have an immediate-care center in Savannah, one in Garden City and one in Statesboro.”
Kornblatt said GEA was founded nearly 14 years ago, and therefore is experienced in delivering immediate care. The company also staffs emergency rooms for St. Joseph’s/Candler in Savannah, East Georgia Regional Medical Center in Statesboro, Meadows Regional Medical Center in Vidalia and Southeast Georgia Health System hospitals, including Camden Medical Center in St. Mary’s and Glynn-Brunswick Memorial Hospital in Brunswick.
Kornblatt, who has practiced emergency medicine for 29 years, said Hinesville is a perfect fit for an urgent-care facility. He said the clinic, once opened, will have extended business hours during the work week and will be open on weekends.
“Hinesville is a wonderful market,” Kornblatt said. “There’s a lot of military, retired military and civilian employees (on Fort Stewart).” He added the area is “short on primary care physicians” and therefore locating a walk-in clinic here made good business sense.
“We are going through the permitting process with the city now,” Kornblatt said.  He estimates construction will begin in 45 days and the facility should be completed in four to five months.
“I’m going to make it happen as fast as we can,” Kornblatt said. “But we want to be a good neighbor coming in.”
Holtzman, who moved to Hinesville in the mid-1970s, remembers when Tastee Freeze was located on the site prior to Malick’s. He said Dairy Queen and Maryland’s Fried Chicken, along with Nottingham’s Café located in downtown Hinesville, were among the area’s few eateries until Malick’s and other restaurants cropped up along Oglethorpe Highway several years later.
“Most people remember it as Malick’s,” Holtzman said. “It was a good, family-style restaurant.”
Liberty County resident Angie Kinzer said she had her wedding reception at Malick’s in 1989.
“I remember when it opened on the corner, sometime in the mid-’80s. It originally opened somewhere else,” Kinzer said.
“They always had really good food,” she continued. “There was always someone there you knew.”
Kinzer, who was friends with the Malick family, said the original owner, the late Dick Malick, knew “everybody that came in the door. You were called by name.”