We were over in McDonough this morning to watch Jenna’s high school drama club’s performance of Xanadu in the Georgia High School Association’s One Act Play competition. We were planning to head home after the performance but I told ConnieLou that I wanted to look for a geocache that was hidden on the square in McDonough (and I didn’t find it, dangit!). Since it was lunchtime and we were getting hungry we decided to try find a place to try in town. We noticed a couple of places on the square and ConnieLou did a little searching on her phone for ratings and reviews. One of the restaurants on the square, the Gritz Family Restaurant, had pretty good reviews so we decided to give it a try.
Gritz occupies an old storefront on the square and its pretty unassuming inside…hardwood floors and painted plaster walls and ceilings, just as one would imagine in an old town square store, simple tables and booths and lots of historic pictures of the town of McDonough on the wall…and the place was buzzin’ at lunchtime on Saturday. We had a feeling we were in for some good food…and we weren’t disappointed.
ConnieLou ordered a bowl of chicken and dumplings, fried okra, sweet potato soufflé and cornbread. I got the lunch special which included fried steak, gravy, two sides (mashed potatoes and butter peas) and a biscuit and a drink. Now there are a lot of restaurants in Georgia, and in the South in general, that one could place the exact same order. A few would do extremely well, most would be average, at best, and a few would be best to just pay the bill and walk away hungry.
Gritz Southern Restaurant…did extremely well. The fried steak had a tasty breading and could be identified as cubed steak and not some generic mystery meat. The mashed potatoes were obviously real potatoes, not the reconstituted powdered variety and the butter peas seemed to be fresh and were cooked with a bit of pork in the water. ConnieLou gave me a taste of her sweet potato soufflé, fried okra and cornbread and all were very good. For some reason I didn’t get a taste of the chicken and dumplings before they disappeared…so they must have been good.
So how did Grits Southern Restaurant fare on the Thumbs Scale? We gave it 4 out 4 thumbs-up and threw in a few toes too. It definitely lived up to the ratings and reviews. If you happen to be in McDonough in the morning or early afternoon (they’re open for breakfast and lunch but not supper), give ‘em a try.