First Grind...

Why is it "Good To Be Grounded"? 

When my wife and I moved back to my small home town in rural north east Georgia, we had the dream of bringing an upscale casual restaurant along with us.  It has been a goal for the both of us for some time now to own our very own restaurant like one of the many that we worked at in Charleston, SC.  She would run the front of the house (FOH) and I would rule over the kitchen, barking orders at a small army of culinary dreamers like myself. While we knew that Smalltown, USA was no Charleston, we felt we could help locals step out of their gastronomic comfort zones.

After a couple of years working at a golf course/country club in the area we realized that, while not impossible, our goal might be more difficult to obtain than we originally thought.  People here a looking for food that is approachable and affordable.  So we shifted gears.  Started thinking smaller.  Thinking of what was needed and, more importantly, what was wanted in the community.

That's when a great opportunity fell into our laps.  A local restaurant at the small public airport became available for purchase.  We seized the moment and dove headfirst into our new endeavour.  We decided to take our passion for fine dining and focus it on more casual fares.  Creating almost everything from scratch: grinding our burgers, making salad dressings, desserts and sides in the small kitchen.  While we don't have an army of employees (it is just the two of us everyday all day), it has proved to be a blessing in disguise and I couldn't imagine doing it any other way.  I work with my best friend, have control over everything (most chefs are HUGE control freaks) and get to see many of the great residents of this town day in and day out.

So this brings us to the original question "why is it good to be grounded"?
First, we are at an airport and we believe that there are not many better places for pilots to be stuck during those sudden Georgia thunderstorms.  Next, the highlight of our restaurant is the fresh ground burgers that we grind using my great-grandfathers meat grinder.  Which brings us to the next reason for the name of the blog.  The roots I have in this town run deep and I couldn't imagine where we would be without the support from all of my family.  Finally, we were able to get our head out of the clouds and "ground' ourselves into a concept that we both enjoy and should prove to be successful.