The Grit serves up tasty grilled cheese, but bad client service

The Grit
199 Prince Ave.
706-543-6592

By CAROLINE BUTTIMER

I looked down at the straw in my lap and wondered what I had done to deserve such treatment.

You might be wondering, “What could have happened that she would feel mistreated over a straw?”

Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I made the mistake of asking for a straw at The Grit, a vegetarian restaurant in Athens, Ga.

It happened like this: “Sir, could I please get a straw?” No response. Server walks off in a deliberately irritated gait and returns with a straw, which he proceeds to chuck in my general direction without pausing to stop at our table. The straw pokes me in the eyeball before falling to my lap.

Now, let me preface this by saying that I have spent a lot of time working in retail, which has made me something of a client service snob. However, as a vegetarian in a world of meat-eaters, I have to take what I can get when it comes to my kind of cuisine, and The Grit is the place to be for us in this college town.

In an attempt to appreciate the food in front of me, I decided to give the waiter the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he was having a bad day.

Fortunately, the delicious food at this eclectic restaurant is good enough to overcome almost any qualm I may have had with the server. We started with a hummus and fresh vegetable appetizer, which came on a large white platter and brimmed with cucumbers, carrots, celery and freshly toasted pita points. With a portion large enough to serve 10, my companion and I had to stop ourselves from filling up before our entrees arrived.

I ordered a grilled cheese “smelt” with tomatoes and spinach that was topped with a house honey mustard dressing, and I was impressed with the spin the chefs put on the old rainy-day classic. The honey wheat bread is made fresh in the kitchen each day and puffs out, completely filling my hands as I held the sandwich.

On the side, I chose the macaroni and cheese upon the suggestion of the colorful chalkboard that is featured on the wall behind the bar. I was not disappointed. The macaroni were caked in a delicious blend of cheeses and were topped with breadcrumbs that crunched in my mouth next to the softer noodles.

When I first entered the restaurant, I was met with the sight of its impressive dessert case and knew that I couldn’t leave without sampling one of the treats. I deliberately left half of my enormous sandwich to be packed in the Grit’s kitschy Chinese food boxes/paper plates and foil to-go containers and eagerly awaited the return of my grumpy server so that I could place my dessert order.

My carrot cake was delightful. The cake was unique to most of its kind in that the layers contained larger than usual hunks of cranberries, carrots and pineapple. The cake was moist and had a layer of white butter cream icing that was the perfect thickness. Though my stomach was full and screamed in protest, my sweet tooth prevailed and I reached my fork over to my dining partner’s plate to sample her Key lime pie. The meringue filling was the perfect combination of sweet and tart, and the graham cracker crust crumbled in my mouth.

In the end, I was too stuffed to complain to a manager about the crappy service I had received. Fortunately for that server, my dinner satiated me more than complaining would have.