By Joyce Owen
Long before the tables were put in place, the napkins rolled and the doors opened, a few lucky construction workers and Seaside employees were able to lunch at the area?s newest eatery, the Great Southern Caf?, at Seaside.
When Great Southern Caf? chef and managing partner Bob Pride noticed the long lunch breaks his work crews took each day, he set up a cooker and grill and started cooking lunch for them. And like ants at a country picnic, the original threeman crew was soon joined by the painting crew, and then folks from the neighboring bike shop and other Seaside employees became a steady stream of lunchtime visitors. By the time the restaurant opened on May 3, it had amassed a loyal lunch crowd.
Friends and chefs Jim Shirley and Bob Pride both love the restaurant business, but they didn?t want to operate competing restaurants in Pensacola.
?We decided to do something together rather than compete,? Pride said. The two collaborated to create the Great Southern Caf? in Seaside featuring new-fashioned southern cuisine.
Shirley is the executive chef of the Great Southern Restaurant Group that owns the Fish House and Atlas Oyster House restaurants in Pensacola.
Pride had been living and working as a chef in New York City for 25 years, but he was tired of the grind. He had first worked in the restaurant trade managing his parents? Perdido Key restaurant and wanted to return to Florida. On a trip to the coast, he learned a prime restaurant location would be available in Seaside at the end of the year. He was familiar with the area and thought the old Southern house would be an ideal location to showcase the Southern-style foods he wanted to serve. Pride encouraged Maggie Field, a friend he had worked with in New York, to come for a visit last November to consider helping him open the restaurant. ?I was ready for a change,? Field said. ?We were both ready to move to a beautiful place,? Pride said. The trip convinced Field to move to the beach. She designed the restaurant, and is the special events designer and manager of the restaurant. ?We wanted to do this simply, but beautifully and elegantly,? Field said. Pride oversaw the renovation project that transformed the old house. The walls were sandblasted and floors redone and a bar was added to the existing deck. He replaced bathrooms, plumbing and air conditioning. A second deck and working fireplaces are still being completed.
?She?s an old cottage and she still looks like an old home, but we?ve upgraded,? Pride said.
Field has created a comfortable outside dining area for guests in beach attire. She designed the deck for casual dining and
filled it with heavy wooded tables and stainless steel and wooded chairs.
The interior, geared for fine dining, has a sleek look with white tablecloths, white dishes and black and white photography that offers a subdued, but elegant dining experience.
Pride plans to serve lunch and dinner daily and brunch on the weekends. He has been encouraged to serve breakfast, ?but the limiting factor is finding and keeping staff,? he said.
?I only want to do it if I can do it well,? he said.
Fried green tomatoes with remoulade is one updated southern dish on Great Southern?s menu. Slicing okra length-wise before battering and frying it, and adding smoked Gouda cheese to grits puts a new twist on other southern standards.
Chef and managing partner Bob Pride said the new-fashioned Southern style wouldn?t upset grandma, fried okra, is still fried okra ? just prepared in a new way.
Jim Shirley executive chef of the Great Southern Restaurant Group that owns the Fish House and Atlas Oyster House restaurants in Pensacola created Grits A Ya Ya, smoked Gouda cheese grits topped with grilled spiced shrimp and finished with sweet potato threads, one of his most popular new-fashioned Southern dishes. Grits A Ya Ya is available as an entr?e for lunch and dinner at the Seaside restaurant.
