Grits & Grind Serves Excellent Breakfast in Seacrest

SoWal has a new breakfast hotspot that makes our taste buds holla “mercy me!”

Grits & Grind is an excellent breakfast spot on the East end of Scenic 30A in the Seacrest Village. The recent launch is the latest in a successful string of eateries from the Spell Restaurant Group, including George's, La Crema, Saltwater Grill, & La Cocina (where Grits & Grind is located).

It all started with a local chef's fervent love of what is called the most important meal of the day - breakfast.

“I am a breakfast man,” says Chef Erik Kellison, formerly a sous chef at George’s in Alys Beach. “Our staff would roll in and I’d have breakfast ready as a measure to add pep to their step.”

Over time Erik kept dishing out one tasty breakfast after another, and owner Christy Spell was impressed enough to make sure he could keep on doing it, so Grits & Grind was born just down the road! Take it from us, Erik has culinary command at breakfast like a rooster has command at sunrise.

"My father and co-owner Rick Spell, has always loved breakfast. He frequents a breakfast spot in Memphis dogmatically,” says co-owner and managing partner Christy Spell. “When it came to creating a menu, my dad had specific input, but we had faith in giving the reigns to Chef Erik to create an outstanding menu.”

Forget fancy! Think comfort food with charm. The traditional breakfast of eggs and bacon certainly has a place on the Grits & Grind menu, however the stars of the show revolve around the traditional fare. Let’s talk grits! There is nothing traditional about the grits. You'll want to order them loaded. Loaded with fine cheddar cheese & bacon packed, this is the side-dish that steals the show. You'll be tempted to lean over and kiss those grits.

Go ahead and treat yourself to a stack of fluffy pancakes with special ingredients all locally sourced, including maple syrup in the batter, and made with love  from scratch. There might be a tug-of-war over the pancakes.

Our SoWal breakfast crew loved it all, but my personal favorite was the smoked salmon benedict - Smoked salmon, sliced tomato, fresh spinach on top of a biscuit with hollandaise and dill. The flavors mingled perfectly.

Since you'll be in the same setting as La Cocina, you just might crave the famous Mexican breakfast, Huevos Ranceheros. Rest assured, not only is it a favorite at Grits & Grind, the presentation is unlike anything we expected, and entirely satisfying. With Chef Erik’s fresh twist, it might be hard to ever order anything else.

Serving breakfast from 7 to 10:30 am, there's no overlap with lunch and dinner service at La Cocina.

“We have folks stop in after 10:30 am wishing they could have the Grits & Grind menu, but with so many different spokes in our wheel, we have to stay disciplined to keep things rolling in the right direction,” says Christy.

With more than 200 employees, the Spell Restaurant Group has the ability to cross-train and promote staff throughout each restaurant, and the persuasive power of a company culture that rewards hard work.

“We have no doubt we owe our success to our team, says Christy. “Without their friendliness and professionalism, we wouldn’t have the loyal guests we do.”

We witnessed this hospitality as Chef Erik sat down to greet customers who barely made it in before the 11 am closing time.

“Those folks are actually employees of one of our other restaurants. What we didn’t expect was the cross-marketing of our own employees. They are probably the most thrilled about our new breakfast endeavor,” Christy remarks with a huge smile.