Johnny Grits — Restaurant in Tarpon Springs

I was looking for a local, non-chain place to have breakfast and settled on Johhny Grits. The decor is a bit more upscale than your usual breakfast place. I like it. The prices seemed high to me, at least until my meal came and until I saw the meals of others. The prices seem justified given the quality of the food and the portions. The guy next to me had eggs Benedict and it looked good, gourmet level and substantial. Biscuits looked good - would like to try them on a future visit. Same goes for a mother and daughter a few tables down for me - in terms of what the food looked like - quality, gourmet looking, big portions. I ordered the fried green tomato BLT with a side of mac and cheese. The sandwich was excellent - good quality, crispy bacon and well fried, hot but soft fried green tomatoes. I wished there was more lettuce, however. There was very little lettuce. Having it on the sandwich is more of a texture thing than a taste thing. I would have given this place 4 stars except for two things a) the slow service at times and b) the severely lacking mac & cheese. I had to ask for the check after waiting for some time, never got a water refill and could have had one more coffee refill. Two more wait staff arrived when I was there, but the one wait staff was way too busy when it was just her - too much for one person to handle, at least in my opinion. The staff were super friendly and doing their best. For a restaurant of this quality I expect better choices for for the coffee cream - not just international house stuff but real cream. The real disappointment was the mac and cheese, for which there was an upcharge. It came in a cast iron skillet and was a huge portion. I understand the concept of al dente, but the noodles were under-cooked, too hard. There was cheese melted on the top. But then the noodles were sitting on top of a rich yet watery milky sauce. It was lacking in cheese. I had to stir the water sauce to get it to cover the noodles. It struck me as the beginning of a good recipe, but it needed more cheese, a thickened sauce integrated better with the noodles, and noodles cooked just a little bit more. The other dishes I saw being served looked so good I may try this place again - but not the...

Johnny Grits left much to be desired. Atmosphere: I would've given one start but our waiter Jacob was attentive and deserves a pat on the back. We first were greeted by a frantic hostess, which caught us off guard.Once we walked in we realized the reason for everyone looking so frantic and stressed. Kevin(I think, the manager/owner I'm unsure) was so beyond rude to his employees it made us both uncomfortable. We are more than capable of opening a door by ourselves, stop barking at your employees, "THE DOOR, WHY ISNT ANYONE AT THE DOOR". He stated something rude about our waiter before we even met him. Then throughout our visit at the restaurant he did absolutely nothing but bark orders and treat his staff like they were lower than dirt. It was really sad to see, I'm not sure how they keep staff. Even if the food was good this alone would keep us from coming back. The food: I could've made this entire dish from the freezer aisle at Publix. There was absolutely not one thing that tasted homemade. The eggs were fluffy and tasted like they came from a buffet/hotel type of cooking. The bacon was clearly microwaveable bacon. The breakfast sandwich my husband had used the same bacon, type of egg & brioche is apparently the only bread they serve it on? and his potatoes were literally deep fried frozen potatoes???? We ordered a side of biscuits & gravy which we asked if it was homemade and Kevin stated, "it's a base, we add all our own ingredients". FALSE. Canned gravy, barf. The only saving grace was the French toast which was decent. Lastly, they offered flavored coffee creamer and it's not even name brand. It's off brand and gross. They bring coffee creamer and sugar but 1-2 packets at a time. Super weird vibe. It's apparent Johnny Grits cuts a lot of corners to make a buck. The consumer would rather pay more and have...

Sunday morning, February 19, 2023 around 10:45am, my wife and I decide to try a new restaurant in Tarpon Springs, FL. Our search came up with Johnny Grits, a breakfast and lunch cafe. Something similar to Fresh Watch. We were seated quickly by the friendly Manager. Our waiter brought us water. That was the good stuff. Now for the turnaround . . . our waiter never came back to take our order, while other people around us had already given their orders, after they were seated after us. It was not busy at all and we saw our waiter delivering food to other tables. But he never came back to our table.

Now we are patient people and we waited . However, after 10 minutes, with no acknowledgement from anyone, we decided to leave. We ran into the Manager who had seated us and I let her know that we had not been taken care of. She apologized. However, the one thing that surprised me was that she didn't try to make the whole situation better. She could of offered to seat us at another table with another waiter/waitress. She let us walk out.

I am sure the food is good. My issue (and it should be to all restaurant customers) is the service and how "aware" they are of all types of situations that come up in a restaurant. Folks, this is your money that you have worked hard for and are willing to spend. There are expectations for solid, friendly service performed in a timely manner. If the service is slow or inattentive, walk out. If the restaurant is sloppy or messy, leave. If the food does not taste good, tell everyone. That is our right, as paying customers.

We have not decided if we will try again and visit Johnny Grits. There are a lot of similar places around the area that could be just as good or even better. I hope the owners read this and train their staff to be more "aware" and attentive of...