In this episode we visit Gracious Plenty in the heart of downtown Roswell on Canton St. and talk with Jasmin Willis and Connor Slewitzke about the delicious eats they offer Roswell. Watch the video or read the transcript below.
About Gracious Plenty Bakery & Breakfast
Gracious Plenty focuses on dishes starring its signature item, from-scratch biscuits. They make the biscuits fresh every morning. Gracious Plenty’s mission is to use food as their medium and craft to serve their customers, community, earth and each other in all positive and encouraging ways.
Episode Transcript
JW: Let's go check out the space. This is our dining room, and as you can see, it's small and cozy and very quaint. You can see that we've actually got a different design than most restaurants - we're wide open so you can see all of the magic happening. You can see all the biscuits being made, all the hashbrowns getting crispy, and smell all the delicious smells! We share everything in this place.
How do you describe Gracious Plenty?
CS: I think it's the most super family-oriented, wear-what-you-want, say-what-you-want, eat-what-you-want, be-what-you-are, comfortable restaurant you could possibly visit. I think it's like an extension of your own kitchen.
What's new on the menu?
JW: We're huge on community, and all we're doing is listening to them. They want more lunch, so we've kind of pushed ourselves into the lunch area as well. We've got a really great chicken sandwich now called The Chan Man that our sous-chef made that people love. We've got a Martin's garden salad where all the greens are coming from a mile down the road.
Really great green goddess dressing -- great with a steak upgrade. It's really good - that's what we've been eating all the time. We have a cheeseburger that will be official soon. We've been doing it on Fridays and it has been selling out, so you heard it first here!
What was your inspiration behind starting this?
JW: My inspiration behind starting Gracious Plenty was to take restaurants back to their roots. We've been in a lot of fine-dining restaurants and it's really easy to get sucked into that and to just work your life away. But we wanted something that we were going to be able to build our life around, and our community with it. So it just brought it back to the service aspect. Connor, myself, every one of our chefs, every one of our staff members and crew members -- they love serving people. Not just serving customers, just serving in general. When you come in here, you feel welcome, you feel like you can stay forever. We know your name, we know your order, we we know your kids.
CS: But it's not just because of who we are in here, we do a lot of outreach products projects. About once a month, we try to get around - whether it's walking down the street, working on the farms that we buy the greens from - just doing stuff outside of the business is just as important as doing our full potential in here. We just want to make a bigger impact and to do that you've got to be bigger.
Do you serve alcohol?
JW: That's coming...beer and wine, it's the next big thing on the list. I've got some gutsy ladies that come in here every week, and they're starting to think about sneaking stuff in so I guess we just gotta give it to them!
Tasting the Delicious Food
MA: I'm super excited about tasting some of what you have prepared for us today! What are you gonna treat us with?
JW & CS: We're definitely gonna get you guys a biscuit featuring all the sauces - apple butter, some local honey with that, and we've got a really good wood to maple butter. I'm gonna bust out a hash brown bowl - super crispy goodness! And then a Martin's garden salad. We love reaching back to our community to show them some love.
Thanks for Joining Us!
Thanks for joining us for today's episode of Life in Roswell! If you have a spot you'd like for us to highlight in Roswell, please call us at the numbers below. We'll see you next time!