New Plaza Midwood diner crafts casual comfort food with fine dining perspective
Biscuits, waffles, pancakes and eggs — basically, all your breakfast dreams come true — plus classic diner lunches and home-style dinner staples are coming up fast at a James Beard Award semifinalist’s new restaurant in Plaza Midwood.
Grey’s Diner & Community Kitchen, the latest restaurant from chef Sam Diminich, is named after his son, Allan Grey. His intimate, 10-table Restaurant Constance — where he garnered recognition as one of the best chefs in the Southeast — is named after his daughter. It’s also Michelin recommended.
“What I love about my children in our relationship is they’ve never asked me to do anything other than what I love to do, and I want to be able to honor them,” he said.
The new 100+ seat venture brings together family and community for Diminich, who grew up in the kitchens at his father’s and immigrant grandfather’s Italian restaurants in Myrtle Beach and is now bringing some of his family’s recipes to the table in Charlotte.
Along with meals from the heart, customers will also now find a completely new point of view on diner food In that space that was once Mattie’s Diner.
It’s one that redefines fine dining while keeping a focus on the mission he began at the Your Farms, Your Table restaurant group he co-owns with Jill Vande Woude: sustainable, seasonal food made with locally-grown ingredients and respect for everyone from the farmers in the fields to those pulling up to eat.
“The way that we define fine dining, we’ve had it wrong for a long time. I think fine dining should come down to intention and quality of ingredients, and in the stories behind the food — that’s how I define it,” Diminich said.
“Accessibility is really important to me. Dignity is really important to me. Anybody around here is entitled to a great meal. I think that, to me, is fine dining.”
The food, drink at Grey’s
Breakfast is hitting the tables at Grey’s from 7-11 a.m. on weekdays, and from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. After lunch, the restaurant will close for an hour each day in the late afternoon for the staff to eat and reset before the focus turns to dinner, which will run until 10 p.m.
When guests stroll into the 40-seat diner car or spread out in the larger community room and patio, they can start off their meals with a latte or espresso made with beans from Charlotte’s Enderly Coffee.
Mimosas will have a spot on the menu, as will other cocktails and the seasonal, nonalcoholic beverages that have become a staple at Restaurant Constance.
Breakfast will include beignets for pairing with your coffee, plus all the staples you’d expect including a fried chicken biscuit and breakfast platter. Plant-based dishes such as vegan chilaquiles made with tofu are options.
Lunch brings the fulfillment of a longstanding request from Diminich’s son for a burger named after him. The Grey’s burger feature Shipley Farms beef on a locally made roll from Dukes, that includes white cheddar, caramelized sweet onions, burger sauce and aioli, plus a kombu-red wine glaze.
“One thing I do is to create something that appears very familia but adds an element to it that you can’t quite put words to,” Diminich said.
At dinner, expect “big plates” such as Grey’s fried flounder plate — a nod to Diminich’s childhood meals in Calabash after church — plus salisbury steak, lasagna and chicken parmesan made from family recipes.
You’ll also want to save room to soothe your sweet tooth. Diner-centric desserts including chocolate layer cake, coconut cake, pies, turnovers and milkshakes are all on deck to draw you in.
The atmosphere at Grey’s
If you’ve dined at Restaurant Constance, you’ll know Diminich pays homage there to classic bands with records on the wall. Grey’s will feature a record wall, as well, with an added bonus: tabletop jukeboxes In the restaurant’s diner car. So if you’re looking to hear AC-DC’s Back in Black or It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere by Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett, you might just be in luck.
Those personal touches extend throughout the space into the restaurant’s community room and even into the sentimentally-decorated bathrooms, where a picture of Diminich’s parents hangs among the frames in the hallway outside.
The neighborhood that Grey’s sits in is also important to Diminich, who found Plaza Midwood was a “cool place for food,” when he moved to Charlotte in 2004.
“It was very punk rock, tattoos, art and yoga,” he said. And helping to keep it that way was a big motivator for Diminich in acquiring the space from Matt King, who put the former tire shop-turned diner up for sale to shift his focus to The Wafflery.
As new developments pop up in the area and out-of-town corporations make homes within those spaces Diminich is determined to shift that focus back to Plaza Midwood’s roots.
A new crosswalk down the block has made it easier for neighborhood residents to cross The Plaza to get to the restaurant. And a bike rack is on the way, too.
“We still have food that can bring people together,” he said. “No one can agree on anything anymore — especially politics where they are. But I’m a firm believer that we have we all have more in common than we do different.”
Grey’s Diner & Community Kitchen
Location: 3100 The Plaza, Charlotte, NC 28205
Cuisine: American
Instagram: @greysdinerclt
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