Sometimes it takes a while to discover a perfectly great restaurant that’s right under your nose.  Such was the case with Grinders Above and Beyond, a local chain of six family restaurants in Stark County and surrounding areas.  While the term “family restaurant” often conjures unpleasant imagery of tired menu offerings, old people, and a general lack of culinary creativity or “scene”, Grinders goes above and beyond all that (ha) and manages to stay pretty cool.  This post is centered around the North Canton location, which I find to have a comfortable and visually-interesting dining room, a better-than-average patio, excellent servers, and a bustling crowd pretty much every time I visit.  But it wasn’t until last summer at a company luncheon, catered by Grinder’s, when I finally became a fan of their cuisine.  It was the Key West salad that sucked me in.

Continue reading →