MILLIANS: Grant’s Restaurant and Miss Minnie

Published 12:03 pm Friday, June 20, 2025

Ask people what they remember about the old Grant’s Restaurant in downtown Milledgeville, and several answers emerge quickly even though it has been five decades since it closed.

They remember the delicious food. 

They remember the ambiance, where, yes, everybody probably knew your name.

They remember James “Skeeter” Grant, the affable restaurant owner.

And they remember Miss Minnie Grant, James’ sister, who ruled the roost.

Let’s address each of those, in that order, with the emphasis on the latter. 

The food was old-fashioned, country cooking. Fried chicken. Pork chops. Mashed potatoes. Green beans. Peas. And don’t forget their famous sunshine salad, with crushed pineapple and grated carrots in lemon Jello.

“Oh, my gosh,” says Anne Overstreet Walden, whose mother was a Grant. “The food was out of this world. Home cooking at its best. You could get a piece of chicken, two vegetables, a salad and a roll for 79 cents.”

“Everything was good,” says Myra Schubert (Kitchens), who was a waitress at Grant’s Restaurant for many years. “It was from a country point of view, nothing fancy.”

Schubert remembers that Thelma and Rosie were the main cooks. The restaurant served breakfast, lunch and supper. 

The ambiance? 

Every morning, the coffee crew showed up. Sitting at the long table, they were welcome to drink coffee and talk. Gossip, you think?

Ed Robinson said he ate breakfast there every day. Schubert says there were so many regulars she can’t remember them all. She mentioned Ralph Beasley, a business partner of Chester Gunby, and Larry Allen, the newspaperman.

Terry Schubert, Myra’s son, remembers when he was a student at GMC in the late ‘60s and being able to leave campus at lunchtime. He and other cadets would go to Grant’s for lunch. 

They’d have the hamburger steak, French fries, salad and drink for $1.25.

Mrs. Schubert was proud to be a waitress, and welcomed all the customers. 

“We were always nice,” she said. “We didn’t look down on anybody that walked in that door. I don’t care who they were. We greeted them kindly.”

Walden said her uncle James Grant had several restaurants around town at various times, but his Hancock Street location was his last and best-known restaurant.

“There was not a better boss than Skeeter Grant,” Schubert said.

And, finally, let’s move to Miss Minnie Grant.

Miss Minnie’s name comes up very quickly in any conversation about Grant’s Restaurant.

As background, Miss Minnie was one of six children to J.C. and Ida Florence Grant. 

Her mother’s death was front-page news in The Union-Recorder in 1924. The other children were James, Joe, John, Evelyn and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, who was Anne Walden’s mother, was still a teenager when Mrs. Grant died.

“Miss Minnie was like a mother to my mother and a grandmother to me,” Walden said. “She was more than an aunt. I adored her. She did everything for us. It was a blessing to have her in my life.”

Of course, others were quick to point out that Miss Minnie could be, well, bossy. 

“She was a fusser,” Schubert said. “Everything had to be done Miss Minnie’s way.”

And Ed Robinson tells the story of Miss Minnie telling him and other diners to “pick up your feet. I’m going to sweep.”

But Walden only saw Miss Minnie’s heart of gold. 

Miss Minnie lived in The Carolyn Apartments on Jefferson Street, then next door to Richard Binion Clinic.

“Back then, new mothers had to stay in the hospital for at least a week with their babies,” Walden said. “Miss Minnie would go over there at night and visit and take them sandwiches, salads and snacks.”

Minnie’s apartment overlooked GMC, and Walden remembers as a child spending time looking out the bedroom window, watching the cadets do formations across the street.

Miss Minnie split her time between helping her brother James at the restaurant and her brother Joe at Grant’s Jewelry store.

At the jewelry store, Minnie helped a lot of brides and got invited to a lot of weddings. Walden and her mother went along. 

Walden often wound up handing out the mints.

Minnie also would go to brides’ homes to arrange the wedding gifts so friends and relatives could come for a “Sip and See.” They’d ooh and aah over the gifts and have tea and cookies.

Later, when Anne Walden and her husband Russ moved out of town, Miss Minnie would write letters to her every Sunday, reporting the news from Milledgeville. 

Miss Minnie and James “Skeeter” Grant passed away years ago, but they still live on in the minds of Walden and Schubert.

Schubert is now 93 and “doing great for my age.” 

“I really enjoyed working there,” she said of Grant’s Restaurant. “I miss it so much.”

Schubert said she’d love to see a restaurant like Grant’s open in Milledgeville.

“You just don’t know how wonderful it would be.”

—Rick Millians, a 1970 Baldwin High grad, is retired after working at newspapers in Georgia, Ohio and South Carolina. Reach him at rdmillians@aol.com.