Initially planning to open in August, Downtown vegan cafe and bakery Grenville Kitchen is slated to open by the first week of November.
A week before the restaurant’s final inspection in August, owner Jenielle Frith suffered serious injuries in a car accident and was hospitalized for more than a month, she said.
Her phone was lost in the accident, and so were her vendor contacts, further complicating the anticipated Aug. 5 opening.
After a city inspection, Frith said the cafe and bakery at 311 W. Ashley St. will be ready to open.
“Of course you can’t foresee an accident, an accident can happen at anytime,” she said.
Frith said she was disappointed she was unable to open on schedule.
“But you adjust to it, you bounce back and you get up and make it happen regardless because it’s a dream of mine to have this open and my partners feel the same. So we’re pushing forward to make sure it is open,” she said.
Frith said the cafe’s website will be up within a few weeks. The menu is set, and taste-testing for it went well, she said.
For entrees, she plans to serve vegan mac n chz; chickn’ and waffles – the classic dish served with a chicken alternative; vegan collard wraps; fried jackfruit; and vegan lasagna.
Specials will include pholourie and pelau, dishes from Trinidad and Tobago.
Pholourie is a dish of fried, spiced dough balls and pelau is a rice dish. She also will serve roti, an Indian flatbread.
Prices for main dishes range from $5.50 for a small mac n chz to $15.50 for a large order of Voxtail – vegan oxtail.
For salads, soups and sides, the menu includes lentil salad, roasted veggie salad, caprese salad, crispy onion and carrot fritters, spring rolls and a soup of the day.
The bakery will serve 6- and 8-inch cakes and by the slice. A slice costs $7.50 and an 8-inch cake is $35.
The name for the restaurant came from Frith’s grandfather’s last name, Grenville. She called it a kitchen because she wanted to include both the baking and cooking aspects of the business into one name.
Frith is partnering with St. Augustine vegan, gluten-free bakery IRie Couture Cakery. The bakery wanted to branch out into serving food, so she and a partner decided to open Grenville Kitchen to do that.
She attended the Le Cordon Bleu culinary school and has been in the restaurant industry for 11 years.
