Sunrise Grill

A sunny, cavernous room in a shopping plaza, open from 6am until 2pm and boasting of the millions of eggs it cracks and cooks, the Sunrise Grill is where Augustans with healthy appetites come to eat hearty with friends and family. “Seat yourself at any clean table,” says a sign up by the front door. There are plenty of counter seats, too.

The breakfast menu is basic but includes a few notable specialties, foremost among them sweet potato pancakes. While ordinary bacon and sausage are, of course, available as accompaniments, a more dynamic companion for flapjacks, eggs, or waffles is a slab of country ham. It is supersalty and provides impressive chaw. Another sensible side dish is Sunrise’s corned beef hash. It is briny, soft and moist within, and cooked in such a way that it develops a crisp skin on the outside.

The menu boasts that the kitchen’s home fried potatoes are famous. They are good ones, assertively seasoned and grill-cooked so they have crisp edges and soft insides. They are just-right for dredging through the broken yolk of a sunnyside up egg.

I was introduced to the Sunrise Grill as a breakfast place – and that it is, with breakfast served all day – but the menu reminds patrons, “We are also a very popular lunchtime restaurant.” The non-breakfast menu includes chicken and dumplings, from-scratch chili, Reubens, and burgers. Like breakfast, lunch is served from 6am to closing at 2pm.

Note: there is a second Sunrise Grill at 404 Martintown Rd. in North Augusta, SC. 803-202-9898