MONTE VISTA — Tina Eastman held a grand opening for her second restaurant, Grammy’s Kitchen on Adams Street in Monte Vista. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Saturday, June 18. The Monte Vista Chamber of Commerce was present to cut the ribbon.

“I am very excited about opening this restaurant,” Eastman said. “The dream was there 20 years before I ever opened a restaurant and now, I have two. I couldn’t have asked for a better dream come true. We opened a restaurant four years ago in Moffat and named it Grammy’s after my great-grandmother. We always went to her house every Sunday for dinner. Between my Grammy and my mother and I, well they were the ones that taught me how to cook. Some of the recipes that we have here are handed down from them, both my mom and my Grammy. We make chicken noodle soup here, and that’s my Grammy’s recipe. My mom’s recipes are the chicken fried chicken and chicken fried steak, it’s just down-home cooking.”

Eastman explained how the restaurant is family-oriented as her daughters also work for the restaurant with her.

“My girls are here helping, so I get to see my grandchildren a lot too which is nice,” Eastman said.

Eastman explained how she started gathering ideas for her restaurant many years ago.

“I started gathering restaurant equipment 20 years before we opened,” Eastman said. “My mom and dad bought a shell of a building and we renovated it. The one in Moffat has a lot of history, it’s got the old gym floor from the school in that restaurant. So, five generations of my family played basketball on that floor. It also has an old school window in it too.”

Eastman went on to say, “When I heard about this building on Adams Street, I was excited, there is history here, that was why I chose this building, it’s a historic building also. We even have history here on our menu, too. I remember a food item where my mom used to work here in Monte, at a place called Ma’s Hash house, the item was called ‘The Thing’ and the ‘Half Thing,’ which is just a chiliburger, but I put that on my menu, too, to try to preserve some history from former restaurants. My mom was raised here in Monte Vista, and we decided to open our doors down here because of the population. Moffat has about 100 people in town, this place has a lot more.” 

Eastman also spoke of the importance to her of having gluten-friendly food.

“Our establishment does offer gluten-free bread and gluten-free hamburger buns, to me that is very important,” Eastman said. “We wanted to give people some choices. We also hand bread our food and we try to make as much of it from scratch as possible.” 

Eastman’s grandson, Brantley Duke, was enjoying some French toast by his grandmother and said, “It’s really good, I like my French toast and I like my Grammy's restaurant.”