by The Great Foodini
Do you sit at your office during lunch and eat a boring ole ham and cheese sandwich everyday? I’m looking at you Jim Halpert from Dunder Mifflin.
Well, if it’s because you are lazy, you are in luck. If it’s because you are cheap, you are still in luck.
What if I were to tell you that there is a little diner straight out of a movie set sitting just south of the railroad tracks on Hwy 49 in downtown Gulfport? Would you put that ham and cheese down then?
The first time I ventured into The Palace Grill was on the first day I began work at my new job in Gulfport (the Foodini column doesn’t pay my bills…I have a real job folks). I didn’t know anyone at my new workplace, but I wanted to get a good hearty breakfast. You know, comfort food.
With the décor, the people, the food and definitely the prices, I felt like I stepped back a decade or three. This week, the Palace Grill turned 59 years old.
For those on a tight budget, you can get a hamburger for less than $3. A hearty hamburger steak or large chef salad for $5.50 is a winner, but the star of the show and has been for 59 years is the daily special.
The daily special is one meat and three sides a drink and dessert is less than $10.
The daily special changes from time-to-time to keep diners happy with variety, but one fateful day that I cozied my fat butt up to a window booth overlooking Hwy 49, I had a big choice to make. Fried Chicken, meatloaf or Italian Steak. Italian steak was my choice, it was a hybrid between veal parmesan and hamburger steak. It was tasty, filling and affordable. Top that steak off with a side salad, green beans an sweet buttered carrots…we are talking about a feast every day for less than $10.
I typically pass on the dessert, but it is always fresh and always delicious. Usually a piece of cake right out of the oven or on special days, a banana pudding is the dessert of the day, but one time, there was a bread pudding.
The staff is friendly, old school but friendly and hilarious. The menu has a slogan on the bottom that sums this place up.
“Palace Grill – Order what you want, eat what you get”
