Augusta Eats: Customers are getting Heart Attacks, and liking them, at Dearing restaurant

The new owners of a McDuffie County restaurant would like to give you a Heart Attack.

Or at least sell you one.

The Heart Attack – egg, bacon, cheese, sausage links and sausage patties on a biscuit or toast – is a cornerstone of the new breakfast menu at Deep South Cheese and Grill in Dearing.

The new breakfasts started in January with the restaurant’s new owners, Brittany and Andrew Brown. They were among the loyal customers of the former owner, Gino Doucet.

The Quebec native and retired military police officer from the Royal Canadian Air Force opened Deep South in 2018 featuring authentic Canadian poutine – gravy-covered French fries with cheese curds. Making fresh gravy and harvesting fresh cheese curds throughout each workday was a labor of love.

When Doucet turned to another Canadian labor of love, his sawmill, Deep South temporarily closed. That didn’t last long.

“This is very important to the local people,” Brittany Brown said. “We didn’t want to see it go, and we heard a lot of other people say they didn’t want to let it go, so we decided to take on the venture.”

She’s a health professional in Wellstar MCG Health’s ophthalmology department. Her husband runs a landscaping business. Under Doucet’s guidance for the first week, last November the Browns became restaurant owners, learning the secrets of preparing exceptional poutine.

“We haven’t deviated from that. We want to keep it going as-is, just the way he had it,” she said.

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The only difference is the breakfast. “We decided to give it a go to see how it went,” she said.

On one recent Saturday morning, Deep South set a record for breakfast as diners kept the place full for much of the morning.

“Some days we might have a handful of people and some days we don’t get much traffic at all,” she said. But on Feb. 10, Deep South was “slammed.” In a town with just a few hundred people, that’s a notable accomplishment.

Quarterbacking the kitchen is an employee with more than a decade of experience from Huddle House. A smoothly flowing kitchen helps assure successfully producing Deep South’s high-demand items, such as the Deep South Burger: two ground-steak patties stuffed with cheese curds, and lettuce, tomato and onion, topped with sweet and spicy barbecue sauce.

Deep South Cheese and Grill is at 4591 Augusta Hwy. in Dearing. In the middle of town across from City Hall, it’s hard to miss.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Dearing restaurant has new owners, but poutine is still in the routine