Breakfast tradition lives on at Blairsville’s Sawmill Place

Running the restaurant was a 24/7 job, Shawn Kight said. A day at the Sawmill Place could begin at 3 or 4 a.m. and he’d still have to return in the evening to prep for the next day.

But it’s a place and a legacy that Kight and his wife didn’t want to see disappear upon their retirement.

“People come here, and they come six days a week and order the same thing and sit in the same chair,” Kight said.

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

The Sawmill Place is frequented by North Georgia residents and tourists. Gary Lawrence said he is the restaurant’s “longest continuous customer.”

Lawrence recalled driving by the restaurant in 2001 just as it was opening. Since then, he has been a loyal customer, through the ownership changes. He eats there almost every day except Sundays, when it’s closed.

What keeps him coming back each morning is simple: “The food and the people,” Lawrence said, adding: “The same people are still working here, some of them (since) I first started coming.”

Credit: Gary Lawrence

Credit: Gary Lawrence

His two beagles wake him before dawn, and by 6:30 a.m. the retiree has grabbed a table at the Sawmill. His wife isn’t a morning person, so she doesn’t always come with him, but he’ll sometimes bring her back some food.

It was intimidating to take over a restaurant with such a dedicated clientele, Shawn Kight said, but he eased into it slowly and held off on making changes at first.

Over time, he added a lunch menu and turned his attention to building relationships with local farmers and purveyors to realize his vision of a farm-to-table restaurant in Blairsville.

Amy Kight had grown up on a farm where such meals were a given, Shawn Kight said, and sourcing locally allowed them to serve the family recipes they’d both grown up with.

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

“It was important for us for it to be legit,” he said. “It’s easy to say (farm-to-table), not necessarily easy to do.”

Kight emphasized seasonality, changing the menu frequently based on what he could buy. And the meat-and-three on the lunch menu changes daily, he said.

Using local food resonated with the Sawmill Place’s customers. Kight later added an adjacent espresso bar and farm store that stocks artisan goods and food products from the region.

Beyond serving consistent and seasonal food, Kight’s primary goal was to focus on hospitality, something that had been ingrained in him after growing up around his father’s seafood restaurants and motels in Florida.

Hospitality at the Sawmill Place means greeting every customer, learning their names and talking to them about more than just the weather.

“We don’t know where (the customers are) coming from or what they’re about to go to,” Kight said. “But while they’re here, we’re going to love on them the best way we know how. Just through conversation, through food, through service, by taking an interest in their life, and hopefully that’s the highlight of their day.”

Retaining servers and cooks who have been there for years, even decades, makes the restaurant feel familiar and warm, like walking into a friend’s kitchen.

Laura Thornton has worked as a server at the Sawmill Place for five years. She left a decades-long career in Atlanta as an event planner to move to North Georgia and spend more time taking care of her son, Joshua, who had a neurological disorder.

A job at the Sawmill Place allowed her to get home early enough to spend time with him, she said. And the North Georgia lifestyle made her slow down from her career-driven life. In Blairsville, people “work to live,” Thornton said, as she walked around the room refilling mugs with coffee and greeting customers by name.

Joshua died about a year ago. Some of the restaurant’s regulars sent flowers even though they never had met him, she said.

Manuel Lyle, who has been a daily customer for five months, likes that you don’t have just one server the Sawmill Place — they all chip in to make guests feel welcome.

When Kight decided it was time to retire, he wanted to make sure his successor would maintain the community he and his wife had grown the past 20 years.

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

“Maintaining that legacy was very important,” said new owner Curtin, founder of Curtin Team Real Estate at Keller Williams Realty and owner of Southern Charm restaurant in downtown Blue Ridge.

So far, the only changes he has implemented have been an electronic point-of-sale system and adding a rewards program.

The latter change seems to be a success, at least according to “longest continuous customer” Lawrence.

“Now, every so often you get $5 off your next breakfast,” he said, “which is pretty good.”