Sugar Shack Cafe Serves Comfort Food in Granite City

Sugar Shack Cafe ( 1416 East 20th Street, Granite City, Illinois ) has opened in the former home of Petri Cafe. The 1950s-vibe diner, owned by Trecie Wilson and Steven Perkins, served its first breakfast April 1. The couple most recently ran their Madison, Illinois, location of Sugar Shack as takeout only, but now they have closed that location and jumped into a full-service, sit-down restaurant dishing up the kind of comfort food that is close to their hearts.

The Southern flavor of this business is threaded through this menu. Begin with something like shrimp and grits or a chicken wing breakfast platter. Move on to a lunch or brunch of Mississippi catfish nuggets or a crispy golden fried tripe burger. Then skip to a perfect end with peach cobbler or a slab of caramel pound cake. The diner also has a section on the menu called “Sugar Shack Baskets.” Here’s where you’ll find “Boss Hogs” (pulled-pork sandwiches), riblets, shrimp and fried frog legs. “To me, frogs legs taste like chicken and fish mixed together,” Wilson says, adding that her favorite thing on the menu is that Mississippi catfish fillet.

This place – all the way from the menu to the soda pop in glass bottles, to the retro Coca-Cola machine and cutout of Marilyn Monroe with her skirts blowing up – feels like the real deal. And the crowds are pouring in. “The very first day, we sold out of chicken livers, frog legs, oxtail and chitterlings,” Wilson says. “I can’t keep my mac and cheese, or my duck dressing in the house.”

Prices are fair across the menu, and on Wild Wing Wednesdays, wings are $1. Note that smoked turkey legs and ribs are available only on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Sugar Shack’s interior features a checkerboard floor, lollipop-red walls and peacock-blue stools at the counter. The back wall is pinned in old LPs – Jimi Hendrix, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and so on. That’s always a good look.

There are seats for 51 in this 2,500-square-foot space. However, Wilson and Perkins said the restaurant will double in size when it expands next door in less than a month.

The restaurant is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Friday, and from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday.