With a makeshift kitchen built from a card table, two induction burners and a large panini press, Any Thyme Any Plate may seem temporary. But when Liz Greising and her husband, Joe, start crafting softball-sized crabcakes from scratch alongside a German-style pot roast panini stuffed with garlic mashed potatoes, buttered noodles and red wine beef gravy, it’s clear these dishes won’t easily be forgotten.
“There are so many more possibilities than just cooking in a crockpot or on a stove-top,” says Liz. “There are a million possibilities and so many ways to just manipulate basic recipes people use.”
Rather than being locked down to a brick-and-mortar restaurant, the Burton-based husband-and-wife duo opted for a pop-up approach to the business they started last fall. With Liz’s service know-how and Joe’s 30-plus years managing local restaurants such as Flip Side and Bell & Flower in Chagrin Falls, they’ve taken their project to spots that lack traditional kitchens, such as Akronym Brewing, Sibling Revelry and Terrestrial Brewing Co., and local events such as the Westside Flea.
“We’re all over the map,” says Liz, who updates their location weekly on Facebook. “We’re trying to bring something to the table you didn’t expect to get at these places.”
Using ingredients from vendors such as Heritage Farms in Peninsula and the West Side Market, they’ve created a rotating list of comfort food and classic American dishes with a twist — think filet mignon sushi rolls with herb-garlic cream cheese and kimchi mayo, crabcake Benedicts and pho noodle soup.
At each location, guests can find up to six dishes ranging from a short rib hash made with an 18-hour craft beer-braised beef over Cajun style home fries and two sunny side up eggs to one of six variations of stuffed French toast, including apple pie with a whiskey caramel sauce.
Rather than using disposable food truck trays and plastic utensils, they serve everything tableside on white china with real silverware.
Although they’ve discussed the idea of opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant, for now the couple is focusing on expanding to wineries and other local breweries, such as Bookhouse Brewing in Ohio City and Bascule Brewery in Lorain.
“We’ve come up with a lot of our dishes just from being inspired by our freedom,” says Liz. “It’s an experience. We want you to see we can really do this.”
