Familiar menu, local flavor live on at Mike and C’s

Many of you living in Fayette County will remember Shadows Restaurant. Opened in 1985 in the Peachtree Crossings shopping center, for nearly two decades the restaurant served a loyal following of customers until its closing one year ago.

For those of you still missing the delicious menu, friendly wait staff and great atmosphere Shadows offered, you will be glad to know there is another restaurant in Peachtree City keeping the memories alive.

Mike & C's Family Sports Grill, in the Wilshire Pavilion Shopping Center next to Publix on Highway 74 South, is the newest restaurant venture by former Shadows owner Mike Healy, and if it seems familiar, it should. Much of the original Shadows menu and employees are now at the sports grill.

The 'C' in Mike & C's is for co-owner CeCe Coffee, who first met Healy at Shadows where she started a women's breakfast group that met every Friday. Coffee was also involved in the food industry, running a catering business out of the Wendell Coffee Golf Center in Tyrone. The two decided to combine forces and start a new restaurant and six months later Mike & C's was born.

"From the beginning we wanted Mike & C's to be unique," Mike Healy said. "As I like to say it,we are the untraditional sports grill."

So just what sets the restaurant apart and makes it unique? It is all in the details. The sports grill serves a full breakfast until two o'clock everyday, and if you remember the breakfast that Shadows offered, it is easy to see why this feature, even in a sports grill, is a popular indeed. The children's menu includes a Blow Pop for dessert.

"Our food is made from the very best products available," Healy said. "Our roast beef is as tender and lean as you can find it and that makes the French Dip our number-one best seller at the restaurant. Our burgers are Black Angus and served on a Sara Lee bun."

All the meals come in generous portions, even the crab legs, and as Healy said, "Even though you have to work for them, they are really good." Pasta dishes can be fixed as family size, and burgers come with a choice of chips, coleslaw or fries as a side.

Appetizers include nachos, fried mushrooms and onion rings and range from $3.99 to $6.99. There are several types of salads with a variety of delicious toppings, and wings can be ordered in either buffalo, teriyaki or lemon pepper sauce. For dessert, Dippin Dots, that fun ice cream variety made up of tiny beads of ice cream, is a hard to find treat.

For those with a slightly more sophisticated taste, Mike & C's offers more than just burgers and finger food. Daily specials serve up tenderloin medallions, lasagna or chicken medallions over capellini in lemon butter sauce. Check for the day's special and price, which ranges from $7.99 for pasta to $11.99 for surf and turf.

Along with their large food menu, Mike & C's offers a wide range of beer and wine, all in a nonsmoking atmosphere.

Being a sports grill, television coverage of all the biggest games is important, and Mike & C's has 18 TVs bringing in 10 different stations to cater to football, NASCAR, baseball and all other sports fans. One screen even shows Nickelodeon cartoons to keep the kids entertained.

The restaurant also offers games for kids to play in a safe environment, including checker boards. "It is amazing the amount of people who play checkers," Healy said, adding that both children and adults enjoy the game.

"We have been truly blessed with an awesome crew," Healy said of the restaurant. "They have worked very hard and played a huge role in our business." He added that Mike & C's will soon be starting construction of its second location in southern Fayetteville, and that an updated menu will be coming in the next few weeks.

Mike & C's Family Sports Grill is in the Wilshire Pavilion Shopping Center at 1200 Ga. Highway 74 South in Peachtree City. Hours of operation are Monday through Thursday 7 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 7 a.m.-11 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m.-10 p.m. For more information, call 770-486-1982.