TASTE OF THE TREASURE COAST
END OF A SOULFUL ERA
64
PHOTOS BY WALT HINES
Granny’s Kitchen owner Hassie Russ often regaled customers with her stories of her friendship with famed author Zora Neale Hurston. She and
husband, Charles. closed their restaurant, which had been featured in The New York Times, on Feb. 2 to retire.
Historic Granny’s Kitchen closes after
43 years of serving the community
BY CATHERINE ENNS GRIGAS
It is the end of an era for a beloved restaurant that
was the heart — and soul — of Avenue D in Fort
Pierce for 43 years.
Granny’s Kitchen, where Hassie Russ, 77, and her
husband, Charles, 78, have served up Hassie’s family
recipes since 1975, closed Feb.2. The Russes are ready for
retirement and have sold the building, which includes
not only the modest four-table restaurant, but a banquet
room where birthday parties, wedding receptions and
baby showers were held.
It was a landmark on the main street of Fort Pierce’s
African-American community, and its closing will leave
a hole.
“Everybody says that,” Hassie Russ says. “It makes
me not want to do it.”
It was a cozy spot with a classic soul food menu —
fried chicken, smothered pork chops, chitterlings, collard
greens and sweet potato pie, along with the best oxtails
and gravy in the county served up with a friendly smile.
It was a place where blacks and whites, and people from
all walks of life, could go to get a delicious down-home
meal with all the trimmings for a reasonable price.
It has also been a mecca for tourists from across the
country on the trail of the renowned Harlem Renaissance
writer Zora Neale Hurston, who was Hassie’s next
door neighbor, and the local artists who achieved fame
as the Highwaymen, many of them Hassie’s friends.
NATIONAL EXPOSURE
When The New York Times came to trace the footsteps
of Hurston’s last days, which were spent in Fort Pierce,
Granny’s Kitchen was featured in the 2010 article. It >>