Grafton's Check Please Cafe to feature on 'America's Best Restaurants'

A Grafton local favorite is set to hit the national stage, as Check Please Cafe will be featured in a future episode of "America's Best Restaurants." Patrons were joined by host and a camera crew as one of ABR's two vans traveling the country stopped by the restaurant at 597 Main St., Grafton. "America's Best Restaurants" is an online outlet that showcases some of the best eateries across the country, based on their menus, reviews and customer recommendations. Check Please owner Tara Vruvas said that her restaurant was nominated by a customer. "It's awesome that a customer thought highly enough of us to throw our name in the ring," she said. Tara Vruvas and her husband, Mike, founded Check Please with two goals in mind; to provide healthy, local food and to provide it however their customers want it. "We focus on local supplies like a local coffee roaster, local milk and then also cleaner foods and making things from scratch," Vruvas said. "We can do a lot of things that are low carb, keto diets, gluten-free, vegan … because it can be hard for those people to find something that they want to eat at some places." Vruvas said that when she and her husband began thinking about the idea of opening their own restaurant, some of the more particular eaters in their family came to mind. "Every time we would go out to eat he (my husband) is like 'I can't have anything with mushrooms on it,' my sister can't even have onion on the plate," Vruvas said. "So it was like, what if we opened a restaurant and people told us what to make them and you didn't have to overcome that awkwardness of 'I'd really like this, but can you make it without this and this?' I said what if we just got rid of that pain point and people told us what to make." The solution was Check Please's unique "checklist" ordering system, which allows customers to build their own meal for breakfast, lunch or dinner. "You can create your own omelet, create your own sandwich or salad, it's really what — I think — is a lot of the draw of coming here," Vruvas said. "That and the clean eating." The "America's Best Restaurants" crew said that Vruvas and the Check Please staff will be featured on the outlet's online show sometime in the next two to three months. Keep an eye on the restaurant's Facebook page, where the feature will be reposted once it is live. Check Please is open daily from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and can be found at checkpleasecafe.com. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.