Georgie's Red Roof Cafe Share

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The up-and-com­ing Georgie’s Red Roof Café, on the cor­ner of 6^th and Bran­son St., is on the brink of offi­cial­ly open­ing its doors to intro­duce high-qual­i­ty, West Coast-inspired cui­sine. The restau­rant is owned and oper­at­ed by sis­ters, Georgeann and Mary Sas­ka, both of whom have 20+ years of restau­rant expe­ri­ence. The Sas­ka fam­i­ly owned and oper­at­ed Saska’s, a quin­tes­sen­tial Amer­i­can steak­house and seafood eatery in San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia, for over 50 years. In 2015, Saska’s was pur­chased by a new own­er and not only did the restau­rant begin chang­ing, but their for­mer home­town of Mis­sion Beach was rapid­ly chang­ing due to new cul­tur­al trends and high cycles of tourism. Georgeann want­ed some­thing dif­fer­ent and was drawn to the life and cul­ture of Indi­ana. That same year, she pur­chased 525 S. Bran­son St., which once housed Sharon’s Restau­rant & Smoky’s BBQ, and relo­cat­ed to Mar­i­on, Indi­ana with her son and daugh­ter.

​“We already want­ed to move to Indi­ana, but it was this build­ing that actu­al­ly got us to Mar­i­on,” Georgeann said. She said she liked the build­ing because it was close to Down­town, Mar­i­on.

Pri­or to open­ing up the restau­rant, Georgeann worked at Sir­loin Stock­ade, 9^th Street Café, and Payne’s Restau­rant to learn more about the food cul­ture and eat­ing habits among Grant Coun­ty res­i­dents.

When peo­ple ask Georgeann why she relo­cat­ed from San Diego, CA to Mar­i­on, Indi­ana, she always responds: ​“Why not Marion?”

For the past 4 years, Georgeann worked hard to remod­el the build­ing: gut­ting the inside, remov­ing debris, pulling up car­pet, tear­ing down walls, paint­ing, build­ing fur­ni­ture, etc. In 2017, Georgeann’s sis­ter, Mary, joined her. While Georgeann leads the kitchen, Mary takes care of the front end of the restau­rant and enjoys par­tic­i­pat­ing active­ly in the com­mu­ni­ty and serv­ing as a com­mu­ni­ty liai­son. Mary exclaimed that the Mar­i­on com­mu­ni­ty has been exceed­ing­ly wel­com­ing and help­ful. She cit­ed from remov­ing a blight­ed prop­er­ty behind their build­ing to repaint­ing the posts in their park­ing lot, the city and coun­ty admin­is­tra­tions have been respon­sive to their needs.

Georgie’s Red Roof Café is still in its soft open­ing stage, but has plans for a Grand Open­ing shortly.

The sis­ters have both revi­tal­ized a blight­ed and vacant prop­er­ty as well as intro­duced high-qual­i­ty cui­sine to Marion.

Sub­mit­ted by:

Mikay­la Marazzi

Grant Coun­ty Eco­nom­ic Growth Council