ABOUT US
Our Mission
S2S | Sugar 2 Salt is a locally focused and seasonally driven breakfast restaurant and catering kitchen located in The Village at Grand Traverse Commons. We love our Northern Michigan community, its land and the waters that surrounds them.
We value greatly every client we host and every guest we serve, and stay present in the day of your event and in the moment of your visit, because it is you that provides us the opportunity to display and create what we love to do.
Our Story
We met at Black Star Farms; young and full of passion, and quickly fell in love, together reinventing the business department at Black Star Farms and curating our own big dreams along the way.
“While getting to know each other, we realized our dreams fit perfectly – it was almost comical. Years before we even met, when Jonathan was in design school and I was in culinary school, we had the same company name; S2S. Jonathan, a designer who likes short, bold names had created a logo for the name while in design school while I, who wanted to open a restaurant of my own, scribbled the name on napkins in the kitchen. For both of us, S2S stood for Sunrise to Sunset (it wasn’t until we met that we came up with the name Sugar to Salt.)”
– Stephanie Wiitala
Why Breakfast?
As parents, we chose to go into the breakfast business to ensure that we could always be home to tuck our kids into bed. We’ve always enjoyed breakfast service; the intimacy of the meal.
“Breakfast sets the tone for your whole day, so why not start out with something great? I have this mantra I’ve been saying forever: We all have to eat to live?
– Stephanie WiitalaYou cannot function as a human being without food and beverage? Your body needs that, so you might as well make it something good. And if you do that, now you’ve set the tone for the rest of your day, the rest of your week, by taking good care of yourself. We want to help you do that by putting good things in front of you that make you feel great.”
The Menu
Our menu is seasonally driven and as local as possible. We put a twist on what you would traditionally see on the breakfast table, in an exciting way both visually and for your taste buds.
“The menu itself is always going to be expanding and changing with the season. There are never going to be any western omelets on the menu; we’re trying to stay away from Eggs Benedict and traditional breakfast expectations, although I will have hollandaise. I’m pretty fancy in my plate-ups, I like to take a little time. We have edible flowers and herbs, and plates are going to be garnished really nicely. Right now, for example, the menu is heavy on asparagus, the early fruits; I just got some fresh strawberries from the farmer’s market.”
– Jonathan Dayton
We aren’t snobby and unapproachable with our food, just beautiful and tasty and completely unexpected. We’re just trying to do something different, we’re trying to offer something people haven’t had before.
The Aesthetic
Not too comfortable to fall asleep mid-meal but exactly relaxing enough to enjoy a good breakfast and conversation in a welcoming atmosphere amid the smell of freshly brewed coffee. We have self-serve coffee and you can grab a granola bar or a pastry and enjoy that at the bar top or window ledge. Then there’s the dining room. If you want to come in with your boyfriend or girlfriend, or you want to come in with your parents one morning, you can sit down and enjoy a really nice meal. We can’t be everything to everyone, but we’re trying to give people options for whatever they’re feeling that day.
Importance of Community
This entire operation is about community. Our employees are friends we’ve worked with previously and the whole idea behind our menu is to cook with local ingredients, supporting local farmers and our neighbors here in the Commons.