GENESEE COUNTY, MI - Walk into the Great Giant Supermarket and you will see a typical slate of groceries to buy.
Walk to the back area, and you’ll notice a soul food kitchen that isn’t typical.
Led by head chef Kelly Williams, the kitchen is attracting a heavy amount of foot traffic.
“Everything I do is with love,” Williams said.
Located at G5204 N. Saginaw St. in Genesee Township, the soul food kitchen offers fried chicken, wing dings, rice, meatballs, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, black-eyed peas, baked beans, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, dressing, yams, ribs, meatloaf, pork chops, and French fries.
Williams is from Mississippi and never planned on staying long at the supermarket. She has a cooking background and used to own a restaurant in Mississippi. She was hired seven months ago and was hoping to move back to Mississippi after a couple months.
“I’ve been here ever since,” she said.
The soul food kitchen has blown up on the supermarket’s Facebook page, as a recent July post promoting the kitchen generated 69,000 likes and over 19,000 shares.
“It’s wonderful to see it blown up but it hasn’t reached its peak yet,” Williams said. “I feel like in my heart it hasn’t reached its peak yet. But this is what I really love to do.”
The Great Giant Supermarket has three other locations in Saginaw, Grand Rapids and Lansing, but local store manager Mike Perez said his location is the only one that offers the soul food kitchen.
“People across the country like in Georgia and southern places started asking us where we are located,” Perez said, adding some have traveled from across Michigan for the kitchen’s food. “It’s good to have a kitchen but you also have to have the right person leading it and making the food. Ms. Kelly has a lot of experience cooking and she has a great personality.”
The kitchen is open Monday-Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Follow the Great Giant Supermarket on Facebook.
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