The Magnolia Grill: Come On To Their House
157 Brooks St, SE, Fort Walton Beach, 302-0266
By Bruce Collier July 28, 2005 Issue
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The Magnolia Grill in Fort Walton Beach looks like it’s been there for decades. In fact, the business itself is not terribly old. The restaurant originally occupied space in a nearby shopping center, now taken up by a supermarket. When relocation became necessary some years ago, proprietors Tom and Peggy Rice scouted out and found an old residence tucked away on Brooks Street. The residence had been there for decades. They renovated it, decorated it, and reopened as the “new, old” Magnolia Grill. In the time since then, many locals and out-of towners have come to regard The Magnolia Grill as their regular dining hangout.

There are definitely reasons to come here. The atmosphere inside the house is like, well, inside a house. The walls are hung with original artwork, photos, Floridiana, and military mementos, all of a very personal, familial nature. Ceiling fans keep the air moving, and you can sit outside on a patio overlooking this relatively quiet Fort Walton backstreet.

The wait staff is friendly and hardworking, and many of the diners on the night we visited had the look of regulars. The service can be a little informal at times, and even a little tardy, but generally you get what you ordered in a reasonable time.

We were seated in a corner table that gave us a good view of the roughly T-shaped dining area. A half-partition in the main room was decorated with teapots that my friend thought might be Fiesta ware, and probably were.

You can smell the cooking from the kitchen in the back, and the waiters have their work cut out for them, carrying hefty trays with ease. The portions are, as they say, generous. In fact, they are enormous.

The dinner menu is divided into equal parts Italian food and “Camp Walton style” seafood. There are appetizers, a brief list of steaks, and an estimable list of desserts.

We chose three items as starters. My friend got French onion soup, I got fried calamari, and we split an order of feta cheese and calamata olives. The cheese and olives came first. Three big slabs of feta were placed next to a mound of olives. The squid would have made a meal on its own, and were hot and crisp. The soup was a little salty, but had a good, thick and chewy layer of cheese. There’s garlic bread, too.

Other appetizer choices include cheese sticks, stuffed peppers, fried crawfish tails, fried crab claws, seafood gumbo, and oysters Rockefeller.

We were; of course, full at this point, despite having boxed half the cheese and olives to go. Dinner waited. My friend chose one from the Italian column, a trio of lasagna, veal parmigiana, and spaghetti. I got a grilled seafood medley of shrimp, crawfish, scallops, fish, and oysters. The latter was served with mixed vegetables and a twice-baked potato, or you can get rice. Along with these entrees, my friend got a tossed salad and I had one of the house soups, gazpacho. The latter came just chilled enough to be very welcome after the heat and richness of the calamari.

My friend found the lasagna a little less firm than she had expected, but had no problem with the veal and spaghetti. The sauce for all three was a dense, slightly sweet and fruity tasting tomato sauce. There was more garlic bread, but we barely looked at it.

My seafood came with a slightly spicy, herbal grill seasoning. The portion was huge and the selection nicely varied. I saved half.

Other Italian items available were pasta with shrimp scampi, meatballs, chicken livers, sausage and peppers, eggplant or chicken parmigiana, manicotti, fettuccine, and veal Marsala. Seafood selections included catfish, amberjack, and fish of the day served fried, grilled, blackened, or broiled. You can also get oysters, shrimp, and scallops various ways, including scallops Saint Jacques. The beef available was prime rib, ribeye, and filet mignon in 8 or 12-ounce servings. The latter will stop conversation.

At this point, I wouldn’t have eaten more unless someone paid me. Since someone was paying me, I ate more. Ten desserts are offered: a brownie pie, mystery pecan pie (it bakes up like a cheese cake, hence the mystery), apple pie, a milk shake, key lime pie, ice cream, cheesecake, a cake of the day, a pecan pie, and a chef’s selection cheesecake.

My friend got the cake of the day, a spicy hummingbird cake with pineapple and bananas, and a chocolate cake to go. I got the apple pie, served warm with ice cream. The hummingbird cake was very moist, and reminded me of a church supper. The pie had a flaky crust and not-too-sweet, slightly firm apple filling. Neither cake nor pie needed the whipped non-cream that came on the side.

That, and a bottle of Beaulieu Pinot Noir, was all we had to eat. I noticed a family dining across the room from us. A young boy, not very big, ordered a fried seafood platter. When the server put it on the table in front of him, his eyes widened. He probably saw the same look on our faces.

The Magnolia Grill’s menu offers a wide variety of items, at a pretty broad range of prices. The atmosphere serves equally well for intimate romance or for a family meal. Not many places can be that many things to that many people, but it seems to work on Brooks Street.

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