I go to restaurants to get things I can't make well or easily myself...grilled cheese is neither of these things.
FWIW, Melt Bar and Grilled has been featured on the Travel Channel and Food Network.
In case you care to see the types of sandwiches they serve: http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com/
PS. I'm surprised the paleo-diet nuts haven't shown up in these grilled cheese threads yet...
I don't eat grilled cheese, but I never thought it was particularly healthy before reading up on nutrition and experimenting with a more paleolithic style of eating, and I certainly don't now; but neither are many other restaurant chains' signature offerings. You can eat them if you like, it's your own body after all.
(Aside: My impartiality to grilled cheese is possibly also because I'm British, and you can't get a decent cheese-and-beans toastie here for love nor money; it's nothing without the beans, I say. Nothing!)
Actually I used to make fun of the paleo diet, then I tried it and discovered it really is a good way to lose weight (if nothing else) without feeling hungry. On the other hand I regained the weight as soon as I came off the paleo diet, and I find it too hard to maintain -- there's very few places you can actually buy a paleo-compliant meal, and I was getting pretty darn sick of eating the same few meals over and over again.
Also, there's grilled cheese.
There are two kinds of diets, lose weight now diets and lifestyle/habit diets. Both diets are subject to the "but I regained the weight" issue, the lose weight now type probably more so.
The key thing, obviously, is to eat well and live healthy. Leaving that regimen, however it happens, is going to be bad.
Why a pasty craze never took off here in the U.S., I will never know. Delicious meat in an easy-to-eat package? I'm sold.
Luckily I'm on the east coast next week and I hear there's a pie shop in New York City.
I don't get it. Is it the prejudice against British food? (I love some good fish and chips every once in a while.)Satisfaction with burgers and fries? Lack of imagination? Not enough exposure?
What is it?
http://kenanderson.net/pasties/michigan.html
http://www.upper-peninsula-now.com/pasties.html
http://www.exploringthenorth.com/foods/north.html
I've had a pasty in the U.P., and I'd be glad for pasties to become more generally available in the United States. As it is, my wife (who is Taiwanese) makes homemade meat pies, to surprisingly good effect from someone who didn't grow up eating them.