All-American Favorite Grilled Cheese & Co. Coming to Eldersburg

What was once a popular ice cream spot in Eldersburg has melted away, and in its place will be a grilled cheese restaurant that, with its first location in Catonsville, has created a cult following all looking for the new twist on the traditional sandwich.

Carroll County resident Vic Corbi, founder of Grilled Cheese & Co., announced this week that he is adding a second restaurant in the former Scoops Ice Cream location.

“Eldersburg was a good fit because the demographics are right and it’s a great town to bring our restaurant into,” said Corbi.

The 1,350 square foot space will have 24 seats in the dining room and outside tables. Grilled Cheese & Co. plans to open in Eldersburg in early April, a year after their first location opened its doors and appropriately just in time for National Grilled Cheese month.

Corbi said he expects to hire about 30 employees with most of them being in part-time positions.

The company will be running a listing for jobs in about a week and will start interviewing the second week in March. 

The menu will include all of the sandwiches, soups and salads on the menu at the Catonsville location but the offerings will not include fries.

“Because of the size of space in the kitchen, there is not enough room to put a hood system in there,” said Corbi.

To counter the lack of French fried potatoes, he said that the Eldersburg location would have more of a variety of chips to please those wanting a little something extra with the restaurant’s trademark sandwiches.

So how did the idea of a grilled cheese centered menu come to be?

“The actual idea for the company came to me in a dream in 2005,” said Corbi. “I was at a street corner in an RV and I was selling grilled cheese out of the side of the truck.”

Once the timing was right, his mother, a board member for Wine in the Woods festival in Columbia, found a spot for Corbi and his business partner Matt Lancelotta to start selling their sandwiches in May 2009, making his dream come true. 

“Everyone was asking us, ‘where’s your store?’ We said, ‘this is it, this is our grand opening.’ It blew us away how well received we were,” said Corbi.  

And after a year and now two locations, the expansion doesn’t stop there. Corbi said he plans to open locations in Columbia, Towson and Baltimore as soon as he finds the spaces. 

And for his next stop? “Later in the year we hope to be franchising. We’re in the planning process of getting everything ready to start franchising by the fall.”