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IT'S PLAIN FROM THE GET-GO: Greenwood's on Green Street is not your average meat and three. Actually, it's not a meat and three at all, no matter how tempting it might be to lump it into that oh-so-recognizable category of Southern food.

JOHN AMIS/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
Greenwood's might seem like a traditional meat and three, but its menu ranges from duck with plum sauce to cheese grits and shrimp.
JOHN AMIS/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
Greenwood's lemon meringue and other pies are still displayed with pride but fall short of their reputation.
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GREENWOOD'S 1087 Green St., Roswell Overall rating: Food: American home cooking, with a decidedly Southern accent Service: Informal and at times a bit brusk. The energy of the restaurant has a boarding-house feel to it, though, as if everyone here is a regular. Setting: A well-worn house replete with rooms that wind around each other, surrounded by overgrown gardens and a large porch and patio Address, telephone: 1087 Green St., Roswell, (770) 992-5383 Hours: Open for dinner Wednesday through Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 and 5 to 9 p.m. Price range: There are no appetizers except a big basket of corn bread. Entrees that include two vegetables are $10.95 to $15.95. Credit cards: Not accepted, but personal checks are welcome Best dishes: Cheese grits with or without shrimp (but with is better) rainbow trout, fried catfish, broccoli casserole Full bar or wine/beer: Wine and beer only Reservations: Not accepted Vegetarian selections: Vegetables galore served as sides, as a plate or a la carte: mashed potatoes, collard greens, sweet potatoes, creamed corn, black-eyed peas, brown rice and gravy Children: Welcome Parking: On-street or in nearby lot Wheelchair access: Yes, but restrooms are not Smoking: No smoking in dining areas, indoors or out Noise level: Medium to high Patio: Yes Takeout: Yes OUR STAR RATING SYSTEM Outstanding. Sets the standard for fine dining in the region. Excellent. One of the best in the Atlanta area. Very good. Merits a drive if you're looking for this kind of dining. Good. A worthy addition to its neighborhood, but food may be hit or miss. Restaurants that do not meet these criteria may be rated Fair or Poor.

It is a baby, of sorts.

It is the baby of chef-owner Bill Greenwood, who's tenacious attitude still graces Greenwood's kitchen, but not as often as it used to. Now there are others at night who run the line for him. No, nowadays it's more likely that Greenwood will be sitting at a table, chatting up customers, supervising and basically pontificating on all things culinary.

He has let his baby grow up (just a bit, mind you) and basks in the warm glow that comes sooner or later to all proud fathers.

Greenwood's actually began as a place called My House 17 years ago in the same location, when cooking from scratch was still a novel notion. Bill Greenwood had settled in the Atlanta area from Baltimore, and had trained extensively with the Westin hotel's chef training program, rising to the level of corporate chef. Somewhere along the way, he decided to open a restaurant and cook things his way.

His way is to cook from scratch. He's often been known to refer to his food as "American home cooking," but everything that comes out of his kitchen has a decidedly Southern accent. These days it's harder to tell if the collards and creamed corn are really fresh. The pies, for which the restaurant has become renowned, have tough, chewy crusts, although they are mighty pretty to look at — especially perched at the entrance as an alluring reminder to save room for dessert.

But menu mainstays, and even a few nightly specials that have become favorites, remain as solidly good as they were they day the restaurant opened. Few folks can cook cheese grits this good. They are a little bit runny, a little bit firm and not a bit gummy. They are crowned with glorious white shrimp that are so plump they almost pop when you eat them. The Texas-sized cheese toast served on the side has crisp crust and a soft, fluffy center underneath a layer of tangy too-orange cheese.

Rainbow trout comes silvery skinned and fluffy white, in a sauce that defies physics. It's creamy, yet light. It tastes a little like lemon. It tastes a little like orange. It tastes bright, yet mellow. And fried catfish, when available, is something Greenwood's should patent: It's the perfect mix of cornmeal and meat, steaming hot and just as good the next day between slices of bread for a po' boy. The tartar sauce is house-made, but you won't want it; you won't want anything to get in the way of the fish.

The corn bread has become almost as renowned as the pies but lives up to reputation: It has a determined buttermilk tang underneath hot tufts of light cornmeal and the type of crunchy crust that can only happen when fat and heat meet in the oven.

Crabcakes are sometimes available. When they are, they are fresh, full of shredded lump meat and bursting with the flavor of Old Bay seasoning. Rarely are they much smaller than the plate they are served on.

The broccoli casserole is still a draw — a gooey concoction of unrecognizable ingredients that seem to spell cheese and butter and milk and perhaps even a little broccoli, too. It is the quintessential Southern vegetable: something that's had the devil cooked out of it, been combined with lots of fattening goodies, then baked until all possible identification of the vegetable is rendered impossible. Yum.

Many of the vegetables, though, taste canned (whether they actually are or not). The black-eyed peas have no flavor at all and the collards are too vinegary.

And oh, how I wanted to love the pies. They are so big, so beautiful. And it is not the fillings that disappoint, although a seasonal blackberry pie just wasn't sweet enough. No, the chocolate filling of a cream pie is a satiny smooth ticket to the land of sugar highs, covered in a mountain of whipped cream. The creamy sweetness of coconut cream pie made me want to put down my fork and just bury my face in it.

It's the crust that bothers me. It's tough and, at times, chewy. It is not flaky. It is not buttery. And it does not soak up the juices of whatever fills it, just around the edges, until it becomes an otherworldly wedding of flaky goo where crust and filling meet, one indistinguishable from the other. And don't ask if a pie can be heated, either. Many of the waitresses will look at you as if you've asked for an insider stock tip.

Pie or no pie, there's a reason a place like Greenwood's stays in business for as long as it has. Good food can be found here. Maybe cooking something fresh, from scratch, is no longer as provocative as it once was, but it's still amazing how many stand-alone restaurants don't do it.

There's a big peace sign out in front of Greenwood's overgrown garden. To enter the restaurant, you have to pass through two Elvis busts, one on each side. It feels like an indoctrination of sorts, one that reminds us that food, after all, is just food. The main goal of cooking and serving it should be that it taste good. It never hurts to have a sense of humor, either.