Great Grains Cereal Bar2148 S. Highland Drive485-6300U-Discount: NoHours: 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

When Marci Lambros first opened Great Grains Cereal Bar in October 2005, her biggest problem was that no one had the faintest idea what a cereal bar is.

“I didn’t anticipate people not having a clue what it was,” said Lambros, Great Grains’ founder, owner, manager and sole staff member.

But it’s quite simple, really. A cereal bar is a restaurant that serves up all your favorite cereals, milks and toppings under one roof, simultaneously giving you the ultimate control over your breakfast and turning the cereal-eating experience into something it’s never been before: creative, exciting and surprisingly fun.

At a cereal bar, you don’t eat cereal because it’s in the pantry-you eat cereal because you love it.

Since October, Great Grains has undergone a lot of change, in both its look and organization and people’s reactions to it.

Instead of, “What in the world is it?,” Lambros now gets, “Why in the world would you want to go to a restaurant to eat breakfast cereal, which you can easily buy at the grocery store and pour into a bowl at home?”

But Lambros says there are plenty of reasons to go out to eat for cereal.

“You don’t have 20 kinds of cereal or fresh fruits and toppings at home,” she said. What’s more, “you can get all your favorite cereals in one bowl” at a cereal bar, a feat that’s a little tricky to accomplish at home.

To better wrap your mind around the reasons to eat at a cereal bar, it helps to think about another popular breakfast food: bagels. You can easily buy a pack of bagels at the grocery store and eat one every day of the week at home. So why are bagel shops so popular? Three reasons:

1) Variety. You can’t buy a pack of 20 different kinds of bagels at the store, but you can have your pick of them all at a restaurant.

2) Toppings. You can buy a tub or two of cream cheese at the store, but not every kind there is.

3) Convenience. For people on the go, it’s often easier to stop off on the way to school or work and get everything to go-no mess, no hassle, just exactly what you want.

It’s the same with cereal. In addition to not having every kind of cereal you can imagine packed neatly inside your pantry, you probably don’t have 13 different kinds of milk taking up all the space in your refrigerator. Or a wide variety of fresh and dried fruit, candies and other toppings.

And most sane people don’t want to devote their entire kitchen to cereal any more than bagels.

Thus, Great Grains is the perfect place for anyone who savors cereal, who loves to experiment with it or who isn’t satisfied with eating the same thing all the time.

“It’s the ultimate restaurant for the cereal lover,” Lambros said. “I have everyone’s favorite.”

And it makes creating the ultimate bowl of cereal easier than ever, whether you eat in or get it to go.

At Great Grains, all 20 dry cereals are lined up in sleek, but voluminous, dispensers. You pick up a bowl (there are three sizes) on one end, then walk the line and fill it up with whichever and however many cereals you want.

“It’s a self-serve, salad-bar-type idea,” Lambros said.

Next, you stop at the counter, where Lambros gives you your choice of milk in an ideally sized single-serving carton. Then you load up on toppings, which range from healthy-dried fruit or fresh fruit that Lambros slices just for you-to definitely not healthy (but still delicious). Think M&M’s, gummy bears and mini marshmallows.

All you have to do next is grab a spoon and sit down to enjoy your creation.

If you’re in a hurry, though, just pop a lid on your Tupperware-like bowl and throw it in a bag with your milk carton and a smaller topping container-keeping everything separate until you eat it later prevents sogginess and flavor loss, two disasters cereal lovers know and loathe all too well.

But to focus on only the cold cereals at Great Grains would be to ignore one of its most noteworthy facets: hot cereal. This is something you definitely can’t get at the grocery store. If you tried, all you’d find would be packets of instant mix, and, as everyone knows, instant oatmeal is thin, bland and slightly cardboard-flavored.

Though Lambros started with instant hot cereal last fall, she soon discovered that real, homemade hot cereal is a lot tastier and more popular.

Older people especially think the cereal bar “is from outer space,” Lambros said, but when they hear about the hot cereal, they immediately love it.

Now, Lambros makes hot cereal in crock-pots every day, selling most of it to her older clientele and the more health-conscious diners, who are also quite fond of the granolas Great Grains offers.

Despite the healthy options and the healthy eaters’ efforts, though, the No. 1 cereal at Great Grains is the Cocoa Dyno-Bites-the Malt-O-Meal equivalent of Cocoa Puffs.

When asked about what gave her the idea to open a cereal bar, Lambros explained that she had heard of cereal bars in places like New York and thought it was a great idea.

“Everybody likes cereal,” she said. “It makes sense.”

Lambros previously sold printing for a living but opted to open Great Grains because she “wanted to do something really different.”

And, as the only cereal bar in the state, Great Grains certainly is different. “There’s nothing like it anywhere in Utah,” she said.

“I thought of opening a coffee shop, but there are so many around,” Lambros said. “I used to lie awake at night thinking about how (the cereal bar) would work.”

She explained that it wasn’t too hard to open her own business and that owning the cereal bar is drastically better than selling printing. Lambros loves being her own boss, “having a place to call ‘mine'” and dealing with people.

The only downside comes when it’s not busy. Since Great Grains is a relatively new restaurant (and concept) in Salt Lake City, there are sometimes hours when Lambros has nothing to do.

Great Grains is busiest in the morning, especially Saturday mornings, but Lambros is looking to expand cereal’s niche to all times of day and all days of the week.

“I would love to have more of a clientele during the week,” she said. “I would love to have people come and just hang out?I’m looking for those people who eat cereal all the time.”

Since cereal is one of few foods that appeals to everyone, Great Grains is an excellent spot for people of all ages and for all occasions. Kids, older people and families love it, and it’s perfect for teenagers and college students as well-especially since it offers free wireless Internet. And with its casual, cozy ambiance-complete with rich, earthy colors, burlap curtains and wheat accents-Great Grains makes for a prime hangout place, just for fun or even for dates.

To encourage diners to come more often, Lambros has instituted the “Bowl Club,” which gives frequent diners their own in-store painted ceramic Great Grains bowl, personalized with their name on the back, on their fifth visit.

For all the trouble people have in understanding what a cereal bar is, though, there are those out there who love cereal so much that they don’t need any explanation-they just immediately understand.

Lambros recounted what happened when one fully grown woman entered Great Grains: “She started jumping up and down and clapping her hands-she was so excited. She loved cereal so much.”

But you don’t have to be a diehard cereal fanatic to enjoy Great Grains. You could just be hungry or looking for something unusual.

“It’s definitely different,” Lambros said.