The Cookie Jar Cafe
1887 Kelly Cross Road Dunlap, TN
-Chandler Morrison-
In the Sequatchie Valley, far from the lights and times of the bustling Scenic City, life goes by a little slower.
Mondays drag on even more than a white collar job. The leaves seem to take their sweet time falling to the ground as the cold nips of autumn begin to stroll out into the 150-mile gorge.
Even the speed limits drop as you subtly make your way down from Lewis Chapel, coming across the mountain—away from the stress of an urbanized chaos.
Fast food. Fancy cuisine. High-priced, low-sized, new wave meals. The staff at the Cookie Jar Cafe in Dunlap, Tennessee doesn’t know the definition of any of those.
You’ll get your food when you get it.
Much like that Sunday dinner your grandmother prepared on
special occasions. The kind where you stomach fills, but she insists that you finish off the second plate you thought you had room for.
That’s the vision owner Sue Ann Lockhart had in mind. She explains as she guides us into the restaurant built on her ancestor’s land dating back over a century and a half. And although the name may sound the sort of an upstart boutique, the restaurant—and its history—are firmly planted in farming roots.
“My dad, back in 2001, decided to sell the farm that’s been in our family for around 150 years,” Lockhart reminisces. “Our mother, Debra, decided to help my sisters and me brainstorm into various ways to save our farm.”
Initially, though, the idea wasn’t to build a restaurant but a tourist attraction.
“At first, my sisters—Peggy Farley and Bonnie Hudson—and I decided that we were going to focus on agri-tourism and field trips with area schools,” Lockhart explains, leaned back in a chair with the mountains canvasing the farmhouse windows behind her. “All we would need would be a snack shop that sold refreshments.”
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“Little did we know that our snack shop dream would turn into a fully-operational restaurant.”
It's the middle of the restaurant around 2:00 in the afternoon on a Tuesday, the hustle and bustle of the city starts to fade away into the servers frantic movement behind and around the counter stocked with several different pies and cakes. Cupcakes are in underneath a glass counter not unlike an older donut shop or roadside diner from the fifties near the register.
Off in the distance, a four-lane highway engineered up the side of the mountain looks the size of a small dirt path. The hues of fall are starting to show the natural speed of the rural, small-town life.
There’s not a seat to spare, even nearly and hour and a half after a
sizable lunch peak. Our grilled catfish and pork ribeye are still being prepared in the back as we watch the restaurant begin to empty out.
The ‘hustle and bustle’ are slowly returning to Dunlap, Tennessee. The city limits are roughly two miles away, but with trees surrounding the property and only an old country road leading to the boundary, you almost couldn’t tell.
That doesn’t deter travelers, though, as you’re likely to see license tags ranging from all over the state. Just in the time we ate, Davidson County, Sequatchie County, Hamilton County, Bledsoe County, Grundy County, Marion County, Warren County, Van Buren County, and Rutherford County adorned the vehicles parked outside on a gravel patch. Many are either on their way to or from Chattanooga.
Sue Ann goes to attend to some minor business as we eat.
A friend and I sat talking politics long after the meal which consisted of sides of macaroni & cheese, green beans, fried okra, cornbread, and mashed potatoes. Time stood nearly still as we lost almost an hour amongst old wooden walls. Even with the talk of today’s issues, a window stared out toward two parallel silos on a tree line.
It was almost as if they were signaling cars from the mountain to come and grab a bite.
Slow down. Eat some food so good it will make you smack your mother…twice.
“Our Mamaw had always taught us to cook,” Lockhart said, leaning forward to put her hands on the table momentarily. “She was known for her famous country lunches all throughout the Sequatchie Valley.”
And it was the local community that became the backing behind Lockhart’s push to put the feel of her family’s cuisine in their establishment.
“The more we planned, the more we wanted to incorporate her recipes into our dreams, “ Lockhart explains. “It was a way to honor her, along with our family history, by passing on the comfort food that our family has always enjoyed.”
Anatomy of a Jar
Opening their doors for business in 2002, The Cookie Jar obtained almost instant success. It was the go-to spot for all church-goers on Sundays.
From the Baptists to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, everybody wanted what ‘the Jar’ (as its known informally around the area) had to offer.
“It’s our goal to make everything we possibly can inside the Cookie Jar from scratch,” Lockhart explains. “We make all our own desserts, all the way down to the pie crusts. When the fresh vegetables are in season locally, we like to add them to our original menu.”
As with all restaurants, the initial rush fades away, but for the Cookie Jar, it was very minute. Still, the staff made some changes in house—in family, you could say.
“Several years after opening, Peggy, Bonnie, and our mother Debra all decided to return to their original jobs,” Lockhart continued, smiling. “That left me running the show so to speak.”
The name of the restaurant, Lockhart noted, was much simpler than deciding on the venture itself. Inside the establishment, now over 14 years old, sits an actual cookie jar collection. Above the dining area, in and around the top section of the walls, the jars line shelves and indentions in the stair rails.
“My sister Bonnie started the collection nearly 20 years ago,” Lockhart says as she points toward her favorite just above the register. “A lot of customers have brought us jars along the way. It’s always great to hear the stories of customers see a jar similar to one they have or one from their past.”
As the meal settled down into our stomaches and the money into the cash register, we ventured outside toward a facet that not many other eateries can attest to having.
“We have a small petting zoo over here,” Lockhart continues nonchalantly as she opens an old steel gate. “We keep a few farm animals here so everyone can get a taste of the farm life. Taking a walk around this track can remind you of your childhood or let you experience some new sights and sounds.”
A New Chapter
As society continues advancing on, Sue Ann Lockhart still believes that life calls for some flashbacks and speed brakes along the way.
She meanders around the small track layered with dirt and small bits of gravel. Fence fixture after fence fixture with pigs, cows, and a goat adorn our sight.
Lockhart explains that earlier in the fall, they had llamas, horses, three different kind of hogs, roosters, chickens, turkeys, guineas for a brief period of time. Local farmers help stock the pins for school field trips from time to time.
“We’ll have full grades of kids coming and going from pin to pin,” Lockhart said. “They don’t really buy our food in a small shack like we had first imagined. It’s funny what times does to the ideas you have.”
The goat comes up to the fence as we reach the pin, and Lockhart reaches down to feed it momentarily. Lost on the irony of feeding adults their daily lunch instead of tourists and school kids, Lockhart pets the goat and insists that we can stay on the track as long as we like.
“But there’s always work to be done,” she smiles as she cuddles back into the restaurant.
Time slows down enough around here. But sometimes for Lockhart, the times around Dunlap seem to picking up with several industries starting up in the past six years or so. Even religion somehow gets lost in times like these.
“Back in July, we made the decision to close on Sundays,” Lockhart said as we met her outside the restaurant on the gravel patch. “God has truly blessed this family, providing us with the wonderful opportunity to share our love of some of life’s simple joys. It was time that we gave back to him.”
To some dismay, even in a community based around Christianity, ‘the Jar’ began closing its doors on Sundays, starting in September. And although the baptists, methodists, church of christ’s and various other have found other places to eat on the sabbath, you can bet they’ll be back on Tuesday when it opens back up for business.
“Whether it’s a rocking chair on the front porch, eating a piece of coconut pie, or the draw of farm animals over here, there’s something that keeps bringing people back,” Lockhart said. “I’m just thanking God that it’s went on as long as it has.”