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The public is invited to Mountain Cove Grill’s grand opening Thursday, March 2, though attendees must RSVP for the free event, being held from 4-7 p.m. RSVP at walkercochamber.chambermaster.com/eventregistration/register/1210.
Customers dine inside Mountain Cove Grill. (Contributed photo)
Rack of lamb prepared at Mountain Cove Grill. (Contributed photo)After a yearlong hiatus, the restaurant at Mountain Cove Farms has reopened under new management.
Chickamauga restaurateur Greg Cornelison will officially introduce Walker County to the new fine dining establishment, Mountain Cove Grill, during a ribbon cutting ceremony March 2.
The restaurant, housed inside a 19th century mansion, offers exotic lunch, dinner and brunch options concocted by French chef Philippe Gehin, who recently worked at the Brando Resort in Tahiti. And the venue, tucked away in a rural community between Lookout and Pigeon mountains, is just as alluring as the items on its menu.
“It’s a little gem that’s hid,” Cornelison said of Mountain Cove Farms, where he first opened the doors to the restaurant Jan. 14. “A lot of people know about it, but not everybody knows about it. They just need to come try it. Once they try it, they’ll be back.”
Cornelison and his wife, Kim, leased the property from the Walker County Development Authority for a three-year period in October, just a little more than a year after the body took over the failing venue from the county.
Between 2013 and 2015, the formerly county-owned restaurant on the property, then called Manor House Restaurant, lost about $800,000, county financial records show. The county spent $610,000 on operational costs and $225,000 on food during that time, but with the nearest city 20 miles away, too few customers ate there to offset expenses.
Cornelison said he hopes to avoid making the same mistake by turning the restaurant into a destination. He expects the beauty of Mountain Cove Farms will lure people to the locale, which is often used for weddings, Frisbee golf tournaments and weekend getaways. But he also hopes Mountain Cove Grill’s food will be just as much of a draw.
“I’m trying to make the food the quality that someone would want to drive a little extra out of the way to get,” he said. “They just need to come try it. Once they try it, they’ll be back.”
So far, the restaurant has received a steady amount of traffic on the weekends with Friday nights fully booked, and Cornelison said those numbers are expected to increase as the county leases out the rest of the farm.
On March 14, the Development Authority will consider issuing a request for proposals for parties interested in leasing the county-owned land.
Rock City CEO Bill Chapin and The Cove Resorts, a company forming to run the farm, have both expressed interest in buying or leasing the property in the past, but Joe Legge, Walker County public relations director, said it will be months before any concrete decisions are made about the future of the property.
“That’s the next step,” he said. “To get those [requests for proposals] out there so we can find out who has some ideas for the Cove.”