Five months after moving into her first standalone brick-and-mortar restaurant, chef Virginia Cofer, 62, finds herself far removed from the madding crowd of Chattanooga’s Southside. The name is familiar, but the location may be a surprise. Petunia’s Silver Jalapeno has now jumped the border and finds itself in an area a few miles northeast of LaFayette, Georgia, and another few miles south of Chickamauga, right where Highway 193 meets Cove and Hog Jowl roads — out in the country.
(READ MORE: Chickamauga is big on small-town charm)
“We get people from Atlanta, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, Signal Mountain … all around,” she says as she plates a grilled chicken quesadilla for a waiting table. “But this also gives the guys in this area a place to eat. There’s nothing else around here.”
And sure enough, within minutes of this statement, utility trucks pull into the parking lot and several men, hungry for Cofer’s cooking, file in and take their seats.
Read on to discover how the restaurant got its name and how Cofer’s scalloped potatoes got the name truck bed potatoes.