More Info
Cookie Jar Café1887 Kelly Cross Road in Dunlap, Tenn.OPEN: Tuesday-Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. CST. Closed Sunday and Monday.CALL: 423-949-5852
It has been a good year for Dunlap’s Cookie Jar Café. Business is steady – if not booming. In fact, owner Sue Ann Lockhart has been so busy that she recently decided to start closing the restaurant on Sundays in order to spend more time with her family.
Hopefully she has had time to relax. After all, Cookie Jar’s bread-and-butter season – hot-from-the-oven sourdough bread, that is – is only now beginning.
The holidays are a huge time for the café. Many families choose to supplement their own spreads with bulk-ordered sides and sweets. Basically, said Sue Ann, “Anything we offer on a normal basis, we will be able to sell in bulk.”
That includes trays of turnip greens, creamed corn, mac and cheese, fried okra, slaw, potato salad, Mexican cornbread salad and, of course, its sourdough rolls. Every year, said Sue Ann, the café prepares hundreds of pans of that bread – buttery and almost sweet-tasting. Orders for those rolls are rivaled only by Cookie Jar’s famous confection selection.
Dessert options include whole coconut crème pies, and German chocolate and fresh strawberry cakes. There are triple-layer tortes – including chocolate, banana and cherry delight – as well as an ever-changing lineup of stacked cupcakes. All desserts are homemade, so ingredients are limited, as is one’s energy supply when baking for the entire community.
The deadline for Christmas orders is Dec. 20. Cookie Jar will be closed Nov. 23-24, Dec. 24-26 and Dec. 31-Jan. 2 – which should be an adequate amount of time for Sue Ann to refresh in preparation for yet another big year in 2017.