Cobbs Creek Diner is undergoing a rebranding. The small diner on Route 198 in Cobbs Creek will now be known as Farmhouse Restaurant and Deli, with new menu items and planned changes to its exterior.
Jonnie Forrest, now the sole owner and operator, said her husband Perry will still be cooking the fresh barbecue, ribs, and brisket that are customer favorites, but the pizza area has been replaced with a bakery offering carry-out desserts in whole or in part. In addition to the cakes and pies that the diner has always carried, there will now be cookies, cupcakes, muffins, breads and sweetbreads offered on a pre-order basis.
The revamped menu offers a number of items on the healthier side, said Forrest, with a dedicated lunch menu that includes entrée salads; BLT, club and chicken salad sandwiches; and a variety of paninis on sourdough bread. Two new lunch subs are sure to be hits, said Forrest—a chicken Philly sub and a sweet chicken sub with onion jam.
The regular menu has added fresh catfish and ribeye steak on a daily basis, along with macaroni salad and potato salad, said Forrest, and specials will continue to be offered on the weekend, including fresh flounder or scallops or all-you-can-eat steamed shrimp.
A new addition to the interior décor of the restaurant is a Charles Stieff upright piano that Forrest couldn’t resist buying when she saw it on the “Mathews Trash and Treasure” Facebook page. It came from an old farmhouse in Tappahannock, she said, and must be close to 100 years old.
“All farmhouses need ’em,” she said.
There’s even been a uniform change, said Forrest, with the wait staff wearing black-and-white checkered blouses and putting their hair in braids so they’ll look like farm girls.
Forrest said the exterior façade of the building will be undergoing a change soon, as well. In keeping with the farmhouse theme, the building will be painted barn red, with tan and white trim, and the porch will be screened in.
“It’s a fresh, new start,” she said, as well as a tribute to her late grandmother, Julie Marie King of Newland, North Carolina.
“She had a tiny farmhouse with a lot of special memories for me there with her and my cousins,” said Forrest. “It doesn’t stand today, but it has a lot of meaning to me.”
With so many changes planned, Forrest said the name change just made sense, enhancing the family-oriented theme of the restaurant. She said she hopes the community likes the new Farmhouse Restaurant and Deli and will stop in to give it a try.