Community Spotlight:

Guests are greeted by two silly cartoon pigs painted on the fence surrounding the concession trailer's barbeque setup. 
Photo by Haley McCord

Country Girl Cooking is a southern-style concessions trailer located approximately ten minutes from Concord University’s campus beside Grant's Supermarket. The face of the business is Sylvia Mitchell, who also operates as both an order-taker and cook. “I’m country girl!” she says with a smile.

The business began around March of this year and has been going strong ever since. With lots of help and support from the community, Country Girl Cooking was able to stay open all through the summer season and plans to stay open the fall and winter seasons as well. When asked how well business had been, Mitchell replied, “Business has been pretty good. When Bojangles first opened and Arby’s opened the same day, lunch business went down a little bit, but our lunch business is back and we stay busy pretty much all the time. We cook our own barbeque, we make our own sauce and on Fridays and Saturdays, we cook our own baby back ribs.”

For those who love casual festivals staples like cheeseburgers, ribs, steak hoagies, cheese fries and strawberry lemonade, this is the perfect joint to visit in the afternoon for a tasty meal and unique atmosphere. They also serve a variety of deep fried desserts like candy bars and many people’s favorite fried confection, Oreos.

In a town full of dollar menus, the prices at Country Girl Cooking at first seem tad high compared to other burger joints, but after sampling the food, it’s clear that the quality is a cut above those cheaper restaurants and very much worth the slight upcharge. With a Concord ID, be it student or faculty, meals are ten percent off.

When asked about how many Concord students have dropped by, Mitchell said, “We’ve been seeing more. We had the volleyball team first; Of course, they were dressed so we knew they were from Concord. We told them we were offering the ten percent discount and they told some of their friends. We’ve had several of the Concord students stop by but we’d like to have more and more!”

Although a tad noisy because of the roadside location, the atmosphere around the food trailer is welcoming and whimsical; silly cartoon pigs are painted alongside the trailer and guests are encouraged to sit at a picnic table to enjoy their meal. Giant rolls of paper towels are centered on each picnic table for those who dare to try ribs.

To prove that their food is the best around, Mitchell told a short story about their famous ribs: “We had a gentlemen show up recently and he said ‘I understand you have the best barbeque around’ and I said ‘well, yes sir, we think so’ and he said ‘so does my six year old granddaughter; she sent me down here!’”

Mitchell plans to begin a car-hop in the later months: “We are starting a car-hop. It’s when people leave the trailer, come outside and take your order in any kind of weather. Since a lot of people don’t recognize the term, we’re trying to find a term that everybody will recognize.” The idea seems similar to a Sonic or old-fashioned drive-up restaurant, where a server would come out to the car, take the order, and then deliver the food right to the car without the patron ever having to unbuckle their seatbelt. This would be great during the bitter winter months when people typically crowd the drive-through at restaurant chains in order to avoid the cold, and would also be a fun blast-from-the-past for those who have never experienced such a service.

As the fall and winter months lurk closer, Country Girl Cooking is considering serving hot drinks and adjusting their menu to be more seasonally appropriate by adding more winter-friendly options. Mitchell said, “I was thinking hot chocolate for the winter and maybe hot tea. We’re going to be serving some [new] things. I make great chicken taco soup! We’re thinking about trying some different soups throughout the winter.”

Mitchell closed with “I always tell people that if the food isn’t good, tell me. If it is good, tell everybody. That’s kind of our philosophy. If something isn’t right, we want to make it right while you’re here. We’ll take care of you.”

For more information about Country Girl Cooking, call 276-979-7623, visit their Facebook page, or simply stop by with a Concord ID and check out their tasty treats.