Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2014 - 50

Above: Meatloaf is a
staple on the menu at
Wade's, a secondgeneration family
restaurant that first
opened in 1947.
Center: Wade's,
around 1949: In the
beginning, there was
no menu - Betty
Lindsey would set
plates of food on the
counter with that
day's meal.

Charleston [S.C.], and that's where I discovered
southern food," says Jenna Schreiber, the chef at 61
Main, which she and her husband, Tadd, opened in
October 2008.
"We're a family-run restaurant, and that's all we
want to be," says Tadd. "We don't want to be anything
bigger than that." During the day, he works with
Jenna's father in a business doing industrial heat treating; at night he helps manage the restaurant. "I've
done dishes... I've plunged toilets."
The Schreibers have two children - Sadi, two years
old, and Sam, six months old - and settled in Georgia
because of "the beauty and the people," says Jenna,
with no hesitation. "I think it's that small-town feel
as well - it reminds me of where I grew up in
Pennsylvania... only it's warmer, and we don't have to
deal with quite as much snow!"
"We liked the scenery, the mountains, the relaxed
pace," says Tadd.
The restaurant's original address - and hence its
name - was 61 Main Street. In 2010, they moved
"down the street" to 49 South Main, but kept the
name. "It was kind of a diner before us," says Tadd.
"We ripped out a wall of sheet rock to show the original brick... cleaned it up, sealed it up. We put new
floors in, a lot of painting." Jenna's sister-in-law and
brother beth and Adam Petrillo and her parents were
"integral" - her mother, Joann Petrillo, has managed,
even served coffee; her father, Drew, is "resident
repairman, handyman, jack of all trades.
"Without them, we wouldn't be here."
"We're just trying to create an extension of our
kitchen at home," says Tadd. It's "comfort food, but
it's very creative." They work with local farmers, keeping things sustainable and organic.
The deviled eggs are "almost like a spin on a cheese
board" says Jenna. "We've run it for the last two
menus... We do these little mini butter challah pop-

50 | BlueRidgeCountry.com

pers... three pieces of that, a little bit of cheese [usually
one Georgia and one imported], and then the three
deviled eggs."
"Recipes are the hardest things to figure out," she
says - "whenever someone asks us for a recipe I just
laugh - it puts us in overdrive to actually calculate
what we're doing."
These deviled eggs include dried preserved mushrooms, indigenous to the area, bacon, sorghum syrup
and Georgia pecans. "And we put some local chevre
in it that we got from the local guy.
"People really dig it. So many people go to picnics
and have deviled eggs" but they don't put in the "unobvious ingredients - we use whatever we have on
hand. We've done everything from buffalo to herbs."
61main.com
706-253-7289

Chicken & Dumplings:
THE CORNER SHOP. BRAMWELL, W.VA.

Built in 1910, it was a pharmacy, a soda fountain in

http://www.61main.com http://www.BlueRidgeCountry.com

Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2014