New Pizzeria And Wine Bar Planned For Cookeville’s West First Street

A new pizzeria and wine bar is being planned at the old Putnam Printing Company building on West First Street.

Putnam Room Owner Chad Combs said that he wanted to bring an experience to the community that Cookeville didn’t already have.

“To bring different pizza,” Combs said. “You know pepperoni, mushroom, this that, and the other. What kind of mushrooms? Where’s the pepperoni come from? Where’d the soppressata come from? Did you make your own mozzarella? That kind of stuff. So on that level, that’s what makes it interesting.”

Combs said that he plans on having soft seating for a lounge area and a rooftop bar. He said that the back will be more of an average pizzeria and restaurant complete with a brick oven.

The Cookeville Planning Commission approved rezoning the property to allow for more parking at the restaurant. Combs said that the next steps will now be to do some grading and drainage work. He said that because the building is so old, it needs to be completely gutted before the restaurant work can begin.

Combs said that his first job in the restaurant business was at Papa G’s when he was 15. He said that it’s been a dream of his since to open a pizza place.

“Pizza is a lot more fun, it’s a lot more fast-paced,” Combs said. “Everybody likes pizza so you don’t automatically reduce demographics for your clientele pool. You can do whatever with it. You can do ingredient cross-over, you can do ingredient crossover (…) Once you get your dough right and you source your right ingredients, then it’s a lot of fun. Mistakes aren’t as costly, you know you drop a pizza it costs whatever. But you drop a plate of scallops, it’s a whole other animal.”

Combs said that they are hoping to have the work completed and be ready to open by the end of the year.