Downtown Mount Airy Eatery, Down Home Restaurant, Joins the Surry Sonker Trail

MOUNT AIRY, N.C. – The Surry Sonker Trail has a new member as the Down Home Restaurant came on board in March. Down Home opened in the location formerly occupied by Granite City BBQ and replaced it on this confectionary trail in Surry County. Sandra Johnson and Bonnie Reynolds run the casual eatery on Main Street in Mount Airy. Both grew up in the area and learned to make sonker from family recipes. Reynolds is the primary sonker maker and Johnson bakes the cakes. But they trade off. “We’ve made sonker all of our lives at home,” Johnson says. “It’s just a traditional, quick dessert here.” Similar to cobbler, sonker consists of cooked fruit and a crust. Some have a liquid batter poured on top of the fruit, others have a rolled dough for their crust, and others are prepared on the stove top with a dropped-dumpling crust. Each recipe depends upon family tradition. Down Home Restaurant makes its sonker by cooking fruit — strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, apples or peaches — on the stove, transferring it to a pan, adding a crust made from a liquid batter and baking it. “I took one bite of the Down Home Restaurant sonker and almost cried because it brought back so many memories of my granny’s sonker,” says Jessica Johnson, assistant marketing director at the Mount Airy Visitors Center. The region’s sonker dates to the early 1800s. The dessert was a product of frugal home cooks who didn’t want to waste any over-ripe fruit. In addition to Down Home Restaurant in Mount Airy, the Surry Sonker Trail includes The Living Room Coffeehouse and Winebar in Pilot Mountain, Putters Patio & Grill in Dobson, Old North State Winery in Mount Airy, Miss Angel’s Heavenly Pies in Mount Airy, Rockford General Store in Dobson and Roxxi & Lulu’s Bakery in Elkin. The trail was created in January 2015 by the Tourism Partnership of Surry County. Each of the seven stops on the Surry Sonker Trail offers a different style of the dessert. “Trying the food is part of learning about the place where you’re living or visiting,” Sandra Johnson says. “Sonker is native to this region.” To receive a Surry Sonker Trail brochure map, which has all the info needed to enjoy a day or two along the trail, call (800) 948-0949, or go online at: www.SonkerTrail.org