Local “Chicken Lady” Creates Award-Winning Recipes

Here in the South, Southern Comfort food is an art form, and local food expert Melinda Newton has created some tasty masterpieces. 

Known around these parts as “The Chicken Lady,” and for good reason. Her first experiences with food, and especially, chicken, began in the iconic Minnie’s restaurant, which was opened by Melinda’s grandmother “Minnie” in 1986. In 1991, Melinda’s mother, Rose, became the manager of Minnie’s, and in 1999, Melinda decided to join the women of the family in working at the restaurant. During her time there, she developed the recipe for Minnie’s famous fried chicken, and when it began winning awards, she knew she was onto something. 

As she began to make the news with her fried chicken recipe, Melinda became affectionately known among her customers as “The Chicken Lady.” For 23 years, her recipe has won “Best fried chicken in Columbus” from the Ledger-Enquirer Readers Choice Awards. And, last month, her recipe won “Best of Georgia” from Georgia Business Journal. Featured in the Wall Street Journal and Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Chicken Lady began to receive more and more attention for her award-winning recipe. 

While Melinda has always enjoyed working at Minnie’s, she longed to do more. As she became the owner of Minnie’s, and even though the restaurant was successful, she started getting ideas. “I really wanted to put a product in a grocery store, but it was just a dream. I didn’t know how, I just knew I wanted to do it.” 

And just like that. She developed a new company with the intention of putting Minnie’s famous cornbread dressing and macaroni and cheese in grocery stores. She needed a new name for this venture, and, playing off the nickname her customers had bestowed upon her, “I was like, well, let’s just call it Chicken Lady.” Melinda worked closely with an illustration artist to develop her logo, and in 2017, the new company was up and running, and the product hit local grocery stores. 

As Melinda’s new company grew, so did her opportunities. In 2018, she was offered the chance to buy her competition company, Aunt Pearlie’s, and she took it. She put the products from the two companies in grocery stores side by side, offering barbecue sauces, mac and cheese, and cornbread dressing in the Chicken Lady brand, and cornbread dressing, sweet potato souffle, and corn souffle in the Aunt Pearlie’s brand. Casseroles are available on a seasonal basis in grocery stores. 

Melinda’s next move was franchising, and “The Chicken Lady’s Coop” was born. She opened a storefront in Columbus known for its “Southern flair, casseroles, fried chicken, and award winning chicken sandwich, ‘The Holy Grail’,” Melinda says. This storefront has acted as a concept store for The Chicken Lady’s Coop, and is the first of its kind. With hopes to add a second storefront in Alabama, and within the next five years, five more.

While Melinda became known for her famous fried chicken recipe, she had to teach herself much about running a business and the distributing aspects of food production. “I didn’t know how to get the product store-ready and distributed, so I had to learn all of that,” Melinda explained. 

Though The Chicken Lady’s Coop hit the ground running, the pandemic created challenges for the company, as with so many others. Melinda decided to take a personal hit by significantly reducing her own income, downsizing her home, and selling her car to protect the business. Most of all, she made sure her employees were ok, because as she saw it, “They’re the most important. I value my employees as much as my customers, because I can’t be everywhere at once. They are the face of this business.” 

So, what sets The Chicken Lady’s food and especially her fried chicken apart from the rest? “The Flavor!” Melinda assures, without missing a beat. One taste of her famous fried chicken and award winning Holy Grail chicken sandwich confirms this. It’s a flavor unlike any other, combining multiple layers of flavors with spicy, sweet, and special recipe chicken drizzles. But the chicken isn’t the only thing The Chicken Lady is known for. “You’re not going to taste a cornbread dressing like ours anywhere,” Melinda proudly declares. 

As the business grows and her products become more widely available in grocery stores, Melinda looks forward to giving more people the chance to find out what the fuss is all about. Minnie’s Uptown still sits proudly at their location at 104 8th Street open every day except Saturday from 11a – 2:30p. Chicken Lady products can be found in the frozen section of local grocery stores Publix and Piggly Wiggly, and her storefront, The Chicken Lady’s Coop is located at 6597 Whittlesey Blvd in Columbus and is open every day from 11a- 8p.

By Natalie Downey