Tennessee Food Truck Entrepreneur Serves Up a Deal Shark Tank Investor Can’t Resist

In partnership with: Tennessee Department of Agriculture

Holly Cooper can sell just about anything. For the past nine years, the former restaurant owner and commercial HVAC salesperson has measured success in fried green tomato, bacon and lettuce sandwiches and other comfort foods sold from her food truck at Middle Tennessee events. The Nashville-area entrepreneur’s pitch to the investors on ABC’s Shark Tank may be her most important sale ever. Cooper scored a deal with business “shark” Barbara Corcoran to create an empire of Fried Green Tomatoes food truck franchises.

A Fair Start

In 2012, Cooper talked her way into the Wilson County Fair, an event that’s so popular, hopeful vendors wait years to land a spot. Selling herself along with her food truck, Fried Green Tomatoes, Cooper told a fair official she’d been in the top seven in the Wilson County “Fairest of the Fair” pageant in 1982. Finally swayed, the official relented – and from that event, bookings exploded. “I absolutely credit that fair for getting my big start,” she says. “I joke that being in the top seven paid off big 30 years later.”

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Fans continually asked where to buy the tomato batter mix and “secret sauce” topping their sandwiches. In 2016, Cooper attended Atlanta’s International Market and took orders for packaged batter mix and sauce from retailers in 42 states. “Over 800 retailers have carried our product,” says Cooper, who also sells online and is promoted through the Pick Tennessee Products program.

As the food truck’s popularity grew, her fans encouraged her to try out for Shark Tank. When producers came to Nashville in 2019 on a casting call, Cooper seized the golden opportunity and auditioned. Three months later, she was in California answering the sharks’ questions about sales ($268,000 in total sales in 2018) and food truck revenue (between $600 and $800 an hour). Receiving two offers, Cooper accepted Corcoran’s deal of $200,000 for a 30% stake, basing the decision on Corcoran’s experience franchising Cousins Maine Lobster, which has expanded to 31 locations since its debut on Shark Tank. “We’re working with the same company Barbara used for that franchising deal,” she says.

Cooper has another celebrity rooting for Fried Green Tomatoes. After her Shark Tank episode aired in 2020, Cooper got a call from Fannie Flagg, author of the bestselling novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. Flagg is an executive producer of a TV show based on her book, currently in development at NBC. “I would be so excited to collaborate with her on some ideas,” she says. “Fried Green Tomatoes (the 1991 film) was my favorite movie of all time.”