World Foods

Fresh ingredients, perfectly seasoned food. Lovely owner. Lovely employees. Top notch.

Very friendly staff and fresh ingredients. Just found this place a few weeks ago and keep coming back. First off, best pizza in cookeville. If you are thinking about going to papa johns or Pizza Hut, do yourself a favor and give this place a try. If you’re a fan of the Rueben then you will absolutely love their selection of sandwiches. Overall the prices are extremely fair and one of the best restaurants in cookeville!

Affordable and fresh. Great atmosphere and it will really make you appreciate the melting pot culture of our small town in TN! The homemade falafel is my favorite– at just $ 3 — you can’t even get a fast food burger for that price!

The pizza at this location is amazing, If you ever find yourself in Cookeville Tennessee you definitely have to come to this location you will not regret it. I’m from Dallas Texas and I’m in Cookeville Tennessee for work for 3 weeks and I will definitely come back before I leave!

Walking into this place and the smell was amazing! We ordered pancetta & mushroom pizza, A tomato & cheese pizza and a few Philly cheese sandwiches. The wait is a little long but they tell you it is because they make everything from scratch. The wait was well worth it. This is one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had. The crust was soooo good and everyone loved their sandwiches. The owner, Sharon, was friendly and hospitable. Next time we are in Tennessee we will definitely be back. Oh and the restrooms were CLEAN! You must come here.

Hidden treasure that needs to be found more often…

There’s a reason why this restaurant is at the top of the Unilocal reviews in this area. The Lahmacun sandwich was great and even better with the hot sauce I added. The wife loved her corn beef sandwich. The kid said the Shawarma was vey good. This is a little slice of the world in a place you wouldn’t expect it — The middle of Tennessee. A great stop. Don’t miss it!

Excellent food I always have trouble picking out what I want because it is all so good. The pizza is a must try if you haven’t had it before! They also stock middle eastern and Mediterranean foods you can buy for home.

Second time reviewing this gem in Cookeville. We usually stick to the pizza which is by far the best in town. This time I decided to try something new and tried the lemechun. I found my new favorite!
Seriously folks, if you live in Cookeville and haven’t tried this place you are missing some of the very best that Cookeville has to offer. The owners are the sweetest people and always make it a point to recognize their regular customers.

Where else in Cookeville will you find Spotted Dick, HP Sauce. Li cookies, Walkers shortbread, preserved grape leaves, Pilon Coffee, Café Bustello, etc.
Sftolo pizza Quarto Fromage, the special Asiago Cheese and Pancetta is wonderful as are the owners!

How have missed this place? Great food and great prices. Their pizza is the best in town. We had the muffuletta and pizza. The pizza was with bleu cheese and was great! The crust was perfect. Also loved the Manhattan Special Coffee soda. We will be back for sure. BTW, the owners are very nice and welcoming. We are happy to support this local eatery.

I love this place. All the food is something special. Made with real ingredients. I had a sausage and peppers sandwich the other day. The sausage was there own recipe. It was awesome.

The #1 lunch spot in Cookeville for a reason. The pizza is fantastic! We brought home a can of Italian olive oil, a couple of big French sodas and some cookies for later too :)

This place is truly worth the drive from the highway.
I was driving from Dallas to Winston Salem and found World Food on Unilocal.Thanks Unilocal.It is tucked in a small town, and there was ample street parking.
I ordered a meatball sub. They said they were short staffed, and my sub took about half an hour to bring out. While the sub took a while, it was delicious when it finally arrived. The meatballs were seasoned well, and there was melty cheese everywhere. My sister, a vegetarian, said the eggplant Parmesan sub was very good too.
I was boring and had a Diet Coke, but they had a good beer selection to choose from. It is very small on the inside, and the service may be slow, but it is definitely worth stopping.

Read about this place before taking a mini vacation to visit my parents in Cookeville so decided to check it out. My parents hadn’t even heard of it so it was new for all of us. Its a small shop /​deli with a lot of charm. The owners were so pleasant.
The food was delicious. My husband and I shared a slice of pepperoni pizza and a gyro while my parents tried the 4 cheese pizza slice and standard cheese slice. The crust on the pizza is great. Just the right crispiness and chew. The gyro was great as well. Just the right amount of meat (and it had the crispy edges which is a must IMO), lettuce, tomato and tzatziki sauce.
This is a hidden gem in the small town of Cookeville. I highly recommend.
Lastly, the prices are very reasonable.

This place is small but great! We ordered the chicken Sharma and the rueben and both were wonderful! They have worldly teas, coffee, sauces, foods & drinks on shelves along the walls.
I would definitely recommend it!

This is the best pizza I have ever had outside of NYC and Connecticut. There is nothing else to say except that it’s the best pizza in Tennessee hands down.
It’s better than the pizza in Rome but that’s a style preference, in Sicily it may not hold up.
At 11:30 AM on a weekday the place was packed with college kids, I saw several take out orders the working crowd go out the door while there. The service is not fast at all, that was okay for me, but if you’re pressed for time go some other day. Appears to be a wife and husband running the place, maybe younger children or another couple also working. The younger woman was kind of a smart ass, I don’t mind that so long as she delivers the goods.
Cheeses, Meats, and international foods you could only get in Nashville or Memphis, a rare find in the middle of a southern state.
If you go here and eat you will not be disappointed, also it is dirt cheap. This food would sell for twice as much in Cool Springs, three times as much in NYC.
If you are on 40 East you will not regret going to World Food.

My main assertion is that this is the leader of the pack for pizza in Cookeville. The crust is amazingly crisp and the toppings full of flavor in a way that can’t be captured by text. The seasoned tomatoes make everything better and their non-​traditional offerings (such as gyro pizza) are top notch.
I feel, however, that this emphasis on pizza denigrates the quality of their other offerings. The lamachun is worth traveling great distances for. Their gyro is second to none. If you like Mediterranean /​Greek food… wait… if you like food in general you should dine here often.

The only thing that makes me sad about this place is that I have come to Cookeville so many times before and I didn’t know about World Food until this week. I could not deal with a chain restaurant this week and decided to check out Unilocal for the odd chance that there was something else in town. Thank you, Unilocal for pointing me toward this charming, friendly and oh-​so-​delicious place! Cookevillians — you have to have their pizza ASAP! I mentioned this to some of my customers and they said, «I thought it was just a grocery store for foreigners.» Really??? REALLY???
Delicious pizza and AWESOME Baklava (so glad I jumped off the diet wagon and had some… totally worth it). Next trip back to Cookeville, I know where I’m eating!

Wow — what a great food find!
We had lunch here today. I thin we were the first customers of the day — around 10:45 am. We shared a warm Pastrami and Swiss Sandwich on toasted Rye bread. We also shared a slice of Cheese and Tomato Pizza.
Both were amazing. We live nearby but are new to the area, having moved from Chicago. We feel we know good pizza when we eat it. While World Food’s pizza is not Deep Dish Chicago Style — it is VERY good!
While we were eating, the lunch crowd starting coming in and the place did get crowded.
This restaurant also has a large selection of packaged foods, spices, sauces etc. Sort of reminded me of a a mini version of Central Grocery in New Orleans.
They also have a couple of small outdoor tables. Great if you are in the area walking the pooch.
One final bonus — the prices are very reasonable!