TRANSITIONS

Wendy McCrory, who owns and operates two Memphis-area outlets of Memphis-based Gus’s World

Famous Fried Chicken (the one on Front Street in Memphis and the one in Collierville, Tenn.), confirms that the Little Rock branch will in fact open this spring in what had been Redbone’s

Downtown, 300 President Clinton Ave., in the River Market District.

Target date is sometime in March, but McCrory says she’s expecting sometime in April to be more likely. It’ll offer “the same menu, same recipes, same chicken, everything” as in highly popular Memphis-area restaurants, with the possibility of seasonal specials, “which we have not [done] in the past,” like sweet-potato fries, “greens when we can get them fresh,” cucumber salad and, perhaps not as early as this year but eventually, Lenten catfish and homemade jalapeno hush puppies. (She has been using the Collierville place as a test kitchen as well as training facility for a burgeoning franchise operation.)

The Little Rock Gus’s will serve beer in 40-ounce bottles (requiring one or more extra fridges but eliminating the need for taps) but will not have a full bar. Standard operating hours across the minichain are 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, but McCrory acknowledges the local franchisee group (reported in last week’s Arkansas Times as including Carter Malloy, a research analyst for Stephens Inc.) might jigger the closing hours to take better advantage of late-evening River Market foot traffic.

Details are coming in with grudging slowness, but we have learned that there is a definite connection between the Mamacita’s

Bar & Grill “coming soon” to the former Satellite Cafe, 5923 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock, and the Mamacita’s “coming soon” to the former Los Amigos, 2850 Prince St., Conway: The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board confirms that the alcoholic beverage licenses for both establishments (a full restaurant bar license for Little Rock and a private club license for dry Conway) are in the same name, Joseph M. Park, who did not return a phone message by deadline. We just got word that Hot

Springs Brau Haus, 801 Central Ave., Hot Springs, will close at the end of the month. Details are sketchy, but apparently owner John Linehan is looking at other projects after 17 years of operation. Nothing special is planned, so far, in the interim, we’re told. The phone number is (501) 624-7866.

Target date is next week for the opening of Utopia Restaurant and Lounge, 521 Center St., Little Rock, formerly the site of something called Mediums Art Lounge. The restaurant will serve breakfast (including chicken and waffles and omelets), lunch and dinner (the menu will feature, among other things, wings, fried or broiled tilapia and vegetarian options), with a full bar that will host bands after hours. Right now, restaurant hours are 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 47:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday, with breakfast times to be announced. The phone number is (501) 907-6688; there’s a Facebook page: facebook. com/utopia.littlerock.

There have been so many twists and turns and kinks and, quite frankly, stinks in the convoluted history of

Hunka Pie, which originated in a corner of an Argenta furniture store and has migrated twice, first to the former Hop Drive-In on Cantrell Road, and eventually to the former Starlite Diner, at the meeting of MacArthur Drive and Military Road in North Little Rock.

To describe the restaurant’s operating pattern as “mercurial” would be an understatement. Sometimes it was open. Sometimes it was closed. What hours it would be open, or closed, seemed to change on a whim. The inside and sometimes the outside of the front doors sported from time to time a variety of signs, some from owner-operator Chris Monroe, some, reportedly, from utility companies.

Keeping track of the doings, or lack thereof, at that establishment was so difficult and all-consuming that we finally, here at Transitions, made a deliberate decision not to pay any more attention to Hunka Pie unless aliens snatched the building from the parking lot.

However, between a recent flood of requests for information from readers, some of whom have shown unprecedented loyalty and/ or concern for the business (and some of whom hold apparently unredeemable Groupons), we will report what we know to this point:

The restaurant has been dark as the tomb for several weeks. The listed telephone number, (501) 224-1104, returns a “not a working number” recording. The restaurant website, hunkapie. com, has been taken down, though a pop-up default site indicates the domain name has recently been re-registered.

Meanwhile, Monroe, reached through e-mail a few weeks ago, promised us details, but since has not responded to subsequent messages and has not responded by deadline.

And Groupon Customer Support sent out this message to paying customers, offering refunds where applicable: “Hi [customer’s name deleted], Thanks for your interest in the Groupon for Hunka Pie. We have heard that some of our customers are having difficulty redeeming their Groupons for Hunka Pie because they may have closed. Our apologies for the inconvenience. We realize how frustrating that can be and we want to make it right as soon as possible. To avoid any further frustration, we have canceled this deal.”

Now, a sharp-eyed observer has sent us this following update: “There is a sign on the door of the Starlite Diner saying ‘Closed for repairs, reopening soon, under new management.’” And another sharp-eyed reader says the diner owner (the sign still sits atop the building, by the way) says the “new management” is the owner-operator of a neighboring business, who plans to run it with her son and hopes to be open in about a month.

BJ’s Market Cafe, 45 Market Plaza, off Arkansas 161 in North Little Rock, will open a second location Tuesday — that’s the target, anyway — in what until last Saturday had been Kierre’s Kountry

Kitchen, 6 Collins Industrial Place, just off Maumelle Boulevard on the North Little Rock side of Maumelle. BJ’s owner, Jeanna Whitley, says that in addition to serving breakfast and lunch, 5:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday (similar to the original location, which will remain open), she’ll be adding “fish and more” dinner Friday and Saturday nights, continuously operating those days from 5:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Whitley says she believes she’ll be able to keep the Kierre’s phone number, which is (501) 758-0903. Get a look at her menu at bjsmarketcafe. com.

Victorian Garden Bistro, 4801 North Hills Blvd., North Little Rock, has added Monday lunch — 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. — to its operating hours of 10:30 a.m.–6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. The phone number remains (501) 758-4299; e-mail margie@victoriangarden.biz or visit victoriangarden.biz.

With more than 700 restaurants to keep track of in the Little Rock metropolitan area, we admit we occasionally get behind one curve or another, and somehow missed the closure of Fishermen Fish & Chicken at 3400 E. Broadway, North Little Rock, as well as the return thereto of Young’s Catfish, the previous occupant. Now a sharpeyed observer reports that the restaurant was closed “over the holidays for ‘remodeling’”; a sign in the window said they’d reopen in January, but they didn’t. A call to the listed number, (501) 945-3474, returns a recording about how happy AT&T will be to find us another similar business.

And speaking of being behind the curve, though apparently it has been open for a few months, we are just now finding out about Eliella

Ristorante and Taqueria, 7700 Base Line Road, Little Rock. Hours, according to the gentleman who answered the phone number, (501) 539-5355, are 10 a.m.-8 p.m., daily. Has a restaurant opened — or closed — near you in the last week or so? Does your favorite eatery have a new menu? Is there a new chef in charge? Drop us a line. Call (501) 399-3667 or (501) 378-3513, or send a note to Restaurants, Weekend Section,

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