Dining-out roundup
Central Arkansas restaurants served up plenty of news tidbits in 2015.
As a guy named Shakespeare once suggested, “If music be the food of love, play on.” If food be the food of love, however, dine on. Or dine out, as so many of your friends and neighbors do so often.
The comparatively large and rapid explosion of central Arkansas as not just the state capital but a foodie capital continues to astonish.
As we compile this little end-ofyear roundup (from a year’s worth of Transitions columns and not meant to be totally comprehensive), prominent among 2015’s bite-ables booms: South American and Middle Eastern/ Mediterranean cuisine, brewpubs and Neapolitan pizza. Still insufficiently visible on the local restaurant radar: Northern European and Southeast and Southwest Asian. (Two restaurants in that latter category opened, and one of those quickly closed.)
Let us unfurl our napkins and begin.
MIDDLE OF THE WORLD
Salt & Pepper Middle-Eastern Restaurant opened in late August in the Galleria Shopping Center, 9700
N. Rodney Parham Road, Little Rock, replacing a short-lived “IndoPak” restaurant called Shalimar as new owners took over the next-door halal market. Just up the street, at 11400 N. Rodney Parham, Al Seraj Mediterranean Restaurant replaced the Great Wraps Grill, which moved to the food court at Park Plaza, 6000 W. Markham St. That has created a sort of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean restaurant corridor, starting with Layla’s on the southeast and ending with The Terrace on the northwest.
After some considerable delays, Arbela Middle
Eastern Grill finally opened mid-November in the Tower Building, Fourth Street between Louisiana and Center streets, Little Rock, replacing
Natchez (see below.) The Middle Eastern fast-service grill features a short menu — choice of rice, protein (gyros, grilled chicken or falafel), dip (tzatziki or hummus), salad or tabbouleh, plus pita bread, for $6.99 or less, all in a couple of minutes.
And Plano, Texas-based chain Zoes Kitchen opened its first Little Rock outlet at the end of October at 12900 Chenal Parkway, across from the Target store near the intersection with Markham Street. A spokesman for the chain confirmed that a second is headed for Park Plaza, sometime in the first quarter of 2016.
SEE NAPLES AND … MANGA
Neapolitan pizza, once the sole province of Bruno’s Little
Italy and ZaZa, has become practically commonplace, with the opening last year of the Pizzeria at Terry’s, 5018 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock, which this year also opened for lunch. Following, in fairly short order, was Raduno Brick Oven & Barroom, 1318 S. Main St., Little Rock, which opened in February as Piro but fell afoul of a Memphis pizzeria with a similar name, and Argenta’s Ristorante Capeo, 425 Main St., North Little Rock, adding Neapolitan pizza with new lunch hours.
SOMETHING’S BREWING
Lost Forty Brewing, 501 Byrd St., Little Rock, opened its
Lost 40 Taproom, offering sit-down service and a “Munich beer hall food meets the Delta”-style menu focusing on matches for its beers. In March, Damgoode Pies took over the former
Boscos space in the Museum Center, 500 President Clinton Ave., in Little Rock’s River Market District, to create Damgoode Pies Riverfront, a new pizzeria/brewpub. Meanwhile, the mini-chain embarked on longer-than-expected renovation of its original Hillcrest pie-wedge building at 2701 Kavanaugh Blvd., and just announced that as of Dec. 31 they’re closing a Rodney Parham Road take-out/delivery operation.
Flyway Brewing just opened a taproom Saturday in its new brewery at 314 Maple St. in North Little Rock’s Argenta District, which previously housed a pool room (Arena Billiards Bar & Grill) and
something called Mac Daddy’s. Springdale-based Core
Brewing plans to open its first central Arkansas location in Argenta in the former Starving Artist Cafe, 411 Main St. And Asana Alehouse brewmaster Caleb Looney says he, too, is hoping to open somewhere in Argenta, but for now the location is still “TBA.”
FIT TO BE THAI’D
Family-owned Zangna
Thai Cuisine opened in the Shackleford Crossings Shopping Center, 2604 S. Shackleford Road, Little Rock, joining south-of-the-river Thai options kBird, which moved from a food truck into a Hillcrest brick-and-mortar last year, and Lulu Chi’s Oishi
Hibachi & Lounge in the Heights, the menu for which has been recently shifting Thai-ward.
ASIAN WITH GRACE
Robert Tju and Lulu Chi opened a second Little Rock Sushi Cafe, dubbed Sushi Cafe West, in early February in a small strip center, 11211 Cantrell Road, just west of Interstate 430. The menu motto: “east + west = modern fusion/beyond sushi,” adding to the original Heights menu a range of teppanyaki specialty entrees and a half-dozen “West Side Specialties.”
Flavor of India opened in July in the southern end of the Market Place Shopping Center, 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road, Little Rock, not the space but in the same vicinity as two defunct Indian restaurants (Kebab & Curry and Amruth) and within a stone’s throw of Taj Mahal. The new place brings to the competition South Indian dishes and chaat street food, cuisines that haven’t previously been available here, and a sassy attitude.
Chopsticks Pho Vietnamese Restaurant, owned by the folks that own and operate Pho Thanh My, 302 N. Shackleford Road, Little Rock, opened this fall at 1400 John Harden Drive, Jacksonville, in the storefront that most recently had housed the former
Ap’s Seafood Buffet.
DEVELOPING DOWNTOWN
Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill opened next to Bruno’s Little Italy on the ground floor of the Mann on Main building, 322 Main St., Little Rock, serving lunch and dinner and flooding the whole neighborhood with the smell of wood smoke. (Co-owners Chris and Samantha Tanner are best known as the owner-operators of Cheers in the
Heights.)
John Walker Jr. announced in January that he was moving his Jerkys Spicy Chicken &
More and his “Jamerican” cuisine, including jerk chicken and ribs, from 2501 S. Arch St., Little Rock, to 521 Center St., Little Rock, next to EJ’s
Eats & Drinks. The move didn’t quite set a record for snafus and delays, but Jerkys didn’t actually reopen until the end of November.
@ the Corner — and that’s an “at” sign (@) — moved into the former Hop
Diner space, 201 E. Markham St. at Scott Street, Little Rock, offering a “finer diner” menu.
KEEP ON TRUCKIN’
Southern Gourmasian moved into 219 W. Capitol Ave., Little Rock, a brick-andmortar space, after taking the so-far unusual step of using Kickstarter to raise the money to do the interior finishing.
Other food trucks moving into brick-and-mortar spaces: Banana Leaf Indian Cuisine, which had been parking at 201 N. Van Buren St., Little Rock, is now offering a limited lunch menu in the Simmons First tower, 425 W. Capitol Ave. at Broadway, Little Rock. And Benton-based food truck BASH Burger Co. announced it would move in early February into the Colonnade Shopping Center, 315 N. Bowman Road, end-cap that
Bruno’s Little Italy, now at 310 Main St., Little Rock, occupied from 1988 to 2011, and subsequently housed the not-related-to-Bruno’s Dona’s Little Italy and Bruno’s Italian Bistro.
Lauren Harrison (no relation) moved her Pie Hole food truck from Little Rock to Dallas in October.
And Station 801, a new first-of-its-kind-around-here food truck food court, is on the cusp of opening at Eighth and Chester streets at Interstate 630, Little Rock. Four or five food trucks will park daily at the former gas station for lunch (and possibly breakfast) with seating, largescreen TVs and free Wi-Fi inside.
RIP (RESTAURANT IS
PASSING)
June 30 was the final night of service after 16 years for
Acadia, 3000 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock.
Juanita’s Mexican Cafe and Bar, which moved five years ago from South Main Street to the River Market, changed owners in July, and closed over this past weekend, just short of its 30th birthday.
Natchez, in the Tower Building, Fourth and Center streets, Little Rock, tinkered twice with its hours, adding breakfast, which didn’t work, and then cutting back to just weekend dinners and a Sunday brunch that never quite materialized, before closing altogether at the end of July.
HITTING NEW HEIGHTS
Probably the most anticipated debut of the year was Scott McGehee and his Yellow Rocket Concepts’ midApril opening of Heights Taco & Tamale Co. in the
longtime former Browning’s
Mexican Grill, 5805 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock. It reintroduced Browning’s “ArkMex” concept via Delta-style tamales, upper-end tacos and cheese dip with multiple local lineages.
Christina Basham and Sonia Schaefer opened Boulevard Bistro and Bar,
conjoined with Boulevard
Bread Co.’s original Heights location, 1920 N. Grant St., Little Rock.
And Lulu Chi branched out from Asian to Cajun, recently opening Lulu’s Crab Boil, 5911 R St., in the former
Haagen-Dazs storefront,
across from Fantastic China.
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
Skinny J’s, with restaurants in Jonesboro and Paragould, opened in the former
Cornerstone Pub, 314 Main St., North Little Rock.
Elizabeth McMullen, chef-owner of E’s Bistro, in the Lakehill Shopping Center, 3812 John F. Kennedy Blvd., North Little Rock, brought in Ira Mittleman, first as a guest chef and later as a successor; the renamed Ira’s Park Hill
Grill opened in March. And pro golfer and former Dardanellean John Daly is attaching his name to John
Daly’s, a 5,000-square-foot steakhouse opening in late spring or early summer at 912 Front St., Conway.
SOUTH OF THE BORDER
Mr. Texano Mexican Restaurant, which replaced Tamalittle at 102 Markham Park Drive, Little Rock, which closed Feb. 14, didn’t last long thereafter. Also short-lived: Ray’s More Than Mex
Family Dining, 10815 Colonel Glenn Road, Little Rock.
La Casa Real lost its lease in the Market Place Shopping Center, 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road, Little Rock, and also closed.
Meanwhile, the revolving door at 3700 John F. Kennedy Blvd., on North Little Rock’s Park Hill, revolved again: Leo’s Mexican Restaurant replaced Mr. Ponchito’s, which briefly replaced El Chiapaneco Mexican
Restaurant, which replaced Rosalinda Restaurant Hondureno, which, as you recall, late in 2014 moved to 900 W. 35th St., in North Little Rock’s Levy neighborhood.
WAY SOUTH OF THE BORDER
La Terraza Rum and
Lounge opened in mid-October in the former Acadia space. A Venezuelan couple transplanted their Caracas, Venezuela, restaurant to Little Rock with their son and daughter-in-law serving Venezuelan arepas sandwiches and entrees, a lot of Spanish items with Venezuelan cultural links and cocktails made from the couple of dozen different rums behind the bar.
Heinz Kurt, former manager at ZaZa and a native of Bolivia, opened Lulu’s Latin Rotisserie & Grill
in September in the Colonnade Shopping Center on North Bowman Road, in the storefront formerly occupied by Anatolia and the even shorter-lived Bill’s Country
Kitchen. The menu focuses on Peruvian-style rotisserie chicken and Argentinian-style grilled steak.
And Martina Casserly and her Argentinian family opened Sunrise Cafe Boutique, a coffee and pastry shop with a small lunch menu and a slight Argentine accent in the Pleasant Ridge Town Center, 11525 Cantrell Road, Little Rock.
WRAPPED UP IN CHAINS
Jacob Chi, Lulu’s son, broke ground for the first Little Rock location of Dallas-based La Madeleine Country French
Cafe at 12210 W. Markham St., with a first-quarter 2016 target opening.
The first Little Rock franchise outlet of Del Frisco’s
Grille opened in September in the Promenade at Chenal, in the 17000 block of Chenal Parkway, Little Rock. In the same center: Smyrna, Ga.-based Boneheads opened its first Little Rock outlet in mid-February. And the company that operates Pei Wei
Asian Diner has leased 3,000 square feet to open its second Little Rock outlet. (The first opened in October 2006 in the Midtowne Little Rock center, West Markham Street and University Avenue; there’s also one in Rogers.) Dallas-based Dickey’s Barbecue Pit opened an outlet in mid-May at 13501 Crystal Hill Road, North Little Rock (in front of Wal-Mart, just off Maumelle Boulevard). Elsewhere in North Little Rock, Chuy’s opened its second central Arkansas outlet in March at 5105 Warden Road, and Bar Louie and BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse opened their second central Arkansas outlets, both at McCain Mall.
New Slim Chickens outlets opened at 7831 Alcoa Road, Benton, in July and at 7514 Cantrell Road, Little Rock, in early September. Arkansas’ first outlet of the Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based
Johnny Rockets chain-franchise hamburger-shake operation opened at the end of October in the food court at the new Outlets of Little Rock, 11201 Bass Pro Parkway, Little Rock. And a Dave & Buster’s, one of whose founders came from Little Rock, may also be headed there after a bill passed the state Senate changing the monetary limit on arcade prizes.
And after about a decade of trying to break into the central Arkansas market but unable to find a franchisee, the Melting
Pot fondue chain announced that Allen Hurst of Denver and his family will move to Little Rock and open the state’s first Melting Pot, location TBA, by early 2016.
CH-CH-CH-CHANGES
Joey Santoro, formerly sous chef at the now defunct
Natchez, was the new executive chef at The Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock — for about a month, before giving way to Mike Jones, late of Salut Bistro. The restaurant dropped lunch service to concentrate on dinner and Saturday and Sunday brunch. And owner Joe Gillespie reportedly moved to Florida and is no longer associated with the restaurant.
Gilbert Alaquinez, formerly sous chef at Forty Two at the Clinton Presidential Center, 1200 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock, was promoted to executive chef, replacing Stephen Burrow, now the executive chef at Chenal
Country Club. West Little Rock’s 1620 Savoy, 1620 Market St., also went through an ownership change, with Jeffrey Edwards buying it from Rush Harding III and promoting Joseph Salgueiro to executive chef.
And Andy Agar, who opened Sonny Williams’
Steak Room at 500 President Clinton Ave. in Little Rock’s River Market District in 1999, before there was a River Market District, and sold it in 2002, has bought it back. We’re told to expect significant changes after the
first of the year.
NO-SHOWS
Hillcrest coffee and pastry purveyor Mylo Coffee
Co.’s plans to open a downtown second location, in the Sterling Building at Capitol Avenue and Center Street, fell through, fraught with more-severe-than-expected construction issues.
Ruth’s Chris Steak
House reportedly dropped plans to open in downtown Little Rock after objections to its siting a 9,000-square-foot corporate-owned restaurant on what is now an open red-brick plaza between the Doubletree Hotel and the Old State House.
And approaching two years after the May 2014 announcement of the supposed return of legendary Little Rock barbecue outlet The
Shack, reportedly to “open soon” at 402 E. Third St. in Little Rock’s River Market District, there has been exactly zero discernable progress.
NOT-QUITE-SHOWS
Brother-sister duo Lacy Galligan and Ray Pynes II announced they had bought the rights to a Little Rock-area franchise for Another
Broken Egg Cafe, a Destin, Fla.-based breakfast, brunch and lunch chain/franchise operation, but Galligan says health issues have delayed her search for a Midtown or west Little Rock location.
And delays in scheduling construction have held up plans for Bruno’s Little Italy’s grab-and-go lunch spot/ delicatessen next door at 308 Main St. — the construction company has run into difficulties, including asbestos removal — as well as the right-next-door, 306 Main St., Little Rock outlet of Memphis-based mini-chain Soul
Fish Cafe.