Trio’s open with fixed ventilation
Temptations serving in both its storefronts
Trio’s, in Pavilion in the Park, 8201 Cantrell Road in west Little Rock, shut down for a couple weeks to repair the ventilation system, more than a year after the March 31, 2023, tornado that damaged it. Original target to open was Monday but as its owners anticipated, the job has taken a little longer than expected — the restaurant was set to reopen Wednesday. (501) 221-3330; triosrestaurant.com.
After a long construction process, both dining rooms in the expanded Delicious Temptations, 11220 N. Rodney Parham Road, Little Rock, have now been open for a couple of weeks. You will recall that the restaurant was growing into a second storefront, previously occupied by a salon, and in the process remodeling its original kitchen and original dining room. The four-decade-old breakfast-brunch-lunch restaurant has another 2,000 total square feet of space but only a few more total tables, and owner Tony Niel tells us he has actually only added 16 to his seating capacity (from 80 to about 96), opting instead to spread his tables out so patrons get a lot more free space. The revised menu has added some items and lost others, including many of the hot and cold sandwiches. Hours, at least for the time being, remain at 8 a.m.-2:30 p.m. daily (501) 2256893; delicioustemptations.com.
The Paranoid Android, the coffee shop/cafe in the Little Rock Technology Park, 417 Main St, Little Rock, is closing — and may, in fact, have already closed. Brent Birch, the tech park’s executive director, says manager Zach Williams is in the process of clearing out the space, which had previously housed a branch office of Conway’s Blue Sail. Creighton Ralls, who had also been operating 2Twenty1 at Second and Center streets downtown, “divested himself” of all his downtown operations about a year ago, Birch says. The Paranoid Android’s listed phone number, (501) 457-6268, returns only a rapid busy signal; the website, theparanoidandroid.co, is no longer operative. Apparently 2Twenty1 has also closed — nobody answers the listed phone number and the website, 2twenty1.com, is now the “[f]uture home of something quite cool.” Birch says he’s hoping to find another tenant for the space in the next couple of weeks.
The newest Taco Bell, 2612 Cantrell Road, on an outparcel of the Riverdale Shopping Center, has also been open for a couple of weeks. Hours are 8 a.m.-2 a.m. daily, but it’s drive-thru only after 10 p.m. There’s also a separate drive-thru lane for orders placed ahead. (501) 683-9650.
Park Grill, the restaurant at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, 501 E. Ninth St., Little Rock, debuted some eclipse-inspired new lunch and dinner menu items Tuesday through April 12, including a Sungold Toast appetizer ($10, Sungold tomato toast, ricotta, basil); a Galaxy Bowl entree ($34, seared scallops, black rice, saffron beurre blanc, fried leeks) and a couple of desserts Chocolate Totality ($9, vanilla ice cream, chocolate cookie sandwich, caramel sauce) and Solar Eclipse Crème Brulée ($11, vanilla crème brulée, chocolate pot de crème, golden sugar strands). (501) 396-0390; parkgrillatamfa.com.
An update on the Scoops Homemade Ice Cream set to open later in April at 212 Broadway, Little Rock, in what had been a T-Mobile cellphone store in a small strip center where Broadway meets Third Street. We now have hours: 6 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 6 a.m.10 p.m. Friday-Saturday. And we have a listed phone number — (501) 777-8766, though we only reached a voicemail message there. It’s the second location of a store that has been serving “[h]omemade, slow-churned, premium ice cream” at 4043 Central Ave., Hot Springs, since 2003. The phone number there: (501) 525-3119; scoopshomemadeicecream.com.
And speaking of ice cream, Arkansas’ first outlet of Youngstown, Ohio-based Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream — which has 129 locations across 13 states and brags in a news release that it was named No. 1 Ice Cream on the planet by National Geographic (tinyurl. com/55jywrc3) — recently opened at 1904 W. Pleasant Grove Road in Rogers. Handel’s serves 48 flavors daily and more than 140 flavors that rotate seasonally; the list includes Black Cherry, Buckeye, Coffee Chocolate Chip, Graham Central Station, Chocolate Almond Milk (dairy-free) and Salty Caramel Truffle, available for dine-in, drive-thru, pickup, delivery and catering. Franchisees are Jeff and Mackenzie Greene. Hours are 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday, noon- 9 p.m. Sunday. (479) 202-5116; handelsicecream.com/store/rogers.
We still don’t know what’s moving into the former Mar y Tierra Cantina and Grill, 1900 W. Third St., Little Rock, in sight of the state Capitol, but the one sign on the street side that described the previous business as “bar-restaurant,” which had remained up after the rest of the exterior signs and the string of colored lights that wrapped around the base of the roof were removed (and the building acquired a sober gray-and-white paint job) — is now gone.
Maumelle journalist and blogger Jay Grelen provides “meaux” on the Southern Heaux food truck in Little Rock and restaurant in Maumelle, via an interview with owner Akira Crenshaw for his “Maumelle Monitor(ed)” (maumellemonitored.substack.com).
Crenshaw, who moved to Sparkman from California when she was 5, started out stealing the hard-shelled output from her great-grandmother’s hens without running afowl of the birds and learned to stir up pancakes in her great-grandmother’s kitchen. At 15 she got her first job at the Little Rock Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen on West Markham Street in West Little Rock (when it still was known as Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits) and has had a lifelong dream of having a breakfast restaurant. The food truck opened in in Little Rock in August 2022; plans are to open the Maumelle restaurant in a former Pizza Hut in the Maumelle Corners shopping center, 301 Millwood Circle, Maumelle, by the end of April.
The menu is Southern/ Cajun: Salmon croquettes. Shrimp and grits. Pound-cake French toast. Peach cobbler toppings. Several dishes have risque names, reflective of the name of the restaurant, which employs a Cajun spelling for Heaux — which in turn is an acronym for “Helping to Evolve Aspiring and Undeniable Xenas.” (A Xena, apparently named after a television warrior princess, is a confident, strong woman.) Crenshaw has applied for a permit to sell alcoholic beverages. Hours are 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. (501) 400-3731. The food truck continues to operate at the Food Truck Stop, 801 S. Chester St., Little Rock. (501) 604-6556.
Meanwhile, Grelen contacted the Office of Motor Vehicles to find out if it would allow the word “heaux” on a personalized license plate. Department of Finance and Administration spokesman Scott Hardin says probably not.
And here’s some results from Grelen’s Maumelle Monitor(ed) survey to which we referred the other week:
▮ A combined 71% of respondents said they were not comfortable with the name, agreeing with Grelen’s survey expression that “It’s a terrible name for a restaurant in a family friendly town”; 29% were good with it.
▮ “Would you take your family to a restaurant with that name?” A combined 63% said “no” and/or “Are you kidding me?”; 37% said yes.
▮ 75% said they would have to explain the name to their children younger than 12; 25% said their kids already know that stuff.
▮ 46% said they would characterize the name as “crass”; “vulgar,” 29%; “hilarious,” 25%.
And Trucks, Taps & Tunes,a benefit for the Arkansas Food Bank, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. April 20 at Park Plaza, 6000 W. Markham St. at University Avenue, Little Rock, will feature, as the name implies, food trucks (Maw Maws House, The Ice Cream Truck, FYE Vegan Chic, Top Dog Catering, Phonzie’s 1 Stop Hog Shop, Tracy B’s “That’s So Cheezy,” Dippin’ Dot’s, Fry Fry Crazy and Pinches Tacos), products from craft breweries (Stone’s Throw Brewing and Flyway Brewing) and entertainment (by Donnie Lee Strickland, from 1:30-3 p.m., with Face Painting by Fancyful, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.). Tickets are $10, $5 for youngsters 5-12, free for children 4 and younger. parkplazamall.com/ events/trucks-taps-tunes/.
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. Send email to: eharrison@adgnewsroom.com