Local burger shop changes ownership after 30 years

TEXARKANA, Ark.— For the first time in 30 years, Old Tyme Burger Shoppe has new ownership.

As of Saturday (New Years Day) ownership of this locally prominent burger shop changed hands 30 years to the date it last did as of Jan. 1, 1991.

Randy Thomas of the ThomasCollins family, now the previous owner, passed ownership on to Kenneth Parris and his wife Jerra — after operating the diner exactly from Jan. 1, 1991, to Jan. 1, 2021.

“To this day, we still have employees who have been with us as long as 28 of those 30 years,” said Thomas, who previously owned the restaurant with his sister Marcia Collins.

The restaurant, which is located on the northwest corner of the Arkansas Boulevard and Jefferson Avenue intersection, initially opened in 1988.

“During the time we owned it, we managed to expand the kitchen first, then about 20 years ago we expanded the dining room by getting the room next door,” Thomas said.

Thomas said the seeds were planted during a conversation last year between Jerra Parris and his daughter, Tiffany Beck.

“That’s what started the process of this transaction from one family to the other, of the Old Time Burger Shoppe,” Thomas added. “It’s been a wonderful 30 years we have spent in our community, caring for people and making a community business that’s been healthy and graced with wonderful customers.”

Besides expanding both the kitchen area and the dining room, Thomas said the menu also underwent some expansion — except the breakfast menu, which has stayed the same.

“When customers walk in each morning, they always know that this is the breakfast place to eat,” Thomas said. “We made sure we kept the same recipes that this diner

has always had and we made sure that the hamburgers were the stars of the show.”

The only significant thing changing,

Thomas said, is that it will be Kenneth and Jerra coming in each day to tend to the business and its customer.

“We are just moving the ownership from one family to the next in continuing the tradition of serving the community,” Thomas said. “— hopefully for another 30 years.”

Submitted photo ■ From left, Kenneth Parris with his wife, Jerra, along with Marcia Collins and her brother Randy Thomas, recently sign paperwork whereby Thomas and Collins transfer ownership of the Old Tyme Burger Shoppe to the Parrises, who became the diner’s new owners as of Jan. 1. Attorney Jon Beck, far right, of the local Morgan, Jones and Beck, Attorneys at Law, observes the proceedings.

Staff photo by Greg Bischof ■ Randy Thomas receives a fond farewell gift hat on his last official day as owner of the Old Tyme Burger Shoppe. Thomas received the gift hat from Express Employment Professionals owner Joey Martin. Martin is a frequent customer of this well-established Texarkana eatery.