Stubby’s celebrates 65th anniversary
A restaurant that has been a staple in Hot Springs for decades will celebrate its 65th anniversary this week with special guests and “throwback prices” that are sure to be kind to attendees’ pocketbooks.
Stubby’s Bar-B-Que was opened in 1952 by Richard “Stubby” Stubblefield and quickly became a popular spot for barbecue lovers, its menu boasting the classic beef, pork, ham, chicken and the restaurant’s signature BBQ sauce.
It was in 1976 that a family from New York began negotiating to purchase the restaurant from the Stubblefields. Current owner Chris Dunkel and his mother and father had recently moved to Arkansas and the opportunity arose to purchase Stubby’s. The purchase was finalized in 1977.
Although Dunkel was only 3 years old when his family purchased Stubby’s, he fondly remembers growing up in the restaurant.
“We’ve always been open seven days a week, and I’m 44 now, so I’ve had quite a few years, decades of smoke and hickory and beef, pork, ham, ribs and chicken,” Dunkel said in the press release. “We stay at it every day and try to make everybody happy.”
The Stubblefields are set to attend the 65th anniversary celebration on Tuesday along with their daughter and possibly other family members.
Customers on Tuesday will enjoy menu items offered at the prices they were in the 1950s when Stubby’s first came into fruition.
“We open at 11 a.m. and we’re just going to run it until we run out of food,” Dunkel added.
The current owners, consisting of Dunkel and his mother, Susan Whittaker, and sister, Robin January, pride themselves on never having deviated from the restaurant’s initial upstart.
“We’ve stayed true to course. If you have a great product and you start with quality meats, quality items and everything is still made from scratch, people become accustomed to that,” he said. “If you start to change from that, deviate from that, they become aware of that so we’ve stayed true to form. We’ve always kept the sauce as it was back in the ’50s, to where you always know that you’ll get that continuous, same Stubby’s experience.”
Dunkel said the biggest change they have made to the original Stubby’s was changing from glass soda bottles to fountain drinks.
“T hat’s probably the biggest change in 65 years that we’ve made at Stubby’s, going from glass sodas to fountain drinks. We’ve kept everything the same. Same name, same recipes — we haven’t deviated and that’s what allows you to hang around for quite a few decades.”
Stubby’s is located at 3024 Central Ave. Call 624-1552 for information.