Mickey’s C.M.B.’z plans to reopen as a coffee shop Monday
Mickey’s C. M. B.’ z has changed course since closing as a barbecue restaurant last summer, and now its owners plan to reopen the Park Avenue eatery on Monday as a coffee shop that also sells tobacco products and baked goods.
Since the late 1980s, Mickey’s, located at the intersection of Gulpha Gorge Road and Park, sold smoked barbecue. Even though the iconic restaurant closed its doors during the COVID-19 pandemic, co-owner Jaime Keller said that’s not why it shut down.
“It was just because of a lack of employees,” Keller said.
Keller said that their last day to sell meat was Sept. 7. In the months since then, Keller and her sister/co-owner Kelly Hamilton have been at work in the building, converting it into a coffee shop. Keller said that they also continued to sell their barbecue sauce while the building was closed.
“We really didn’t close it; it was a temporary closure. We still had people ordering sauce,” Keller said.
The owners are the daughters of the restaurant’s namesake, Charles Mickey Bearden. The sisters said that the decision to continue to operate Mickey’s, even in a new direction, is because they want to continue to honor their father, who died in 2003.
“Seeing someone else have
(the building) just wouldn’t be right,” Hamilton said.
The restaurant required multiple employees. Keller said that a coffee shop will be easier to manage, and it will only require the two sisters working in it. She did say that if the new Mickey’s proves popular, they may have to hire one or two more employees in the future.
In addition to coffee and tobacco products, the shop will continue to sell many of the side items that Mickey’s previously sold. Keller said that includes items such as potato salad, pies, cakes and handmade breads.
They will also continue to sell their barbecue sauce, which they said was created by their father and their mother, Patricia.
Keller said that their father and Hamilton opened Mickey’s in 1988. She said that the building’s sign saying that it has been open since 1990 was a joke of their father’s. She said that the changing of the decade was treated as a big deal, so Bearden put 1990 on the sign. Their customers “got a good kick at that,” she said.
After all those decades of making and selling barbecue, Hamilton said that she is looking forward to the change. “It’s going to be fun, but I know people are going to bother the heck out of (Keller) to smoke the meat,” Hamilton said.
Keller said that they have plans to also let local artists sell their artwork in the building. She also said that she intends to put maps of Hot Springs National Park up in the building to help lost hikers.
“We get a lot of hikers here,” Keller said. Mickey’s is located near the Gulpha Gorge Campground. She said that lost hikers have frequently walked into the restaurant asking for directions.
Mickey’s will be closed on Sundays. Their walk-in hours are 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., and their drive-thru hours are 7:30 a.m. until 6 p.m.