Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Council to consider making new entertainment district
Proposed area is part of Evelyn Hills shopping center
FAYETTEVILLE — Diners could soon legally have a mimosa with their brunch outside at a shopping center north of downtown.
The City Council on Tuesday will consider making part of Evelyn Hills shopping center an entertainment district. An entertainment district, as defined by state law enacted last year, allows outdoor consumption of alcohol in a designated area. The 15-acre center is along College Avenue across from the Veterans
Affairs hospital.
The proposed entertainment district, covering roughly the southern two-thirds of the property, would focus more on outdoor dining than drinking, said Devin Howland, the city’s director of economic vitality. It would serve one restaurant, Mockingbird Kitchen, and another soon to open, Big Whiskey’s, as well as any future restaurants.
If established, the entertainment district would be the second one in the city after downtown’s Outdoor Refreshment Area. The idea is to let customers have more space outside to dine safely during the covid-19 pandemic, Howland said.
The request to create an entertainment district at Evelyn Hills came from the property’s owner, J.C. Burciaga. The state would not allow Mockingbird Kitchen to have an outdoor patio serving alcohol because a sidewalk runs between the patio and the restaurant, which runs afoul of state liquor laws, Howland said.
“It really was a unique situation,” he said.
A patio must be contiguous to a business to be licensed to serve alcohol, said Scott Hardin with the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, which oversees Alcoholic Beverage Control. An entertainment district would allow consumption of alcohol outside; however, the restaurant could not serve alcohol outside, he said.
Making the area an entertainment district would mean customers could order alcohol inside the restaurant and consume the drink on the patio, Assistant City Attorney Blake Pennington said. It’s the same situation for the tables set up at on-street parking spaces along Dickson Street, within the Outdoor Refreshment Area, he said.
Mockingbird Kitchen built its patio and can serve food there, just not alcohol, said Leigh Helm, co-owner.
The restaurant can fit about 30 people inside with tables spaced safely apart, which is about half of its total capacity pre-pandemic, Helm said. About a dozen more people could sit on the patio, she said.
To-go orders account for about half of the restaurant’s business, compared to about 15% before the pandemic, Helm said. She hopes being able to have a mimosa with brunch or a bit of wine with dinner will entice more people to have a sit-down experience.
“I think it’s going to be a big help. We’ve needed more room for a while now,” Helm said. “In Fayetteville, you can sit outside for basically nine months a year.”
The entertainment district law gives cities flexibility on how they are implemented, Howland said.
For instance, downtown’s Outdoor Refreshment Area requires patrons to get drinks on the go in branded, compostable cups. Anyone who takes a drink outside has to wear a wristband, and bars have to stop serving to- go drinks at 10 p.m. Those are all rules the city imposed with the ordinance establishing the Outdoor Refreshment Area. Bars have to close by 11 p.m. per Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s covid-19 mandate.
The Evelyn Hills entertainment district would have people only drink alcohol within a seating area, such as Mockingbird Kitchen’s patio. Hours would be the same as the restaurant’s hours. Alcohol would be consumed from the restaurant’s cups and glasses, not the branded, compostable cups.
The proposed entertainment district boundary extends past the restaurant’s patio over several parking spaces in case anyone wants to hold an outdoor event with drinking, Howland said. The event applicant would still have to go through the city’s regular permitting process for an event, with a signature from the mayor and consent of neighboring tenants, he said.
Big Whiskey’s, an American-style restaurant originating in Springfield, Mo., with franchises in Missouri, Oklahoma, Alabama and elsewhere, is planned to open Jan. 29. Shane Miller, franchise owner at the Fayetteville, Bentonville and Siloam Springs locations, said the restaurant intends to have a patio that could safely seat about 50 people.
Miller said he also envisioned potentially hosting tailgating events in the parking lot for Razorback football games, possibly with a projector outside.
“It just kind of makes the options a little bit better for using the whole of the property,” he said.
The city can explore expanding the functionality of the district, such as allowing customers to take drinks from a restaurant into a retail shop, Howland said.
An emergency clause is attached to the proposal, meaning if adopted, it would go into immediate effect.