Arkansas Times | February 2023

RADUNO CHEF IS READERS' FAVORITE

BY RHETT BRINKLEY

3:30 PM

6TH RACE

The starting gate opens, and they’re off. In a blink, the horses fly past my view from a packed grandstand. Drink a couple beers under the magnolia trees, then grab a corned beef sandwich. Winner buys a round, then we hit the blackjack table.

This is my Oaklawn. What’s yours?

FEATURES

30 COLD, HARD CASH

Why everyone is obsessed with the burrata and brunch at Raduno.

By Rhett Brinkley

40 BENTON, THOUGH?

What to eat if you find yourself in the 'burbs.

By Stephanie Smittle

46

BITES

WE CRAVE

Twenty-five eats in Little Rock that never get old.

By Rhett Brinkley, Daniel Grear, Lindsey Millar and Stephanie Smittle

58 READERS CHOICE

The restaurants, bakeries and bars that came out on top in our annual readers poll.

FUTURE

SANCTUARY: Isaac Alexander's double album, like its cover art, is "hopeful, but kind of heartbreaking."

9 THE FRONT

From the Farm: Copperheads and cottonmouths.

Q&A: With Jaylen Smith, the 19-yearold mayor of Earle, Arkansas. Big Pic: The Little Rock Marathon, by the numbers.

17 THE TO-DO LIST

Dwight Yoakam at Simmons Bank Arena, S.G. Goodman at the White Water Tavern, 'Time' at the Arkansas Times Film Series, Big Thief at George's, Ballet Arkansas does 'Sleeping Beauty' and more.

23 NEWS & POLITICS

More prisons and longer sentences, if Republican leaders have their way.

By Lindsey Millar

73

SAVVY KIDS

What to do for spring break if you need to stick a little closer to home.

By Caroline Millar

79 CULTURE

On Isaac Alexander's long, quiet reign as Little Rock's king of melody.

By Daniel Grear

82 CULTURE

A Q&A with printmaker and painter LaToya M. Hobbs.

By Daniel Grear

85 CANNABIZ

Shake Extractions is bringing distinctly women-focused products to market in a male-dominated cannabis landscape.

By Griffin Coop

90 THE OBSERVER

COVID sets its sights on ketchup.

ON THE COVER: Cash Ashley by Sara Reeves.

ISSAC ALEXANDER

Rhea

PUBLISHER Alan Leveritt

EDITOR Lindsey Millar

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Mandy Keener

SENIOR EDITOR Max Brantley

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Austin Bailey

MANAGING EDITOR Stephanie Smittle

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rhett Brinkley

CANNABIZ EDITOR Griffin Coop

ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Daniel Grear

REPORTER Mary Hennigan

REPORTER Debra Hale-Shelton

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Mara Leveritt

PHOTOGRAPHER Brian Chilson

DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL STRATEGY Jordan Little

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT Wythe Walker

ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR Mike Spain

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Sarah Holderfield

DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING

Phyllis A. Britton

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Brooke Wallace, Lee Major, Terrell Jacob and Kaitlyn Looney

ADVERTISING TRAFFIC MANAGER

Roland R. Gladden

IT DIRECTOR Robert Curfman

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Jackson Gladden

CONTROLLER Weldon Wilson BILLING/COLLECTIONS Charlotte Key

EVENTS DIRECTOR Rickey Tilley

PRODUCTION MANAGER Ira Hocut (1954-2009)

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SNAKES I HAVE KNOWN ON COTTONMOUTHS

AND COPPERHEADS.

BY ALAN LEVERITT

When we rebuilt and moved into this old farmhouse, I thought I owned the place but quickly realized I was just another tenant. There was the spring nest of baby birds behind the bookcase. Or the period when there was a possum living in the HVAC system who would come up into the kitchen each night and eat the cat food. Or the hundreds of red wasps that would suddenly appear every summer, covering the vaulted ceiling of a newly built room. Or the dozen wild turkeys roosting on my back porch one morning, or a whole posse of deadly raccoons that turned my peacock pen into a melee of blood and beautiful feathers.

With the exception of a few rats and the occasional raccoon in the attic, city dwellers have done their best to evict wild things. But if you live in the country, get ready to share the road with Mother Nature. She’s not going anywhere.

Consider the snakes.

When my grandmother was a small child on our farm, not a blade of grass was permitted to grow around the log house. Ma, my great-grandmother, kept a swept yard, a common country practice back then to help spot poisonous snakes before the children got into them. Doctors were far away. My grandmother Leveritt outside of Smackover kept a swept yard as well.

Snakes at my place tend to come in waves. First it seemed they were all copperheads, then speckled king snakes and now big black rat snakes with a sprinkling of cottonmouth water moccasins throughout. And my reaction to them has also varied, depending on the species and, oddly, where I was at that time in my life.

When we moved out to the farm, the old house, never in good shape, had been abandoned for 25 years. It already had plenty of tenants. Regarding snakes, I came across nothing but copperheads for the first eight or nine years. People will disagree but in my experience copperheads are not

particularly aggressive.

I had only been gardening for a couple of seasons and it seemed I grew mostly weeds in my small kitchen garden. One morning I had been weeding on all fours, trying to make room for some fall tomatoes. Headed to the compost with an arm full of weeds, I returned to discover a copperhead curled up exactly where I had been pulling weeds. He could have had me a dozen times. I called my stepson to bring his .410 and we severed the snake’s head with shot. Curious and not knowing any better I picked up the snake's head by what was left of its neck. Suddenly his mouth flew open with his fangs extended, spurting venom everywhere. That is how I learned that a snake is never dead until it is.

Sometime around 1920, Paw planted a

stand of elephant garlic where my kitchen garden is now and the garlic has proliferated there ever since. The garlic heads get up to a pound in size, thus their name. Before fire ants arrived I always gardened in comfortable, open-toed sandals. One evening in late June I was harvesting the huge garlic heads, yanking the plants up through the thatch and pitching them to the side. It wasn’t until I was nose to nose with a very surprised copperhead that I realized that one had been lying under the thatch up against the thick stem of the plant. When I yanked it up with some force, he rode the top of the garlic head almost even with my chin until he slipped off and fell across my feet. I hollered and went high-stepping through the bush beans while he disappeared into the potatoes. Those potatoes liked to never

BIG SAM: A rat snake who makes regular appearances on the farm.

ALAN LEVERITT

get harvested that year.

At this point my attitude started to change. The snake could have had me and didn’t. I figured I owed the copperheads and stopped killing them, gently moving them aside or avoiding them when I encountered one.

But all of that changed in 2000 when my daughter, Lila Dell, was born. One May afternoon I was trying to nap in the loft with my windows open. Lila was about 2 and had wandered outside and began calling, “Daddy, come see the snake!” I was nearly asleep and at first it didn’t register, but then it did. I was down the stairs and out back in seconds to find her poking a copperhead with a short stick. I grabbed her and returned with a hoe and killed the snake.

The last close encounter with copperheads was for me the scariest. Again, it wasn’t the snake’s fault, but you can’t afford to anthropomorphize a reptile. My in-laws were in town and we returned late to the farm from dinner. I was holding Lila and had opened the screen door and the front door for her grandmother when I heard a panicky Ana Lou say, “Snake, snake, snake!”

The cats had brought a copperhead up on the front porch and the snake had sought refuge between the screen door and the main door. When I opened the door for Ana Lou, the copperhead slithered right into the living room ahead of her.

My sophisticated Richmond in-laws were going to be so impressed, especially when I moved all of us into the Jacksonville Comfort Inn until I found the damn snake. I handed Lila to her grandmother and told her not to take her eyes off of the snake while I went for the hoe. The snake, instead of going under the sofa, had coiled up next to a bookcase. I raised the hoe and thought, this better work or it was going to be a very weird weekend. I caught the snake right behind its head. He was still hissing and trying to bite as his head whizzed by my foot out onto the porch.

That spring saw an influx of speckled king snakes and the near disappearance of copperheads. King snakes are impervious to snake venom and prey on copperheads. When my dad was a student at Arkansas A&M at Monticello during the 1930s, members of his biology class were sent out to collect snake specimens. Pretty quickly he had filled his pillow case with a copperhead and a king snake, confident that his professor was going to be impressed. But when he returned to the lab and opened the pillowcase, there was only a king snake. The king snake had crushed and completely swallowed the copperhead.

It has been several years since I have seen a king snake but we seem covered up now with black rat snakes. I have a thick, 5-foot-long rat snake I named Big Sam who

I encounter every spring. Last year I stood fascinated as he climbed 25 feet straight up a magnificent white oak to reach the first limb where he curled up in the crook, waiting, I suppose, for a bird. I recalled some years back a herpetologist tagged a bunch of rattlesnakes to follow their movements. At one point he thought his tracking devices had malfunctioned or the snakes disappeared. In fact they were all up in trees.

Speaking of trees, I once saw a marriage end on the Spring River after a couple spotted a big writhing ball of cottonmouths having snake sex on a limb overhanging the river. The guy, with a huge camera around his neck, had gotten out of the back of the canoe and was waist deep in the water snapping photographs. Holding on to the canoe as he got closer and closer to the ball of snakes, he was apparently unaware that his wife who was in the front of the canoe was about 6 feet closer to the snakes than he was. His wife was getting panicky, her voice rising with every step closer until she was nearly beneath the ball. That’s when the dozen snakes became aware of them and literally exploded into the air and into the water. Suddenly surrounded by snakes, it was the husband’s turn to panic and he sort of jump-flopped into the back of the canoe, flipping his now hysterical wife into the Spring River and in amongst all the cottonmouths. That was the last we saw of them as we rounded a willow bend.

I live about 300 yards uphill from Bayou Meto, and the closer you get to the water, the bad snake census switches from copperhead to cottonmouth. I once had a neighbor who had lost his leg below the knee to a drunk driver, but he had a high tech metal prosthesis which allowed him a nearly normal lifestyle. One afternoon he was helping us with some sheep fencing near the bayou. He had just gotten off his four-wheeler when he felt a strange repetitive vibration coming up his injured leg. When he looked down, he saw he was standing on the midsection of a very angry cottonmouth which was repeatedly striking his prosthesis. As long as he was standing on the snake he was pretty safe; it was his next move that could be problematic. He was a big man but he grabbed the fourwheeler handlebars and launched himself over the machine, landing on the other side. Both he and the snake then took off in different directions.

My scariest, most unsettling encounter with a water moccasin involved the largest snake that I have ever seen outside of a zoo. There is an old trace road that goes in front of my house and down the hill to a ford on Bayou Meto where wagons and horses could cross. Normally it is just a few inches

deep, and it’s where I kept my canoe pulled up for fishing.

One summer afternoon I came across a huge snake there, hunting crawfish in the shallow ford. He was as big around as my calf, too thick to ever be completely submerged and whipping around like a sea serpent as he chased his prey. His triangleshaped head was as big as my open palm and I watched him until he got his fill and disappeared into the green depths of Bayou Meto.

A year later I was anchored and fishing in my nearby honey hole when I saw him again, perfectly still, wrapped around a Tupelo stump near the bank. About 4 feet of the stump was out of the water and the cottonmouth was so big I could see little of the stump. I paddled over to the bank and walked back until I was standing above the snake. He became aware of me and ever so slowly began to unwind around the stump, slowly swimming toward the other bank. And this is where I have been accused of daytime drinking but I swear, by the time the tip of his tail left the stump, his nose was almost touching the other bank.

The final time I encountered the snake was the creepiest. Newt Williamson, my grandmother’s third cousin and my good neighbor, had died and his cattle had been sold off. Newt ran his cattle partially on our land and they kept the bamboo eaten down and trampled around the ford. It had been a year since he died and it was hard to see where I was stepping for all the new growth. I was putting in my canoe when I saw him, his gaze seemingly fixed on me. He was coiled up in the bamboo not 15 feet away, a huge stack of snake flesh. Maybe for the first time in my life I felt in danger while in the woods. I quickly put the canoe between the two of us and then eased the boat out into the water. I paddled 75 yards down the bayou and tried to fish for an hour, but I was dreading the return. Quietly I paddled back up to the ford waiting for him to appear in his spot until I realized he was no longer there. He had moved and I could not see where. I was scared. Bob Lancaster, one of the great Arkansas writers in my lifetime and a former editor of the Times, told a hair-raising story once of a cottonmouth hunting a Sheridan fisherman. In Honduras I had listened to a farmer tell the story of a Bushmaster tracking another farmer back to his village. For the first time in my life I could imagine what it felt like to be prey.

It took me a half-hour just to pull up the canoe and navigate the 20 yards of undergrowth that covered the ford. He was either there or in the water and I gave it 5050. I never saw him again, but every year when I go down to the bayou I look for him. He will always be there for me.

The BridgeWay is more than a hospital-it’s a place of hope and recovery from substance use disorders and mental illness. With the belief that each person can change and heal, we offer a program and treatment plan unique to each patient. Our outpatient treatment represents our least restrictive and most flexible care options. Our Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) and Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) offer either day or evening schedules. These options allow patients to receive recovery-focused treatment that addresses a full range of psychiatric and addictive issues while attending to daily family and work obligations. In addition, our outpatient programs provide specialized group therapy for adults 18 and older with specific mental health or substance use disorder needs.

VOTING BEGINS JAN.

This year, the original reader’s choice poll creators bring you the ARKANSAS TIMES CANNABIS AWARDS! The Dopest Awards in Arkansas! Vote for your favorites in the Cannabis Industry. Voting begins January 16 and runs through February 20. We will announce the Winners and Finalists in our April issue.

PERHAPS THE YOUNGEST MAYOR

IN AMERICA A Q&A WITH JAYLEN SMITH.

When Jaylen DeWayne Smith, 19, took office Jan. 1 as the full-time mayor of Earle, an East Arkansas town of about 1,830, he was 18. As an honor student at Earle High School, he successfully negotiated a new deal with the school’s cafeteria vendor — and became known, The New York Times reported in a January profile, for being a fixture at city government meetings, for blasting gospel music from his computer speakers and for being, presumably, the only ninth-grader in Earle who wore suits to school. A Democrat who lives with his mother, he hopes to one day be an Arkansas State Trooper and successful businessman.

Have you lived your whole life in Earle? Yes.

When did you decide you wanted to go into politics and be mayor? 17 years old.

Was your family supportive? Yes, my family was very supportive. I told my godmom, Mrs. Carloss Guess, first, and she told me to go for it. My twin brother, Jayden, kept me on track. When I was sitting around, he would tell me I could be out campaigning, knocking on doors and meeting with the citizens. My mom was also supportive, giving advice and encouragement when she felt I needed it. My friends Deonta Davis, Gabby Alston, Jeremiah Brown, Jalom Logan, DeAveon Holmes, Lacordo Hemphill, Manuel Dunn and Tanira Harris helped me a lot with campaigning and other things I did within the community.

OTHER THAN POLITICS, WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES OR SPECIAL INTERESTS? My hobbies are hanging out with my twin brother and friends, spending time with my niece, Kamari, and helping others. My special interests are police work and being a funeral director.

Walmart. I have two older brothers, Montrell Smith and Alex Smith Jr. They both work. I was raised not only by my mom, but a village: I had my great-grandfather, Mr. Harry Perkins; my aunts, Ora, Rosie, Lynne, Josie and Melissa; uncles, the late Michael Sr., Ben, Robin, Antonio and Dewayne; cousins, too many to name, godparents Mr. Arthur and Mrs. Carloss Guess, who assisted with raising us. My dad's name is Alex Smith Sr., and he is also employed.

Who are your personal and political heroes? My political hero is [former] President Barack Obama. Seeing a man that looks like me become the president of the United States of America was great. It made me further believe that anything is possible and if God is for you he is more than the whole world against you. My personal hero is Pastor Ronald Broussard; he motivates and pushes me towards greatness. He gave me a job at Eternal Light Funeral Services at the age of 16. He believed in me and I am forever grateful.

What kind of student were you academically? I was a pretty good student. I was diagnosed with a specific learning disability, and I was pulled from the regular classroom for English and math. I graduated as an honor student and No. 4 in my class.

Tell us about your campaign platform. My campaign platform was simple. I knocked on doors and sat and listened to what the citizens wanted to see happen and change within the city of Earle.

What are your goals as mayor? Public safety, transportation for the elderly, beautifying the city, getting a grocery store, tearing down abandoned houses and building affordable housing.

What do you consider your biggest challenge ahead as mayor? Affordable housing ... because we don't have a lot of land to build on.

Tell me a little about your family. My mom's name is Sonya Perkins. She works in the school district; my twin brother's name is Jayden Smith, he attends Arkansas State University Mid-South and works at

You've already attended some college. Please tell us about that. I attended Arkansas State University Mid-South in the fall 2022. I took English composition I, college algebra and student success, and I did good in those classes. I do plan to seek a degree in criminal justice.

What are your long-term ambitions? My long-term career ambitions are to become an Arkansas State Police trooper and a successful businessman.

Are you religious? If so, please tell us how faith helped you in your campaign if it did. I have a strong faith in God. I believe that what he has for me is for me. I always say I let God's will be done. My faith in God helped me tremendously in my campaign.

How do you see yourself at age 30? State representative or state senator.

—Debra Hale-Shelton

COUNTING DOWN TO THE LITTLE ROCK MARATHON

26.2 MILES AND A LOT OF BANANAS.

BY MARY HENNIGAN

Completing a marathon is a bucket list item for many people. There’s something about crossing the finish line after 26.2 miles that hooks athletes everywhere. This year, thousands will gather for the Little Rock Marathon events on March 4-5. Marathon finishers will be met at the end with a medal as big as a piece of notebook paper.

Marathon Executive Director Geneva Lamm said the city welcomes many first-time runners each year, and the fact that so many first-timers trust Little Rock’s team to put on a safe, well-organized event makes Lamm feel proud. Extensive budgeting and planning goes into making sure the marathon runs smoothly (pun intended). Though all encompassed under the umbrella title of the Little Rock Marathon, five events — a kids’ race, 5K, 10K, half and full marathon — will happen that weekend.

Lamm takes her job seriously, keeping dozens of detailed spreadsheets covering data compiled over decades. The city of Little Rock does not include the marathon in its annual budget, so Lamm organizes the race with a combination of sponsorship dollars and registration fees. She also makes it a personal goal to give back around $50,000 of the marathon profits to the city’s Parks and Recreation Department every year. Lamm and marathon sponsors have created traditions over the years, like passing out tubes of L'Oréal lipstick near the end of the race so finishers’ lips are perfectly colored for celebratory photos.

Much like the ancient Greek legend of the first marathoner who delivered a message and collapsed at the foot of the receiver, there is a chance that runners can die during the race or at the finish line. Three have died in the 20 years of the Little Rock marathon, and Lamm said that she remembers each of them — on-duty paramedic Maj. Dean Douglas in 2021, Michael Kelly in 2012 and Adam Nickel in 2008.

Time is ticking for the final training days, so here’s the Little Rock Marathon by the numbers.

19 AGENCIES TO ENSURE PUBLIC SAFETY

50,000 1,207

5,000 TUBES OF L'ORÉAL LIPSTICK

AID STATIONS

PAPER CUPS FOR ON-THE-GO LIBATIONS

6-HOUR TIME

9,000 POUNDS OF FINISHERS’ MEDALS

1,250 ORANGE CONES

3 DEATHS

241 PORTA-POTTIES

1 RIVER CROSSED

41 CHEERING STOPS

3,840 POUNDS OF BANANAS

$117 AVERAGE REGISTRATION FEE

640 GALLONS OF GATORADE

26.2 MILE ROUTE

BY DANIEL GREAR

BIG THIEF

FRIDAY 2/10. GEORGE’S MAJESTIC LOUNGE, FAYETTEVILLE. 9 P.M. $33-35.

As musicians attract a larger audience, their music often trends, however incrementally, toward the slick and mainstream. It’s not always for the worse, but it frequently is. Maybe it feels like a cliche, but how often have you heard someone complain about how this or that group just doesn’t sound the way they used to? There’s a sense that something unique or essential that was present and scrappy at a band’s inception has been ruthlessly scoured to make room for more listeners. I wouldn’t dare claim that indie folk rock royalty Big Thief is immune to change because they’re constantly reinventing themselves, but they are one of the few bands who sound both better and more themselves with every album, despite also having made massive gains in popularity. For Big Thief, fame and integrity somehow go hand in hand. Their latest record, “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You,” is relaxed, sprawling and close to the earth, with production that balances the crisp with the spontaneous. Paste named it their 2022 album of the year, calling it singer Adrianne Lenker and company’s “loosest album and most ambitious album all at once.” Catch them at George’s Majestic Lounge, a 700-cap spot on Fayetteville’s Dickson Street, before they outgrow venues of that size.

MICHAEL BUISHAS

THE BAR-KAYS

SATURDAY, 2/18. EAST ARKANSAS COMMUNITY COLLEGE, FORREST CITY. 7:30 P.M. $44.

In 1967, things were going swimmingly for the Bar-Kays. While they were still finishing high school, their first single, “Soul Finger,” made it onto the Billboard Hot 100. Even better, Otis Redding caught one of their shows in their hometown of Memphis and was so dazzled that he offered them a gig on the spot as his world tour backing band. But then, just a few months later, their momentum was halted by tragedy when four members of the band along with Redding died in a plane crash. However, instead of throwing in the towel, the two surviving members — bassist James Alexander and trumpeter Ben Cauley — doubled down. Within two years, they were buoying Isaac Hayes as his accompaniment for “Hot Buttered Soul.” Over the next few decades, they became funk legends, pumping out hits like “Hit and Run,” “Too Hot to Stop,” “Freakshow on the Dance Floor” and “Shake Your Rump To the Funk.” At the age of 74, Alexander still holds down the rhythm section as the only original member.

DWIGHT YOAKAM

FRIDAY, 2/17. SIMMONS BANK ARENA. 8 P.M. $59.75-$99.75.

If you put Dwight Yoakam’s name into Google and search images, it’s near impossible to find a picture of him where he’s not wearing a tan-colored Stetson, and this feels right. Although he’s also an accomplished actor, it’s hard not to think of Yoakam as anything but a bona fide “Honky Tonk Man,” as his first 1986 single claimed, especially with that “plaintive, yodel-edged voice” leading the way, aptly described by the Rapid City Journal. After giving the world “Fast as You,” “Streets of Bakersfield” and “I Sang Dixie,” and selling tens of millions of records, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2019, even though he initially struggled to find success there due to his rejection of the pop country sound. He’ll be supported at Simmons by Fort Smith’s JD Clayton.

ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES: ‘TIME’

TUESDAY 2/21. RIVERDALE 10 CINEMA. 7 P.M.

What kind of representation of memory comes from taking 20 years of lived experience and trying to capture its essence for an absent party with just 100 hours of camcorder archives? It’s a remarkable amount of access, but it’s still not enough. What kind of artistic product emerges when you take those same hours of moving images and whittle them down to a feature-length film? Eighty-one minutes is a good chunk of time to spend with any singular subject, but it’s nothing compared to the original material it was gleaned from. Questions like these make you ponder the inherently subjective process of selection, cutting and ordering that undergirds nonfiction filmmaking. These are just a couple of the extremely existential preoccupations that are explored in “Time,” a 2020 documentary by Garrett Bradley about Sibil Fox Richardson’s fight for the release of her husband, Rob, who spent over two decades away from his family due to an armed robbery prison sentence. The film is shot entirely in black and white, but alternates between scraps of home movie footage from Rob’s incarcerated years and the family’s present-day attempt to transcend the scars left on them by the prison-industrial complex.

LEAH GRANT

THURSDAY, 2/9-FRIDAY, 4/28. ARTS & SCIENCE CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ARKANSAS, PINE BLUFF. FREE.

Fayetteville-based visual artist Leah Grant sometimes makes use of audio, video and the written word in her work, but her most striking project combines photography, collage, cyanotype and screenprinting to create textured, blue-and-red portraits that exist at the intersection of solemn dignity and smeared, colorful chaos. She received an MFA from the University of Arkansas and a BFA from Henderson State, and her new exhibit, “Becoming Once More,” will be on display at the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, a 22,000-square-foot museum in Pine Bluff that’s also home to theater productions and art education. Grant’s display will overlap with another exhibit entitled “Spectrum Dynamic,” which presents visual interpretations of the repetitive physical movements commonly associated with people on the autism spectrum.

ARKANSAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: RACHMANINOFF PAGANINI VARIATIONS FOR PIANO

SATURDAY 2/25-SUNDAY 2/26. ROBINSON CENTER. 7:30 P.M. SAT.; 3 P.M. SUN. $19-$77.

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s next installment of its Masterworks Series revolves around pianist George Li, a visiting instrumentalist so distinguished that he was written about by The New York Times and the Washington Post when he was only 16, the same age he was when he performed for Barack and Michelle Obama. Li and the symphony will play “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” a 1934 concertante with 24 variations by Russian-American composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, who was known for spotlighting the piano in much of his oeuvre. With Andrew Crust as guest conductor, the ASO will also do renditions of William Grant Still’s “Symphony No. 1” (1930) — the first symphony by a Black composer performed for an American audience by a major orchestra — and “Montgomery Variations” (1964) by Margaret Bonds, another seminal Black composer.

‘VOICES OF ELAINE’ SYMPOSIUM

SATURDAY, 2/4. CENTRAL THEATRE, HOT SPRINGS. 11 A.M. $18-$25.

To kick off Black History Month, the Hot Springs NAACP will host “Voices of Elaine,” a symposium commemorating the Elaine Massacre of 1919, an under-acknowledged Phillips County incident that began with a shooting outside a controversial union meeting where Black sharecroppers were advocating for better pay. The next morning, a stampede of between 500-1,000 white people murdered hundreds of Black men, women and children in what they claimed was an attempt to stomp out an “insurrection.” According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the event is “by far the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history and possibly the bloodiest racial conflict in the history of the United States.” The symposium will feature a documentary screening and a keynote address by recently retired Circuit Judge Wendell Griffin, a fervent activist and pastor who the Baptist News Global praised for a career of challenging and resisting “racists, subservience to empire, white privilege, the economics of incarceration, denominational politics and exclusionary policies by religious organizations that restrict full participation in all areas by LGBTQ persons.” Afterward, there will be a panel discussion and Q&A with Black descendents of Elaine, who can likely attest to the fact that there is still some local white resistance regarding the culpability of their ancestors.

PAUL MARC MITCHELL

S.G. GOODMAN

THURSDAY 2/23. WHITE WATER TAVERN. 8 P.M. $15.

In an online essay for the Oxford American, S.G. Goodman spoke about the indispensability of the female perspective for country and roots music: “Listeners can hear a roadmap of progress through the voices and songs of women … they are telling their tales of fight and grit, of injustice and inequality.” Goodman, a gifted songwriter and farmer’s daughter from small town Kentucky, falls into that same lineage but adds her own epic, rocky and atmospheric twist to the genre. In “If You Were Someone I Loved,” a biting track from the middle of her 2022 album “Teeth Marks,” she indicts both herself and her proverbial neighbor for ignoring the victims of the opioid epidemic ravaging rural America. If the listener sings along, they are cast in the role of a person who has willfully put distance between themselves and those who suffer. In “Dead Soldiers,” Goodman bears witness to a friend’s alcoholism, leading her to observe that self-destructive drinking looks a lot like “a man chopping wood for his own funeral pyre.” In other words, she’s not messing around. Stand in the crowd at White Water and see what kind of action or reflection she might spur you to.

‘BOYCOTT’ DOCUMENTARY SCREENING

THURSDAY, 2/23. RON ROBINSON THEATER. 6 P.M. $25.

“Boycott” (2021), a documentary directed by Julia Bacha, highlights the story of three dissenters each ostensibly fighting for their ability to participate in the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) movement without financial recourse for their businesses. More precisely, these individuals — all of whom have different motivations across the political spectrum — are pushing back against the alreadyexisting laws in 34 states that say they’re required to commit not to boycotting Israel if they want to engage in public contracts. Big questions about the First Amendment are at stake. One of the three featured profiles is Arkansas Times publisher Alan Leveritt, whose refusal to sign an anti-boycott pledge has resulted in the loss of many state advertising dollars for this magazine and a long legal battle that is still ongoing. The screening is followed by a Q&A with Leveritt, producer Suhad Babaa and the ACLU of Arkansas, which will receive all proceeds from the night. Come early for a cocktail hour at 5 p.m.

‘LAUGHTER ON THE 23RD FLOOR’

WEDNESDAY 2/1-SUNDAY 2/19. ARKANSAS REPERTORY THEATRE.

Judge Reinhold, a big-screen actor known for his roles in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and “The Santa Clause,” splits his time between Los Angeles, Sante Fe and Little Rock, but he rarely performs in The Natural State. He rarely performs on stage, either, regardless of where he’s located. Synthesize both of those rarities and you’ll find his next performance, a lead part in Neil Simon’s “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” which will be his Rep debut. In it, Reinhold plays Max Prince, the star of a pre-“Saturday Night Live” variety show that’s under fire by NBC executives for being too smart and controversial for its Communism-fearing audience. Have you ever wondered what it’s like behind the scenes at a fast-paced, quick-witted television show? Perhaps you’ve even fancied yourself someone who’s clever enough to write for the masses? Stop by the Rep and be a fly on the wall in the writer’s room, where an ensemble of idiosyncratic creatives argue their way through questions of artistic integrity while trying to keep their jobs.

BALLET ARKANSAS: SLEEPING BEAUTY

THURSDAY 2/16-SUNDAY 2/19.

UA-PULASKI TECH CENTER FOR HUMANITIES AND ARTS. $30-$45.

Before “Sleeping Beauty” became a 1959 Disney animated classic, it was a fairy tale of anonymous origins that passed through the Italian, French and German pens of Giambattista Basile, Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. When Russian Romantic composer Tchaikovsky — who also wrote “Swan Lake” and “The Nutcracker” — turned it into a ballet in the late 1880s (parts of which were eventually arranged or adapted for the Disney film), he borrowed aspects of the latter two writers’ interpretations. Ballet Arkansas’s presentation of “Sleeping Beauty” will involve over 100 community performers, including more than 80 dancers ages 9-18.

JONATHAN MCPHAIL

LEANING INTO MASS INCARCERATION

ARKANSAS REPUBLICAN LEADERS ARE POISED TO LOCK PEOPLE UP LONGER AND BUILD MORE PRISONS.

BY LINDSEY MILLAR

Arkansas has the fifth highest incarceration rate in the country — a per capita rate of 942 per 100,000 people that greatly exceeds that of all independent democracies around the world, including the broader United States. But Gov. Sarah Sanders, Attorney General Tim Griffin and legislative leaders aren’t settling for fifth place in the contest over who can spend the most taxpayer dollars locking away the most people for the longest amount of time. Along with sweeping changes to K-12 education and tax cuts, Sanders has named public safety as one of her priorities and insists building more prisons is the answer despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

“Any government that tolerates rampant crime has failed in its most important duty,” Sanders told the legislature Jan. 10, after she was sworn in as governor. “As of today, Arkansas will tolerate crime no longer. Together we will build the prison space we need to keep our citizens safe, and we will put more of our courageous cops on the street, and we will shut down the crime wave that has plagued our cities.”

The first legislation filed in the 2023 Arkansas General Assembly is titled the Truth in Sentencing and Parole Reform Act of 2023. The twin bills, sponsored by Rep. Jimmy

Gazaway (R-Paragould) in the House and Sen. Ben Gilmore (R-Crossett) in the Senate, remained in shell form without any specifics as of late January. But Gazaway said that while negotiations into the details of the legislation were ongoing, the general framework has been established: Lawmakers want to add more prison beds, lock more people up for longer and curb the use of parole.

This return to tough-on-crime policies would make Arkansas something of an outlier nationally. Although Republicans have traditionally made law and order a cornerstone of their platform, many conservatives have embraced criminal justice reform in the last decade to move away from mass incarceration. Texas, for instance, has closed 10 prisons since 2011, saving the state billions of dollars. Lone Star State policy, including efforts focused on rehabilitating and rewarding receptive prisoners, helped inform the 2018 First Step Act, a bipartisan federal criminal justice reform bill signed into law by former President Donald Trump when Sanders was his press secretary.

Arkansas’s push comes on the heels of a similar effort in Tennessee, where the legislature passed a “truth in sentencing bill” despite opposition from Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who said widespread evidence suggested

the legislation would “result in more victims, higher recidivism, increased crime and prison overcrowding, all with an increased cost to taxpayers.” Meanwhile, last year in Oklahoma conservative Gov. Kevin Stitt pushed through a criminal justice reform that made more state prisoners eligible for parole.

Attorney General Griffin, reportedly leading the legislative push behind the scenes, outlined much of his vision during campaign season last year in 2,500 words of tiny, tightly spaced text he squeezed into an advertisement he placed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and put on his website. In “A Plan For A Safer Arkansas,” he echoed a talking point of former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, arguing that Arkansas should “incapacitate repeat violent offenders” and rehabilitate other inmates who are willing. Griffin highlighted crime in Little Rock, which set a homicide record in 2022, a stat Republicans will surely return to often.

Sen. Clarke Tucker (D-Little Rock) co-chaired a committee in 2016 and 2017 that spent 18 months examining Arkansas’s criminal justice system in an effort to curb out-of-control growth, save money and make the community safer. The result of the effort was a modest reform bill approved by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by former

BRIAN CHILSON

LOCK 'EM AWAY AND THROW AWAY THE KEY: That's Attorney General Tim Griffin's prison plan.

LITTLE ROCK MIDTOWN

500 S. University Ave., Ste. 708 Little Rock, AR 72205

midtown@arkansasdermatology.com

Gov. Asa Hutchinson (the bill was perhaps not so modest considering that the Board of Corrections wanted to build a 1,000-bed prison at the time).

“If locking people up reduced crime, we would have the fourth lowest crime rate in America, but we don’t. We have the fifth highest crime rate,” Tucker said recently. “We have to do something different. Building more prisons is just doing more of the same. It’s cheap from a policy perspective but very expensive from a dollars perspective and from a human cost perspective.”

MAKING DOLLARS MAKE SENSE

Gazaway, the House sponsor of the legislative package and a former deputy prosecutor, wants to establish how much his colleagues are willing

the EPA every year for at least the last decade, releasing on average, from 2011-2021, 2,400 prisoners a year.

In 2022, the Arkansas legislature appropriated $75 million to the Division of Correction for a 498-bed expansion at its North Central Unit in Calico Rock. That project has not begun and isn’t expected to be completed for several years. Meanwhile, the Board of Corrections has issued a public notice seeking communities willing to donate land for a 1,000-bed maximum-security facility. Funding for that project has not been allocated by the legislature.

Gazaway said he doesn’t believe those projects will sufficiently cover the state’s prison needs. The state may need anywhere from 3,000-5,000 new beds, he said. “The big question is how much we are willing as a state

DESPITE INCREASING THE SALARY SCHEDULE FOR EMPLOYEES IN LATE 2021, THE PRISON SYSTEM HAS BEEN UNABLE TO RETAIN AND ATTRACT CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS. THE CORRECTIONS DIVISION IS SHORT 1,329 SECURITY STAFFERS OUT OF 3,030 BUDGETED POSITIONS, A VACANCY RATE OF 44%.

to devote to expanding prison capacity before they tinker with sentence restrictions.

“We don’t have the capacity we need,” Gazaway said. “Part of the equation is that we haven’t expanded prison capacity in Arkansas significantly in terms of max security beds in approximately 20 years. The result of that is we’ve seen county jails expand. They’re holding prisoners who are sentenced to the Division of Correction, but DOC doesn’t have anywhere to put them.”

The capacity of the state prison system is 14,652. At the end of 2022, the correction division had 15,382 prisoners under its jurisdiction. The average number of state inmates held in county jails because of lack of capacity in 2022 was 1,725.

This is not a new trend. The average county jail backup in 2014 and 2015, for example, exceeded 2,000 prisoners. County officials perennially complain about the burden of housing state prisoners, frequently citing the disparity of the reimbursement rate the state pays counties to house inmates and the actual cost of keeping them locked up and raising the alarm that there’s not enough space for local offenders.

Sanders, in her inaugural address, said, “Releasing unreformed and unrepentant criminals for no reason other than a lack of space is not compassionate. It’s foolish. It’s dangerous. And under my leadership it will end. We will shut the revolving door in prisons.”

She was referring to the Board of Corrections use of the Emergency Powers Act, a law that allows the board to release prisoners up to 90 days earlier than the date they become eligible for parole when the prison system exceeds 98% capacity or there are more than 500 state inmates in county jails. The board has used

to devote to expanding prison capacity.”

He acknowledged the changes would not be cheap. The cost of adding 5,000 beds, an expansion of prison capacity of more than 30%, would likely exceed $500 million. The state would also have to fund significant ongoing operational costs. Arkansas’s average cost to house an inmate in 2022 was $24,000, more than, for example, the total cost of a student to attend the University of Central Arkansas per year.

While Arkansas has a record $1.348 billion in its general revenue allotment reserve, there will be significant competition for those funds between Sanders’ desire to eliminate the state income tax and her push to dramatically expand school vouchers.

Even if the legislature could clear the significant financial hurdles, recent trends suggest the Division of Correction would have trouble staffing the new prison beds. Despite increasing the salary schedule for employees in late 2021, the prison system has been unable to retain and attract correctional officers. The corrections division is short 1,329 security staffers out of 3,030 budgeted positions, a vacancy rate of 44%. Beginning in January 2021, the division had to reduce the capacity at its Tucker Unit by almost 300 because the prison was operating with 72% of its security positions unfilled; it hasn’t been able to increase staffing sufficiently to return to its capacity.

TIGHTENING SENTENCES

The potential expansion, well beyond what would alleviate the county jail backup and trends relative to general population growth, would be necessary to account for the truth in sentencing and parole reform plans in the coming legislation, Gazaway said.

The idea is to eliminate parole for violent offenders and those who commit sexual crimes against children and reduce parole eligibility for serious nonviolent crimes, according to Gazaway.

“If you murder another human being, you’re going to go to prison and you’re not going to get out of prison early,” Gazaway said. “If you stick a gun in a convenience store clerk’s face and threaten to kill them and rob the store, you’re going to prison and you’re not getting out early. If you sexually abuse a child, you're going to prison and you’re not getting out early.”

Arkansas’s justice system uses a sentencing grid established in 1993 that takes into account the seriousness of an offense, ranked 1-10, and the offender’s criminal history: A score below a certain level allows an inmate to serve onethird of his sentence in prison, minus any time knocked off for good behavior, and complete the rest on parole. A score above a certain level raises the threshold to half the sentence, minus good time. If an inmate receives no disciplinary infractions, he earns good time credit for every day he is incarcerated, which means he can serve as little as one-sixth or one-fourth of his sentence, depending on where his sentence falls on the grid.

As a justification for the sentencing change, Gazaway cited March 2022 testimony from then-Secretary of Corrections Solomon Graves before a legislative committee, where Graves told legislators that, among new prisoners, those who committed the most serious violent felonies were driving the growth in the prison system. But Graves’ testimony does not match actual numbers. Statistical analysis from JFA Associates, a Colorado-based consultant that has reviewed prison trends in Arkansas and other states for decades, shows that only around 6% of new prisoners in 2021 were convicted of the most serious violent crimes. Among parolees returned to prison, only 12% received a serious new charge.

In the years that followed the introduction of the grid in 1993, lawmakers passed a series of tough-on-crime measures, making certain crimes eligible for parole only after an inmate served 70% of his sentence, creating two- and three-strikes laws that eliminated parole for certain repeat offenders and enacting laws that especially targeted methamphetamine charges for long sentences. Those changes massively expanded the state prison numbers. Since 1993, when Arkansas had 8,650 prisoners under its jurisdiction, the prison population has grown by 78%, far outpacing the national prison population’s 32% increase during the same period. The national prison growth nearly tracks the 27% national population increase during the span; meanwhile, in the same stretch, Arkansas’s general population grew by 28%.

The proposed policy the legislature appears poised to consider in 2023 would further that trend. In addition to eliminating parole for

all violent felonies and crimes involving the sexual abuse of a child, the legislation will likely include requirements that those who commit other serious crimes serve 85% of their sentence. Gazaway suggested 85% crimes might include arson and human trafficking.

The legislative push isn’t aimed at nonviolent offenders, Gazaway stressed. “No one wants to lock up more drug offenders,” he said. “No one wants to lock up addicts. No one wants to lock up hot-check writers.”

But Arkansas already locks up a high percentage of nonviolent offenders. After Louisiana passed criminal justice reform in 2017, which helped cut its prison population by 24%, largely driven by a decline in people convicted of nonviolent offenses, Pew compared the nonviolent incarceration rates of Arkansas, Arizona, Mississippi and Louisiana, four of the recent leaders in imprisonment rates, and found that in 2021 only Mississippi locked up people for nonviolent offenses at a higher rate than Arkansas did.

THE EVIDENCE

Amid the recent debate over truth in sentencing legislation in Tennessee, Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton said, surely in a preview of rhetoric likely to be repeated by some Arkansas lawmakers, “Common sense tells you if the guys are locked up longer, there’s less crime. I don’t need a million-dollar study to tell me that the longer they serve, the less crime there will be.”

In fact, studies have repeatedly shown a weak to nonexistent relationship between higher imprisonment rates and lower crime rates. Locking people up and throwing away the key simply does not bring crime rates down.

Furthermore, shackling offenders with long sentences and no chance of parole has been found to make prisons more dangerous. A 2021 study on the results of truth in sentencing legislation passed in 1993 in Arizona, where new Secretary of Corrections Joe Profiri comes from, found that following the law change, violent infractions in prison among the most serious offenders rose between 150-200%. Without the possibility of shortening a sentence through good time credit, violent offenders became more violent prisoners, a particularly harrowing prospect for would-be Arkansas prison guards joining a chronically understaffed system.

The highest incarcerated population tends to be 18-25, Jasmine Heiss, a project director with the Vera Institute, noted. “For most, as they age they become significantly less likely to be charged, arrested and convicted in the future,” Heiss said. “We’ve recognized as a country that young people are uniquely capable of rehabilitation. This swing of leaving people in prison indefinitely is a step away from science and evidence, and really a decision that I think goes against many people’s principles, that no one is redeemable, that no one deserves a second chance.”

LITTLE ROCK WATER RECLAMATION AUTHORITY

CONNECTING BUSINESSES TO OPPORTUNITIES

LRWRA, Arkansas Governmental Entities, and other dedicated partners have teamed up to create the AR Bid Online Procurement System. This one-stop-shop allows vendors to conveniently access and respond to bid opportunities from multiple agencies in a single portal.

THE BEST RESTAURANTS IN ARKANSAS IN 2023.

For 43 years the Arkansas Times has been asking its readers to vote for their favorite restaurants. Looking back at the winners from years past it’s clear that Arkansas has a rich history of incredible restaurants, and the food scene just keeps getting better and better. The year 2023 is no exception.

It was a big year for Little Rock’s South Main district. Voters chose farm-to-table restaurant The Root Cafe as Little Rock’s Best Overall Restaurant, and the team at Raduno Brick Oven & Barroom won Best Brunch, Best Pizza and Best Chef in Little Rock/North Little Rock. Rhett Brinkley profiled Chef Cash Ashley, who in his fourth year as Raduno’s head chef is a first-time winner in the Best Chef in Little Rock\North Little Rock category.

Just down the road from Raduno, Honduran restaurant El Sur moved from a food truck into a new brick and mortar last summer and voters took note with owners Luis Vasquez and Darren Strayhorn winning Best New Restaurant.

Readers have found that Lonoke’s The Grumpy Rabbit is certainly field trip worthy; it racked up scores of awards, including Best Restaurant Around the State.

Stephanie Smittle ate donuts at Dale’s Donuts, sharpened her axe throwing skills at Valhalla Restaurant and Axe Throwing, sampled the one-pound pork belly bacon flight at ROBER: Cocktails + Culinary to answer the question: Is Benton delicious now? Arkansas Times staff also riffed on 25 bites we crave in Central Arkansas.

COACH CASH: Cash Ashley leads the kitchen team at Raduno, winner of best chef, best brunch and best pizza in our annual readers poll.

Unabashedly Cash

HOW CASH ASHLEY IS CHANGING UP THE RECIPE AT RADUNO — AND IN LITTLE ROCK’S QUEER COMMUNITY.

BY RHETT BRINKLEY PHOTOGRAPHY BY SARA REEVES

PASTA PREP: Chef Cash Ashley developed a house-made pasta menu at Raduno four years ago.

ash Ashley already appears to be the most popular person at Fidel & Co, the east downtown Little Rock coffee shop where he suggested we meet for coffee, and he just got here. Two people have approached him to chat before he completes his coffee order. When he arrives at our table, he’s armed with all the essentials one would need for an interview: an oat milk cardamom latte (ordered extra hot), a liter of bottled water and a Jarritos grapefruit soda. He is wearing one of his signature flannel button-ups and a black cap. Over the course of our conversation, two more people will say hello to him in passing.

“I come here a lot,” he says, modestly.

Aside from hanging at his home, which he shares with his dog, Pearl, and four cats, he’s spent the majority of his time over the last four years at Raduno Brick Oven & Bar Room, where as head chef he’s helped turn the restaurant into a South Main Street dining hotspot and one of the buzziest brunch destinations in Little Rock.

A sharp, affable conversationalist with an infectious laugh, his modest, self-deprecating sense of humor is on display when discussing the “Best Chef Little Rock/North Little Rock” category in the 2023 Arkansas Times Readers Choice poll, which he’s just been informed he won.

“We need to count the votes again,” he says at one point. I start to laugh and he adds, “Stop the steal,” nearly forcing me to spit out my iced Americano.

“I was literally talking to my mom about it on the phone the other day, and I was like, ‘Mom, this isn’t me trying to be like, ‘Oh, I suck’ — I know that I don’t, but also, the other people in the category are giants, and I don't know that I even compare,” he says. “But I do feel like I have something to offer that’s different and unique that maybe other places don’t.” ***

Cash Ashley never had childhood dreams of one day becoming a chef.

“I hated cooking growing up,” he says. Cash, a transgender man, grew up with three brothers and became frustrated with the rigidity of gender roles at a young age. His brothers, for example, got to watch TV while Cash did all their dishes and cleaned up the kitchen and helped cook meals.

“Even at a very young age I was like, ‘This is fucked up. I’m not saying I don’t want to do chores, but let me do some yardwork.’ ”

Cash says he’d fight with his mom and dad about it. “Both of them were just like, ‘This is the role.’ So it turned me off to it for a very long time,” he says.

A youth athlete raised in Little Rock in a Catholic family, he played on the basketball team at Lutheran High School and threw shotput and discus on the track team. He attended college at UA Little Rock on a partial track scholarship with aspirations to be a teacher and a coach. During that time, he volunteered at Lutheran High coaching throwers on the junior high and high school track team and coached the girls basketball team.

When he was 18 or 19 he got a job as a dishwasher at former West Little Rock restaurant Lilly’s Dim Sum Then Some, where he quickly worked his way up to line cook, unearthing parallels in the kitchen to the team sports he played and coached. In that teamwork capacity, he found it natural to step up into a leadership role.

While working at Lilly’s, he also got to know a community of LGBTQ+ people for the first time in his life. The co-owner of Lilly’s, Kathy Webb, was then a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives and the first openly gay member of the Arkansas General Assembly. She’s now a Little Rock city director.

“A friend of mine had worked putting signs up for Kathy’s first campaign in town, and was like, ‘Cash, you’ve got to work with some gay people, you have to meet Kathy.’ ”

Cash was already out with his friends and some of his family members, but being around other members of the queer community who were out — and not in trouble for it — was in stark contrast to his experience in high school.

“[Lutheran High] was so small. They knew me and my girlfriend were together, and there was a lot of weird, purposeful separation,” he says. He never had classes with her. She was a cheerleader and he was on the basketball team, but they were never allowed to ride on the bus together.

“When I got the job at Lilly’s I made my first group of friends who were queer, and having a boss who was gay, someone who was 30 years older than me, someone who I looked up to who was smart and really cool … For me it was a game changer. Lilly’s was a good, safe environment for me to start transitioning in. I was getting out of school and sports and then dove right into Lilly’s for a lot of years on and off and just fell in love and never wanted to get out of it again.”

***

Cash didn’t attend culinary school, but doesn’t consider himself “self-taught,” either. He’s worked with many successful chefs all over the city, but the one he says he learned the most from about cooking was Sonia Schaefer, chef and co-owner of Boulevard Bread Co. She was also the hardest on him.

“I was also in a very different place and really needed that,” he says.

Cash, like many restaurant workers in their 20s, liked to hit the bars after work, sometimes to the detriment of the next day’s shift.

“It was so easy. Work all the time, then you go to Pizza D or White Water and take shots of Jameson,” Cash says. “[Schaefer] was like, ‘You’re so capable. I get so mad at you because you can do this, and then I give you more responsibility, and then you’re three hours late to work and you come in fucking drunk.’ And I’m just like, ‘Yeah, that’s really annoying.’ ”

Now that he’s the boss of the kitchen, he’s had employees pull similar stunts.

“It is, in fact, very annoying.”

“Sonia fired me twice and hired me three times,” he says.

“Kathy Webb fired me three times, but hired me four times, so clearly I won,” he says, laughing. “I just had to become reliable, and I certainly wasn’t taking care of myself, either.”

Cash says sometimes he sees Schaefer eating at Raduno and figures the restaurant has to be doing OK, otherwise she wouldn’t be there. "Sometimes I’m like, ‘Man, if I could just work for her now, I could really impress her, you know.’ ”

Things change, and Cash rarely drinks these days. He didn’t have one drink in 2022.

“By the time I’m off work I’m no longer like, ‘God I need a shot,’ I’m just like, ‘I just want to lay down with my dog.’ ”

When Cash accepted the job at Raduno four years ago, he’d recently departed his position as general manager of Lost Forty Brewing, the Yellow Rocket Concepts restaurant group’s microbrewery/restaurant, just a few blocks from where we sit. In the four years he worked there, he learned about the organization and money side of the restaurant business.

“Oftentimes in my mind, that was my college, that was me going to school to learn how to run a restaurant,” he said.

But the move to Raduno proved to be the right one for Cash, who took a significant pay cut when co-owner Bart Barlogie offered him the job. He took it, he says, because he felt like he could do something great there and help turn the restaurant around.

“Bart had approached me being like, ‘We have a vision for this place, [but] it’s not really happening.’ ”

Cash knew from experience that he could run a kitchen, create a menu and hire people. He’d done all of that at multiple restaurants, but he still wrestled with self-doubt.

“On paper I’ve done all those things, but I still was just like, ‘When are they gonna find out I don’t know what I’m doing?’ ”

He maintains the changes he made weren’t that profound. “Salt makes a big difference,” he said, laughing.

His first project was making the existing dough recipe consistent, which led some to believe he’d created a new recipe. Gone were the days of letting it run out the night before and making a new batch to be used the next day. Cash says he saw someone on social media describe the crust as “sourdough-like,” which he said is the best compliment he could receive. This is achieved by letting it proof in the walkin cooler for 36-48 hours, which might mean going in on a day off to make dough.

“Me and a few people are tasked with obsessing over that,” he says.

The next step was house-made pasta, which Raduno started out selling only on Fridays. After about six months he dropped his first menu. He scratched a couple of pizzas that weren’t big sellers, added the house-made pasta (rolled out daily) and went heavy on small plates and appetizers. Business picked

“I was literally talking to my mom about it on the phone the other day, and I was like, ‘Mom, this isn’t me trying to be like, ‘Oh, I suck’ — I know that I don’t, but also, the other people in the category are giants, and I don't know that I even compare. But I do feel like I have something to offer that’s different and unique that maybe other places don’t.”

up quickly, and Cash had to hire more people and reconfigure the kitchen stations.

“When I started working at Raduno there were two stations in the kitchen, and now there are five, sometimes six depending on the night,” he says.

Cash also completely overhauled the brunch menu. It wasn’t his first time putting brunch on the Little Rock map.

Two Little Rock brunch spots, The Root Cafe and Lost Forty, weren’t doing Sunday brunch until Cash pushed for it and developed menus for both. Now, they’re both serving wildly popular brunches, and Raduno just won Best Brunch in the Arkansas Times Readers Choice poll. Cash’s love for breakfast goes back to his childhood. He has fond memories of waking up to the smell of breakfast when visiting his grandparents’ small Kentucky farming town, and breakfast is the only meal his late father would cook. If he could open his own restaurant today, it would be a 24-hour diner. “Like Waffle House but local,” he says.

Just a few months ago Cash and the team at Raduno accepted perhaps the biggest culinary challenge of his career — a multicourse, off-menu dinner for one of local food blogger Kevin Shalin’s Mighty Rib dinners.

He and his team were excited about it, but he was nervous. “I was sick to my stomach for two months,” he says.

Cash and fellow Raduno chef McNeill Eggart (also Cash’s best friend) put the menu together. He got the crew invested in the menu development, too, a level of input “which means a lot to people who want to cook,” he says.

He’d done catering jobs before, but never a menu of that scale, coursed out and timed to “sweep” a dining room — meaning that a single course has to go out to 68 people in an instant.

He reflected on his time coaching sports and sat down in the kitchen one day by himself with a notebook and planned every step: the kitchen setup, basic motion maneuvering, timing. The week leading up to the dinner, he couldn’t sleep and could barely eat.

“I was just like, ‘I’m going to be a failure in front of all these people, and they’re gonna know I don’t know what I’m doing.’ ”

The dinner was a complete success.

Shalin, who estimates he’s hosted about 75 Mighty Rib dinners, said the dinner at Raduno was “as well-

BEST OF THE BRUNCH: Cash Ashley and sous chefs Thomas "Windu" Jackson and Morgan Arledge prepare fresh pasta. (Bottom) Raduno's Italian beef bene.

received as any dinner I’ve been associated with. Chef Cash Ashley and his crew knocked it out of the park.”

He recently told Cash the same, and that people were still raving about it.

“I can’t even put into words how much that means because it was such a big event for us,” he says.

It made him want to do it again and Raduno is planning on doing two such dinners a year on Monday nights when the restaurant is typically closed.

***

Cash and I originally had planned to meet a day before, but he realized time might be a constraint: He’d agreed to speak at UAMS on a panel that afternoon regarding LGBTQ+ access in health care.

Throughout the last few years of the culture war in increasingly conservative Arkansas, he’s been a consistent voice of reason on social media, speaking out in support of the queer community and for restaurant workers during the worst parts of the pandemic.

He spoke at the 2021 General Assembly in support of the trans community when Republican state legislators were in the process of passing laws to ban genderaffirming medical care for people under the age of 18 and preventing trans girls from playing on girls sports teams in school (despite evidence that it’s a nonissue). His speech, which he says he scribbled down about 7 minutes before he spoke, had a 2-minute time limit. The following day it was heard on “The Daily” New York Times Podcast as well as NPR, and was shared in support all over Facebook.

“I just couldn’t believe I was sitting in a place where laws were made, and they were saying things that were factually untrue. I guess that shouldn’t blow my mind so much, but I was just like, ‘There is no kid out here having sexual reassignment surgery. Believe me, if it were that easy, I would know.’ The amount of years you have to go see a therapist and get letters from therapists that you need for anything. If I, a 37-year-old adult, can’t get access to half of what I want, this 10-year-old isn’t either.”

He also makes himself available for people who need support at doctor’s appointments or rides to the polls during elections.

And in a new position of power and privilege being head chef at a restaurant,

“I feel like it’s what I have to offer. I’ll be here. I’ll look after you. If something fucked up happens, I’ve got your back. I won’t just let it happen and not say anything. That's been my experience."

CASH AND CREW: Cash Ashley surrounded by the crew at Raduno, who donned Cash costumes for Halloween.

RADUNO

he’s finding new ways to shape his role in the queer community.

“I can effect change in ways that I couldn't before by actually hiring people in the community and lifting people up that way. People who’ve had not good experiences elsewhere, either like pronouns or just general respect. It’s interesting the things that bosses or co-workers have thought appropriate to say to me over the years — not outright fucked up, but I would just never let someone talk that way in my kitchen. That’s what I meant earlier when I said I offer something different and unique that maybe other places don’t.”

Cash says the term “safe space” is a little overused, but his kitchen environment is an intentionally crafted one.

“I feel like it’s what I have to offer. I’ll be here. I’ll look after you. If something fucked up happens, I’ve got your back. I won’t just let it happen and not say anything. That’s been my experience.

So I get that it can be intimidating, but on a personal level it’s so beautiful to see young queer folks coming out of their shell and being like, ‘Oh, I can be myself. I don’t have to hide myself here.’ That kind of outweighs all the rest of it for me.”

Last Halloween, the entire crew showed up in Cash Ashley costumes, donning plaid flannel shirts, black caps, high socks. “... At the end of the day, as long as my crew’s taken care of and they’re wanting to stick around and be a part of it all, that’s just so beautiful,” he says.

Cash has worked 70-80 work weeks and suffered burnout, but credits Barlogie for being the only boss he’s ever had that advocates for working less, which Cash is challenging himself to do. He says it’s a good feeling to have the trust of Barlogie and coowner Eric Nelson as well.

“For the most part, I get to do whatever I want to do. They couldn’t have fully trusted me 10 years ago. They’d come in and I’d be asleep behind the bar or something like that.”

Raduno is closed when we arrive to scout for photos a few days later. They’re installing a new point-of-sale system, and Cash has the entire restaurant to himself. He’s wearing a flannel shirt and a hat embroidered with the words “Can’t please ’em all.”

“We had our Christmas party last night,” he explains. “There’s supposed to be a lot more people here, but no one’s made it. I’m the one.”

Congratulations Readers Choice Awards Recipients!

@ the Corner

42 Bar & Table

501 Prime

A Taste of Thai

Ai Sushi

Aji Ramen Bar

All Aboard Restaurant & Grill

All in a Bowl

Allsopp & Chapple

Andy’s Frozen Custard

AQ Chicken House

Argenta Nutrition

Arkansas Best Wings

Arsaga’s

Arthur’s Prime Steakhouse

Avocado Grill

Baja Grill

Bark Bar

Bawarchi Biryanis

Benihana

Bentonville Taco & Tamale Co.

Big Bad Breakfast

Big Orange

Brood & Barley

Blu Fish House

Blue Cake

Blue Heaven

Blue House Bakery & Cafe

Blue Sage Vegan Bistro

Bobby’s Country Cookin’

Bocca Italian Eatery & Pizzeria

Boulevard Bread Co.

Brave New Restaurant

Breitweiser’s Meat Market

Brood & Barley

Bruno’s Little Italy

Buenos Aires Grill and Café

Burge’s Hickory Smoked Turkeys and Hams

Butcher Boys Meat Market

Cabot Cafe & Cake Corner

Cache

Cafe 1217

Cafe Bossa Nova

Cajun Trouxth

Camp Taco

Campground Grill

Capital Bar & Grill

Carmelita Catering Co.

Casa Mañana

Catering to You

Catfish Hole

Ceci’s Chicken N Waffles

Charlee’s Good Time Drinkery

Charlotte’s Eats & Sweets

Cheesecake On Point!

Chicken King

Ciao Baci

Cinnamon Creme Bakery

Community Bakery

Conifer

Copper Mule Table & Tap

Corky’s Ribs & BBQ

Cotham’s in the City

Count Porkula BBQ

Crazee’s Cafe

Crazy Hibachi

Curry Point

Cypress Social

Damgoode Pies

David Family Kitchen

David’s Burgers

Delicious Temptations

DeLuca’s Pizzeria

Dempsey Bakery

Diamondhead

Doe’s Eat Place

Dondie’s White River Princess

Doomsday Coffee

Dugan’s Pub

Dust Bowl

Eat My Catfish

Edwards Food Giant

El Palenque

El Sur

Ermilio’s Italian Home Cooking

Fantastic China

Fidel & Co.

Flavors Indian Cuisine

Flying Fish

Flying Saucer

Flyway Brewing

Four Quarter Bar

Fred’s Fish House

Frickin’ Chicken

Fu Lin

Gaskins Cabin Steakhouse

Gina’s Catering

Good Dog Cafe

Graffiti’s Italian Restaurant

Grateful Head Pizza Oven & Beer Garden

Grinds Coffee Co.

Grotto Wood Fired Grill and Wine Cave

Guillermo’s Gourmet Coffee

Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken

HB’s Bar-B-Q

Heights Corner Market

Heights Taco & Tamale

Heritage Catering

Hill Station

Hillcrest Artisan Meats

Hogg’s Meat Market

Holly’s Country Cookin’

House of Mental

Hugo’s HWN Juice Bar

Iriana’s

Italy in Town

J&S Italian Villa

Jade China Restaurant

Jim’s Meat Market

JJ’s Grill

Jones Bar-B-Q Diner

Just Ice Cream

K. Hall & Sons

Kamikaito

Kasper’s Kemuri

Khana Indian Grill

Kilwins

Kimono Japanese Steak House

KnightFire BBQ

La Casa De Mi Abuelita Maw Maw’s House

La Hacienda

La Terraza Rum & Lounge

Lassis Inn

Layla’s Gyro

Le Pops

Le Stick Nouveau

Leon’s Catfish and Shrimp

Lili’s Mexican Street Food

Lin’s Garden

Loblolly Creamery

Local Flavor

Local Lime

Lost Forty Brewing

Luna Bella

Maddie’s Place

Mama Dean’s Down Home Cookin

Mamoo’s Paradice Cream

Mariachi Grill

Maryams Grill

McClard’s Bar-B-Q

Meiji Japanese Cuisine

MELD kitchen+sandwich bar

Mercado El Valle

Midtown Billiards

Mike’s Cafe

Mike’s Place

Mockingbird Bar and Tacos

Mong Dynasty

Monte Ne Inn Chicken

Mountain Bird Coffee Company

Mr. Chen’s Authentic Chinese Cooking

Mt. Fuji Japanese Restaurant

Mud Street Cafe

MuleKick

Natural State Smoothies

Neighborhood Nutrition Hillcrest

New Fun Ree

Nexus Coffee and Creative

Nomad’s Southtown Kitchen + Bar

North Bar

Oak Room and Bar

Ocean’s at Arthur’s

Onyx Coffee Lab

Osaka Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar

Ozark Cafe

Ozark Mountain Bagel Co.

Pandiya’s South Indian Cuisine

Panther Nutrition of Cabot

Paranoid Android

Pasta Grill

PattiCakes Bakery

Pea Farm Bistro

Pedaler’s Pub

Peggy Sue’s Place

Penguin Ed’s

Petit & Keet

Pho 85 Noodle House

Pig ’N Chik BBQ

Pizza D’ Action

Pizzeria Ruby

Postmaster’s Grill

Purple Cow

Raduno Brick Oven and Barroom

Red Apple Inn

Red Door

Red Light Roastery Coffee House

Red Oak Steakhouse at

Saracen Casino Resort

Rhoda’s Famous Hot Tamales

Ristorante Capeo

Rivera Italian Restaurant

Rock ’N’ Roll Hibachi

Rock ’N’ Roll Sushi

Rolando’s Restaurante

Rosie’s Pot and Kettle

RX Catering

Saffron Indian Cuisine

Saiwok Vietnamese Street Food

Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill

Saracen Casino and Resort

Scoops Ice Cream

Serenity Farm Bread

Sims Bar-B-Qu

Sky Modern Japanese

Smitty’s Garage Burgers & Beer

Smokin’ Buns

Snack Lab

Sonny Williams’ Steak Room

South on Main

SQZBX Brewery & Pizza Joint

Star of India

Stoby’s Restaurant

Stone Mill Bread & Cafe

Sushi House

Table 28

Taco Mama

Tacos Godoy

Taj Mahal Indian Kitchen

Tangiers

Tavola Trattoria

Taylor’s Steakhouse

TCBY

Terri-Lynn’s BBQ & Deli

The Bagel Shop

The Buck Stop Meat Store

The Bugler

The Butcher Shop

The Buttered Biscuit

The Croissanterie

The Delta Biscuit Co.

The Faded Rose

The Farmer’s Table Cafe

The Fold Botanas & Bar

The Grumpy Rabbit

The Healthy Spot

The Hive

The Hook

The Indian Feast

The Nutrition Place

The Original ScoopDog

The Parsonage

The Preacher’s Son

The Purple Cow

The Rail Yard

The Root Cafe

The Tamale Factory

The Vault

The Wok

Theo’s

Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co.

Tokyo House Sushi & Ramen

Top Golf

Torchy’s Tacos

Trash Creamery

Tres Agaves

Trio’s Restaurant

Tropical Smoothie Cafe

Tusk & Trotter

Two Sisters Catering

U.S. Pizza

Valhalla Kitchen & Bar

Valkyrie Axe Throwing

Verona Italian Restaurant

Vetro 1925

Vino’s Brewpub

Vito & Vera

Waldo’s Chicken and Beer

Walker’s Wings & Things

Weldon’s Meat Market

Who Dat’s Cajun Restaurant

Whole Hog Cafe North Little Rock

Wild Sweet William’s Baking House

Will’s Cinnamon Shop

Wright’s Barbecue

WunderHaus

Xuma Kitchens

Yacht Club

Yeyo’s El Alma De Mexico

Yeyo’s Food Truck

YGFBF Kitchen

Ying Chang Hmong & Chinese Hot Food

Zaza Fine Salad + Wood Oven Pizza

Is Benton Delicious Now?

PREPARE TO MEET GOD, BUT ALSO SIP A JALAPEÑO MARGARITA AND THROW AN AXE.

Generally thumbing our noses at the suburbs is what we Little Rockers do best while maneuvering down Interstate 30 on the way to Hot Springs, and who can blame us? There’s plenty to lodge grievances about in the Benton-Bryant belt, particularly as seen from the highway: retail and architectural banality, an excess of gun shops, a giant billboard next to an Applebee’s that shouts “WARNING: PREPARE TO MEET GOD.” Then again, Benton gave us musical gem Adam Faucett. And NFL player-turned-zydeco legend Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes. And scenes in “Sling Blade” and “White Lightning.” And, we discovered recently, a new wave of good eats, largely thanks to restaurateurs Craig Roe and Heather Baber-Roe. If you’re heading westward and want to skip the fast food options, here are a few spots we scouted for your dining pleasure.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

BISCUITS, BARS AND BAJA: The biscuit wall at Niecy's (left), The Fun-Guy pizza at Valhalla and the exterior of Baja Grill.

ROBER: Cocktails + Culinary

302 W. South St.

ROBER’s tagline puts cocktails ahead of its food, and its menu has exactly one page of main food offerings followed by nine pages of drink choices. There are flights of scotch and sipping rum and whiskey and wine and bourbon; wines by the glass and bottle and quart; and a refreshingly thoughtful list of nonalcoholic options that includes a nonalcoholic champagne — something we didn’t even know existed. None of that means the eats aren’t good, mind you, but it does telegraph the restaurant’s intentions to flip the script when it comes to socializing over a bite. The big draw, thanks to a bevy of buzz on social media, is the bacon flight — an utterly Instagrammable pound of pork belly prepared four ways and then displayed on a metal stand embossed with the restaurant’s name, the slabs hanging vertically by metal clips, to be whittled away at with an accompanying pair of shears. There’s a strip flavored with ancho pepper and espresso, one candied with brown sugar, one dipped in pistachio and Ghirardelli chocolate and — the star of the bunch, in my opinion — the Korean BBQ. Diverse as those offerings are, you’re gonna want to order something to break up the porcine parade; we opted for the whipped feta with lemon and honey, and have no regrets.

The downtown Benton spot is divided into three areas: a sleek dining room with low lighting and high-backed furniture, a cozy bar and the Mary Ellen Lounge, a sitting area playfully and lovingly outfitted in homage to owner Heather Baber-Roe’s grandmother. Brubeck was on the box when we walked in, followed later by a smooth jazz version of “Saving All My Love For You,” both somehow entirely befitting of ROBER’s personality.

Niecy’s

1016 W. South St.

With all due respect to the stalwart greasy spoon that is Dan’s I-30 Diner, it’s cool that there’s a new kid in town — one whose menu boasts big biscuits, chocolate gravy and a breakfast burrito to beat all breakfast burritos. When we pulled off of Benton’s main drag into a strip mall and entered this spacious diner, we spotted a tiny table offering free Bibles and a 24-7 prayer hotline. Martina McBride’s “A Broken Wing” was playing on the speaker overhead, to be followed by “Cowboy Take Me Away” and “Daddy’s Hands,” no less. The service was prompt, the standard two-egg breakfast was absolutely solid and the coffee, which Niecy’s brings in from J. Brooks in Memphis, was piping hot. On our list for next time: the scratch-made jelly rolls, the Mind Your Coconuts yogurt parfait or the short stack. Owner Denise Whitworth, aka Niecy, worked for her nephew at nearby Holy Roller Bike Shop before deciding to jump back into restaurant work; it’s clear that word has gotten out to Bentonians that Niecy’s is the place for your sit-down breakfast. (Grabbing donuts is another deal entirely; see Dale’s on page 44.)

Baja Grill

224 W. South St.

If you’re in need of some eclectically filled tacos or an inventive margarita, this is your spot on Benton’s South Street. Brightly lit and seemingly built for family outings in which the kids need to be entertained but mom might want to get a little buzzed, it’s the B-side to ROBER’s elevated environs. Bonus points for a few things here: a decent mocktail menu including nonalcoholic takes on a margarita and a mule; a robust selection of tequilas and mezcals; and a menu item titled “My Friend Does Not Want Anything,” a doubled portion of the small guacamole with two sides of queso.

Thank you Arkansas

Dale’s Donut Shop

919 Military Road

Before visiting Dale’s Donut Shop, it was mostly barbecue joints at which I’d spotted signs that read “Open ’til _____ or until we sell out.” But Dale’s Donuts has such a sign, and clearly the warning is warranted; when I arrived at 10:32 a.m. on a Wednesday in January, the donut case was well picked over, bismarcks and blueberry cake being the clear unfavorites among working-class Bentonites (what gives, y’all?). Still, the crew was enthusiastic and the interior paid homage to the donut dive’s long legacy in town, with dozens of declarations affixed to the cinder block walls with clear packing tape. “Four-bag limit on kids’ free donut holes!”

“No bills larger than 20.00 accepted!” One doodle in marker signed by an Aimslee M. declared “Dale’s Donuts: Yum!,” each letter of the message in a different donut icing color. Yellowing newspaper articles from the Saline Courier told tales of the late Dale Atchley’s decades-long mission to keep the people of Benton equipped with cinnamon rolls. An old black-and-white photo of two shirtless youngsters holding an American flag was captioned “Mr. Dale and his brother Joe: Proud of Their Country, ‘America.’ ” The cornflower blue siding that caps off an otherwise tavern-like building is, as a colleague noted, the stuff of David Lynch’s dreams, and the absence of any computers at the front register leaves Dale’s particularly well-situated to keep slinging donuts by the dozen in the event of a technology apocalypse. You absolutely won’t be ordering a macchiato, and you won’t miss it, either.

Valhalla Restaurant and Axe Throwing

224 W. South St.

Like a sports bar without the deafening decibels, Valhalla shares a building with one of its sister restaurants, Baja Grill, and boasts its very own axe throwing lounge upstairs. The cocktail selections here are arguably way more creative and sophisticated than they need to be at this decidedly unfussy pizzeria: an elderflowertinged margarita, a cinnamon whiskey and pear juice-based concoction called “Grow A Pear” and a small but rotating local craft beer selection that bespeaks some beer expertise, with selections from New Province Brewing Co., Flyway Brewing and Memphis’s Wiseacre Brewing. Meanwhile, Valkyrie Axe Throwing beckons patrons to hop up a flight of stairs, take a perfunctory tutorial and hurl a blade as fast as they can toward a corkboard bull’s eye. When we were there, a starry-eyed couple on a date was making full use of the opportunities axe throwing affords to flirt with a potential sweetheart; take note, would-be Valentine’s Day celebrators.

25 Bites

FOOD WE CRAVE IN CENTRAL ARKANSAS.

BY RHETT BRINKLEY, DANIEL GREAR, LINDSEY MILLAR AND STEPHANIE SMITTLE

We passed the baton around the editorial room this week, each tasked with naming some of our favorite dishes in Central Arkansas at this very moment in time. What we found is that this is not an easy assignment to take on while hungry and present at the Arkansas Times office, which has no pantry to speak of, a refrigerator full of Diet Coke and nothing else. Also, 25 is too small of a number in a town full of amazing bites. There’s so many more bites worthy of making such a list. So, what you’re seeing here isn’t a Top 25 list, it’s simply a list of bites we long for and need in our lives right now.

Cheesecake (The Pantry)

The absolute worst thing about the cheesecake at The Pantry is the sense of fiery rage you’ll feel at all the years you wasted NOT having this cheesecake. At least, that’s how it was for me the first time eating this wedge of gorgeousness — a generous bedrock crust that could easily stand alone as the makings of a great cookie, an ivory-hued cheesecake that’s perfectly sweet and neither too dense nor too fluffy and, to secure its place as the signature dessert surely served daily in the Elysian Fields, a torched crackly creme brulee crust on top. SS

Baleada con todo (El Sur)

Packed tightly into an oversized tortilla are rich, creamy beans and avocado; the slightly sweet mush of plantain; the char on tender, sweet and spicy pork (or protein of your choice); the sour pop of pickled onions; the tart crema and gooey cheese. It's so complex and satisfying I always find myself stopping midway through a meal to study it and try to figure out its secrets. LM

Pimento cheeseburger (The Root Cafe)

In an age where a burger's high-falutin' height can instantly make or break its potential for Instagram fame, The Root Cafe's pimento cheeseburger is a convincing argument for the functional and stalwart — an expertly griddled Simon Farms beef patty below a velvety blanket of house-made pimento cheese, house-made sweet pickles and a garlic mayo that makes the soft bun sing. Think: the farm-to-table version of Anya Taylor-Joy's final order in "The Menu." SS

The Angry Bird (North Bar)

Not judging anyone for freaking out about the Popeye’s sandwich — it’s really good and definitely warranted hype. But in all truthfulness, North Bar’s Angry Bird had the same amount of wow factor for me when I first tried it in December 2018. The sandwich is something to behold. Most chicken sandwich patties are round; this one looks more like a boomerang. Another unique addition is the melted provolone, which pairs nicely with the smoky housemade chipotle sauce. RB

Spiced pecans (Capital Bar and Grill)

If the pimento cheese and house-made soda crackers are the blockbuster of the Capital Bar and Grill's starters menu, the spiced pecans are the sleeper hit. One bite will absolve you of any guilt about adding $10 to your tab for what are, essentially, bar nuts; the spice blend coating the pecan halves feels designed to accompany long gazes at the fancy downtown hotel's show-stopping Christmas tree, but perennially appealing enough to make the grade year-round. SS

Legit Cheesesteak (Brood and Barley)

Even had we not heard tell of Brood and Barley’s cheesesteak bona fides from our contributors on the food writing front (looking at you, Stefanie Kennon-McGill), we are a font- and typeface-loving people here at the Arkansas Times, and we’d know how to take a hint from the menu layout at this Philly-forward gastropub. It’s an absolute beast of a sandwich — a pillowy hoagie roll stuffed with thinly shaved and grilled ribeye, Pilsner-infused onions and a cheese sauce that’s already made its way into every nook and cranny of your sandwich by the time it hits your table. SS

Glazed Donut (Mark’s Do-Nut Shop)

Some donuts disappear into thin air when bit into, so delicate that they’re almost substanceless. Other donuts are too dense, chewy and resistant, getting dangerously close to bagel territory. The classic glazed from Mark’s Do-Nut Shop splits the difference and hits the ideal sweet spot between those perilous poles. With a generous brush of glaze that’s all over your fingers on first contact and lodged in your facial hair by the second bite, it’s the perfect morning treat. DG

Cheeseburger (K-Hall & Sons)

I like my burgers simple, so when I ordered mine at the unpretentious K-Hall & Sons — produce store, wholesale food distributor and casual restaurant — I stripped it down to what I see as the bare essentials: bun, patty, cheese, lettuce and tomato. No regrets. Even if I would have 86’d the slice of perfectly melted American, the medium-thick beef would have done plenty of the juicy heavy lifting. That’s where the real magic lies. I scarfed the whole thing down in under 2 minutes. Next time, I’ll get two. DG

Dumplings (Three Fold)

Equally excellent when stuffed with pork, chicken or tofu, Three Fold’s scratch-made dumplings are pockets of wonder. Regardless of whether you choose to soak them in the tangy provided dunking sauce, each uniquely shaped, dough-cradled, slightly-too-big-forthe-mouth dumpling is flawlessly simple and decadent, like an old family recipe. DG

Fried chicken

(Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill)

Samantha’s has become in recent years the go-to downtown business lunch spot thanks to its mix of relatively healthy fare and down-home lunch specials. Among the latter, the three-piece fried chicken meal, served on Thursdays, reigns supreme. It’s fried and seasoned expertly and comes with a side of brown gravy that tastes like Thanksgiving dressing. Plus, you get Texas toast and two sides. You might have to steal a nap at your desk later in the afternoon, but it’s worth it. LM

Tamales (Doe’s Eat Place)

I’ve never had a bad bite at Doe’s, but I've found, whether I'm stopping in for a catfish sandwich for lunch or a massive porterhouse steak for dinner, no meal is complete without an order of the Little Rock institution’s Delta-style tamales. Made with cornmeal rather than masa and spiced just right, the tamales come with a bowl of chili. Get you some hot sauce and saltines and dip and dunk, and you’ll be in heaven. LM

The Garden (Jimmy’s Serious Sandwiches)

Is it the punch of the pumpernickel? The pillowy mishmash of spinach pate and mushrooms?

The doubling — nay, tripling down — on the cheese front, with provolone and cheddar and Swiss gone all melty? Or the muted crunch of the sunflower seeds speckled throughout? When it comes to the bona fides behind that blue ribbon next to The Garden on the Jimmy’s Serious menu, I think we’ve got a “greater than the sum of its parts” situation. SS

Italian beef (HAM Market)

HAM Market began life as a butcher shop known for its sandwiches, then became more of a butcher shop and now, once again, has become a destination for sandwich specials.

HAM is running semiregular muffuletta and pate sandwich specials, but king among its offerings is the Italian beef, available most Wednesdays. Like the Chicago classic you drooled over in FX’s “The Bear,” it’s thinly sliced roast beef, topped with jalapeno olive salad, provolone and a healthy dip of aus jus on a hoagie roll. It’s a deeply satisfying mess. LM

READERS CHOICE A ARDS

2022 2023

BEST TACOS AROUND ARKANSAS

BEST TORTILLA CHIPS IN LITTLE ROCK/NORTH LITTLE ROCK

BEST OTHER INTERNATIONAL AROUND ARKANSAS

BEST GLUTEN FREE AROUND ARKANSAS

BEST OVERALL RESTAURANT IN BENTON/BRYANT

READERS CHOICE A ARDS

2022 2023

BEST SERVER AROUND ARKANSAS

BEST CHEESE DIP IN LITTLE ROCK/NORTH LITTLE ROCK

BEST CHEESE DIP AROUND ARKANSAS

BEST SOUP IN LITTLE ROCK/NORTH LITTLE ROCK

BEST SOUP AROUND ARKANSAS

BEST TACOS IN LITTLE ROCK/NORTH LITTLE ROCK

BEST TORTILLA CHIPS AROUND ARKANSAS

BEST MEXICAN IN LITTLE ROCK/NORTH LITTLE ROCK

BEST VEGETARIAN/VEGAN AROUND ARKANSAS

DOWNTOWN BENTON

226 W. South Street • 501.316.4082

valhallabenton.com

READERS CHOICE A ARDS

FINALIST

2022 2023

BEST PIZZA AROUND ARKANSAS

BEST SALAD AROUND ARKANSAS

MOST DOG FRIENDLY AROUND ARKANSAS

MOST FUN AROUND ARKANSAS

BEST OUTDOOR DINING AROUND ARKANSAS

BEST BY REGION

BEST OVERALL RESTAURANT IN BENTON/BRYANT

DOWNTOWN BENTON

234 W. South Street • 501.317.1251

valhallabenton.com/valkyrieaxe

READERS CHOICE A ARDS

FINALIST

2022 2023

MOST FUN AROUND ARKANSAS

Taco Arriero (El Palenque)

Also known as the special taco, the Taco Arriero at El Palenque seems almost too good to be true. For a whopping $2.25 you get a soft flour tortilla filled with carne asada, chorizo, pico de gallo and a huge slice of avocado. I always order three, douse them with the house-made red and green hot sauce and try to not finish my Mexican Coke before they’re all gone. You can’t go wrong. RB

Shrimp Burrito/Salsa Verde combined with White Cheese Dip

(La Hacienda)

La Hacienda’s Shrimp Burrito is one of the best and understated burritos in town, a cheese dip slathered tortilla stuffed with tasty grilled shrimp and veggies. While you’re waiting on it, take the complimentary salsa verde — the best of its kind — and fold it right into your cheese dip. It’s a flavor symphony like no other. RB

Pho Dac Biet (Mike’s Cafe)

When I need to be healed of a cold or world weariness, my stomach directs me to Mike’s Place and the Pho Dac Biet, better known as P1, which the menu describes as “combination rice noodle soup.” It’s a combo not for the squeamish, an assortment of beef parts: tendon, flank, brisket, meatballs, tripe and rare beef slices. It comes with typical pho garnishes: cilantro, sliced jalapeno peppers, bean sprouts, Thai basil and lime wedges. Throw whatever combination of that you like on top, liberally douse with Sriracha and hoisin sauces and slurp without shame. The only way to get all of Mike’s rich broth is to pick the bowl up with two hands and drain it into your mouth. LM

Steak frites (Hill Station)

Hill Station does everything well, but this classic dish is tops on the menu. The restaurant has moved away from hanger steak, an often overlooked cut that the affiliated Hillcrest Artisan Meats popularized, but we’re not going to complain about center-cut ribeye. It comes topped by big pads of herb butter and with a side arugula salad and heap of the best thin-cut fries in town. LM

Truth Wings (Certified Pies)

Need some help with your Super Bowl spread? Look no further than Certified Pies for some of the most delicious battered wings in Central Arkansas. Certified’s Truth Wings are lightly battered, fried and tossed in Truth Sauce, an incredible sweet heat sauce bottled by Little Rock native Keith Tucker Jr. If you’re looking for a little more heat, try the Hot Dam Wings — a perfect blend of Truth Sauce and Frank’s Hot Sauce. RB

Chicken Hearts of Palm Soup

(Cafe Bossa Nova)

Remember that “Soup Nazi” episode of Seinfeld where everyone was losing their minds over how good the new soup stand was? That was my experience some 15 years ago when seemingly everyone I knew suddenly discovered the culinary wonder Bossa Nova’s Chicken Hearts of Palm soup, the rich, golden broth with chunks of chicken and hearts of palm pairs delightfully with Pão de Queijo, the most wonderfully textured cheese bread around. RB

Truffle-garlic-herb fries

(Big

Orange)

The best fries in town get blanched and fried twice and seasoned liberally with salt and herbs and a hearty dousing of truffle oil. Dip ’em in garlic mayo and you’ll have to work hard to keep your “mmmmmms” from carrying across the room. LM

Sriracha poke bowl (Kemuri)

Remember the brief poke boom in Little Rock several years back? There were at least four new restaurants that specialized in poke, that classic Hawaiian dish of raw fish and veggies served atop rice, and within fairly short order they all went bust. Luckily for those of us who crave a deconstructed sushi bowl, Kemuri offers a handful of poke dishes at lunch, and they’re vastly superior to anything from the bygone spots. The Sriracha bowl is my favorite: A rainbow of color, it comes with salmon, tuna, crab, some kind of white fish, cucumber, sliced avocado, shredded carrots, pickled cabbage and seaweed salad on a bed of rice. Clean eating is rarely so filling. LM

Crab cakes (Mr. Cajun’s Kitchen)

I was in luck recently at North Little Rock’s Mr. Cajun’s Kitchen when I sheepishly asked if crab cakes were available and they’d serendipitously been added back to the menu that day. Though not always available, they’re worth seeking out. Served on a bed of Cajun rice, the perfectly packed cakes have a nice crisp exterior and are drizzled with spicy remoulade perfection. RB

Quesabirria Tacos (La Casa De Mi Abuelita Mawmaw’s House)

The word “frico” gets a lot of play in the world of Italian food, but the boot doesn’t have a cultural monopoly on fried cheese, nor are the glories of that crispy griddled goodness unavailable in Arkansas. Behold the quesabirria tacos at Abuelita Mawmaw’s, a generous portion of tender, stewed beef birria (think: Guadalajaran brisket) folded into a soft taco shell with a heap of cheese, then griddled in the beef fat and broth until it’s crunchy, which makes it an impossibly dreamy companion for the cup of beef consomme served alongside. SS

BEST WINE LIST

in Little Rock/North Little Rock

BEST OUTDOOR DINING

in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Best Overall Restaurant in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Burger in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Desserts in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Steak in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Desserts in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Wine List in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Catfish in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Fun in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Wings in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Best New Restaurant in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Best Breakfast in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Barbecue in Little Rock/North Little Rock

Cardamom Coffee Cake (Fidel & Co.)

Fidel & Co.’s bakery offerings are leaps and bounds better than they need to be, and though the cornmeal cookie is a close second, I have a major soft spot for the coffee shop’s cardamom coffee cake. It behaves more like a pound cake than a coffee cake, with buttery depth and a crumb that makes it damn near impossible to wait any considerable length of time between bites. SS

Vino’s Special (Vino’s)

Not enough glowing attention is given to Vino’s version of the supreme pizza, a classic hand-tossed slice as big as your face, that makes me feel like I might exit the restaurant and find myself on the streets of the New York City underground punk scene. While it tastes the way I think of traditional supreme pizza, it goes places other supremes don’t with the addition of green olives, fresh mushrooms, sliced purple onion and meatballs. Yes, meatballs. You can order it by the slice, but I prefer getting a whole pie and making a weekend out

it.

BEST OF THE BUNCH

BEST OVERALL RESTAURANT IN LITTLE ROCK/NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: The Root Cafe

Finalists: Ciao Baci, Cypress Social (North Little Rock), Petit & Keet, Trio’s Restaurant

BEST OVERALL RESTAURANT AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: Conifer (Bentonville), Kaper’s (Clarksville), The Hive (Bentonville), Red Oak Steakhouse at Saracen Casino Resort (Pine Bluff)

BEST NEW RESTAURANT IN LITTLE ROCK/NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: El Sur

Finalists: The Bagel Shop, Big Bad Breakfast, Kemuri Chenal, Three Fold West Little Rock

SPONSORED BY

BEST NEW RESTAURANT AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: KnightFire BBQ (Searcy)

Finalists: Bentonville Taco & Tamale Co. (Bentonville), Conifer (Bentonville), Kasper’s (Clarksville), Oak Room and Bar (Oaklawn Casino Resort, Hot Springs)

BEST CHEF IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Cash Ashley (Raduno)

Finalists: Peter Brave (Brave New Restaurant), Brayan McFadden (Brood & Barley, North Little Rock), Jeffrey Owen (Ciao Baci), Capi Peck (Trio’s Restaurant)

BEST CHEF AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Kyle Carson (The Grumpy Rabbit)

Finalists: Diana Bratton (Taco Mama, Hot Springs), Ebony Warfield (Saracen Casino and Resort, Pine Bluff), Charles Duncan (Copper Mule Table & Tap, Bryant), Rob Nelson (Tusk & Trotter, Bentonville)

BEST SERVER IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH Little Rock

Winner: Mary Katherine Peek (Flying Saucer)

Finalists: Armando Bolaños (La Terraza Rum & Lounge), Libby Corinne (Pizza D’Action), Sheri Smith (Ciao Baci)

BEST SERVER AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Haley McGee Sansom (The Grumpy Rabbit, Lonoke)

Finalists: Christopher Carter (Copper Mule Table and Tap, Bryant), Maci Lewis (Baja Grill, Benton), Casey Newboles (Rock N Roll Sushi, Benton) Anna Dixon (Baja Grill Benton)

BEST EARLY EATS BAKERY IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Boulevard Bread Co.

Finalists: The Bagel Shop, Cinnamon Creme Bakery, Community Bakery, Dempsey Bakery

BAKERY AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Wild Sweet William’s Baking House (Searcy)

Finalists: Ozark Mountain Bagel Co. (Bentonville), PattiCakes Bakery (Conway), Serenity Farm Bread (Leslie), Will’s Cinnamon Shop (Hot Springs)

BREAKFAST IN LITTLE ROCK/

NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: The Root Cafe

Finalists: @ the Corner, Big Bad Breakfast, Delicious Temptations, Red Door

BREAKFAST AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Ozark Cafe (Jasper)

Finalists: Blue House Bakery & Cafe (Bryant), The Buttered Biscuit (Fayetteville), The Delta Biscuit Co. (Bentonville), The Farmer’s Table Cafe (Fayetteville)

BRUNCH IN LITTLE ROCK/

NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Raduno

Finalists: @ the Corner, Four Quarter Bar, Lost Forty Brewing, The Root Cafe

BRUNCH AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: Copper Mule Table and Tap (Bryant), The Farmer’s Table Cafe (Fayetteville), The Parsonage (Jonesboro), Tusk & Trotter (Bentonville)

COFFEE IN LITTLE ROCK/

NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Fidel & Co.

Finalists: Boulevard Bread Co., Guillermo’s Gourmet Coffee, Nexus Coffee and Creative, Paranoid Android

COFFEE AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Onyx Coffee Lab (Fayetteville)

Finalists: Arsaga’s (Fayetteville), Doomsday Coffee (Fayetteville), Mountain Bird Coffee Company (Eureka Springs), Red Light Roastery Coffee House (Hot Springs)

BEST SINGLE DISHES

BARBECUE IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Whole Hog Cafe North Little Rock

Finalists: Corky’s Ribs & BBQ, Count Porkula BBQ, HB’s Bar-B-Q, Sims Bar-B-Que

BARBECUE AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: KnightFire BBQ (Searcy)

Finalists: Jones Bar-B-Q Diner (Marianna), McClard’s Bar-B-Q (Hot Springs), Smokin’ Buns (Jacksonville), Wright’s Barbecue (Johnson)

BURGER IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Big Orange

Finalists: Charlee’s Good Time Drinkery, Ciao Baci, Midtown Billiards, Petit & Keet

BURGER AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: Big Orange (Rogers), Copper Mule Table & Tap (Bryant), Deluca’s (Hot Springs), Hugo’s (Fayetteville)

CATFISH IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Eat My Catfish

Finalists: Crazee’s Cafe, Cypress Social (North Little Rock), Flying Fish, Lassis Inn

CATFISH AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Dondie’s White River Princess (Des Arc)

Finalists: Catfish Hole (Fayetteville), Eat My Catfish (Benton), Flying Fish (Bentonville), The Hook (Jacksonville)

CHEESE DIP IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Heights Taco & Tamale

Finalists: Baja Grill, Camp Taco, La Hacienda, Mockingbird Bar and Tacos

CHEESE DIP AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Stoby’s Restaurant (Conway)

Finalists: Baja Grill (Benton), Copper Mule Table & Tap (Bryant), Local Lime (Rogers), Taco Mama (Hot Springs)

DESSERTS IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Cheesecake on Point!

Finalists: Cypress Social, Petit & Keet, Table 28, Trio’s Restaurant

DESSERTS AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: The Hive (Bentonville), Pea Farm Bistro (Cabot), Theo’s (Fayetteville), Tusk & Trotter (Bentonville)

FRENCH FRIES IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Big Orange

Finalists: Brood & Barley, Ciao Baci, David’s Burgers, Doe’s Eat Place

FRENCH FRIES AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: Big Orange (Rogers), Copper Mule Table & Tap (Bryant), Hugo’s (Fayetteville), The Tamale Factory (Gregory)

FRIED CHICKEN IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken

Finalists: Ceci’s Chicken N Waffles, Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill, South on Main, YGFBFKitchen Restaurant (Little Rock)

FRIED CHICKEN AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: AQ Chicken House (Springdale), Campground Grill (Austin), Holly’s Country Cookin’ (Conway), Monte Ne Inn Chicken (Rogers)

ICE CREAM/COOL TREATS IN LITTLE ROCK/NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Loblolly Creamery

Finalists: Kilwins, Le Pops, The Original ScoopDog (North Little Rock), The Purple Cow

ICE CREAM/COOL TREATS AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Andy’s Frozen Custard (Conway)

Finalists: Just Ice Cream (Benton), Mamoo’s Paradice Cream (Hot Springs), Scoops

Ice Cream (Hot Springs), Trash Creamery (Bentonville)

PIE IN LITTLE ROCK/NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Blue Cake

Finalists: Bobby’s Country Cookin’, Community Bakery, Rosie’s Pot and Kettle, Trio’s Restaurant

PIE AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Charlotte’s Eats & Sweets (Keo)

Finalists: Holly’s Country Cookin’ (Conway), Mud Street Cafe (Eureka Springs), Rhoda’s Famous Hot Tamales (Lake Village), Tusk & Trotter (Bentonville)

PIZZA IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Raduno

Finalists: Damgoode Pies, Iriana’s, Vino’s Brewpub, Zaza Fine Salad + Wood Oven Pizza

PIZZA AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: DeLuca’s Pizzeria (Hot Springs)

Finalists: MuleKick (Magnolia), Pizzeria

Ruby (Johnson), SQZBX Brewery & Pizza

Joint (Hot Springs), Valhalla Kitchen + Bar (Benton)

SALAD IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Zaza Fine Salad + Wood Oven Pizza

Finalists: All in a Bowl, The Faded Rose, The Root Cafe, U.S. Pizza,

SALAD AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Zaza Fine Salad + Wood Oven Pizza (Conway)

Finalists: Copper Mule Table and Tap (Bryant), Pea Farm Bistro (Cabot), MuleKick @ MAD (El Dorado), Valhalla: Kitchen + Bar (Benton),

SANDWICH IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: The Root Cafe

Finalists: The Bagel Shop, Boulevard Bread Co., The Croissanterie, Hillcrest Artisan Meats

SANDWICH AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Copper Mule Table & Tap (Bryant)

Finalists: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke), MuleKick @ MAD (El Dorado), Pea Farm Bistro (Cabot), SQZBX Brewery & Pizza Joint (Hot Springs)

SOUP IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Mike’s Cafe

Finalists: Baja Grill, Boulevard Bread Co., Cafe Bossa Nova, Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co.

SOUP AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: Baja Grill (Benton), Gaskins Cabin Steakhouse (Eureka Springs), Pea Farm

Bistro (Cabot), Pho 85 Noodle House (Bentonville)

STEAK IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Doe’s Eat Place

Finalists: Arthur’s Prime Steakhouse, Cache, Petit & Keet, Sonny Williams’ Steak Room

STEAK AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Red Oak Steakhouse at Saracen

Casino Resort (Pine Bluff)

Finalists: The Hive (Bentonville), Mike’s Place (Conway), The Tamale Factory (Gregory), Taylor’s Steakhouse (Dumas)

SUSHI IN LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Kemuri

Finalists: Kamikaito, Mt. Fuji Japanese Restaurant, Ocean’s at Arthur’s, Rock N Roll

Sushi

SUSHI AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Sushi House (Bentonville)

Finalists: Ai Sushi (Hot Springs), Blu Fish House (Bentonville), Meiji Japanese Cuisine (Fayetteville), Osaka Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar (Hot Springs)

TACOS IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Heights Taco & Tamale

Finalists: Baja Grill, Camp Taco, The Fold Botanas & Bar, La Hacienda

TACOS AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Baja Grill (Benton)

Finalists: Bentonville Taco & Tamale Co. (Bentonville), Local Lime (Rogers), Torchy’s Tacos (Fayetteville), Taco Mama (Hot Springs)

TORTILLA CHIPS IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Baja Grill

Finalists: Camp Taco, Casa Mañana, The Fold Botanas and Bar, La Hacienda

TORTILLA CHIPS AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Local Lime (Rogers)

Finalists: Baja Grill (Benton), Bentonville Taco & Tamale Co. (Bentonville), Taco Mama (Hot Springs), Xuma Kitchens (Fayetteville)

WINGS IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Four Quarter Bar

Finalists: Brood & Barley, Chicken King, North Bar (North Little Rock), Waldo’s Chicken and Beer

WINGS AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Arkansas Best Wings (Sherwood)

Finalists: Frickin’ Chicken (Fayetteville), Pedaler’s Pub (Bentonville), Penguin Ed’s (Fayetteville), Walker’s Wings & Things (Hot Springs)

YOGURT/SMOOTHIES IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Tropical Smoothie Cafe

Finalists: Argenta Nutrition, The Nutrition Place, TCBY

YOGURT/SMOOTHIES AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Grinds Coffee Co. (Cabot)

Finalists: Natural State Smoothies (Fayetteville), Panther Nutrition of Cabot (Cabot), Snack Lab (Bentonville)

BEST INTERNATIONAL

CHINESE IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Three Fold Noodles and Dumpling Co.

Finalists: Mr. Chen’s Authentic Chinese Cooking, Fantastic China, Fu Lin, New Fun Ree

CHINESE AROUND THE STATE

Winner: Jade China Restaurant (Conway)

Finalists: Lin’s Garden (Bentonville), Mong Dynasty (Fayetteville), The Wok (Hot Springs), Ying Chang Hmong & Chinese Hot Food (Fayetteville)

INDIAN IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Star of India

Finalists: Bawarchi Biryanis, The Indian Feast, Saffron Indian Cuisine, Taj Mahal Indian Kitchen

INDIAN AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Saffron Indian Cuisine (Rogers)

Finalists: Curry Point (Bentonville), Flavors Indian Cuisine (Bentonville), Khana Indian Grill (Fayetteville), Pandiya’s South Indian Cuisine (Bentonville)

ITALIAN IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Bruno’s Little Italy

Finalists: Graffiti’s Italian Restaurant, Raduno Brick Oven and Barroom, Ristorante Capeo (North Little Rock), Rivera Italian Restaurant (North Little Rock)

ITALIAN AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Luna Bella (Hot Springs)

Finalists: Italy in Town (Benton), J&S Italian Villa (Hot Springs), Tavola Trattoria (Bentonville), Vetro 1925 (Fayetteville)

JAPANESE IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Kemuri

Finalists: Aji Ramen Bar, Benihana (North Little Rock), Kamikaito (North Little Rock), Sky Modern Japanese

JAPANESE AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Osaka Japanese Steakhouse and Bar (Hot Springs)

Finalists: Kimono Japanese Steak House (Paragould), Meiji Japanese Cuisine (Fayetteville), Sushi House (Bentonville), Tokyo House Sushi & Ramen (Fayetteville)

MEXICAN IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: La Hacienda

Finalists: Baja Grill, Casa Mañana, El Palenque, Tacos Godoy

MEXICAN AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Mariachi Grill (Lonoke)

Finalists: Avocado Grill (Paragould), Taco Mama (Hot Springs), Tres Agaves (De Queen), Yeyo’s El Alma De Mexico (Bentonville)

OTHER INTERNATIONAL IN LITTLE ROCK/NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Cafe Bossa Nova

Finalists: Buenos Aires Grill and Cafe, La Terraza Rum & Lounge, Layla’s Gyro, Maryams Grill

OTHER INTERNATIONAL AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Baja Grill (Benton)

Finalists: Diamondhead (Fort Smith), Saiwok Vietnamese Street Food (Rogers), A Taste of Thai (Fayetteville), Tangiers (Fayetteville)

BEST SPECIALTY DINING

BUSINESS LUNCH IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill

Finalists: Capital Bar & Grill, Cotham’s in the City, Doe’s Eat Place, Star of India

BUSINESS LUNCH AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Mike’s Place (Conway)

Finalists: Copper Mule Table & Tap (Bryant), The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke), The Parsonage (Jonesboro), Pea Farm Bistro (Cabot)

DOG FRIENDLY IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: The Rail Yard

Finalists: Bark Bar, Dugan’s Pub, Flyway Brewing, The Fold Botanas & Bar, Hill Station

DOG FRIENDLY AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: Good Dog Cafe (Fayetteville), Grateful Head Pizza Oven & Beer Garden (Hot Springs), Nomad’s Southtown Kitchen + Bar (Fayetteville), Valhalla (Benton)

FINE DINING IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Brave New Restaurant

Finalists: Allsopp & Chapple, Arthur’s Prime Steakhouse, Ciao Baci, Table 28

Arkansas Times Magazine is expanding its advertising sales staff.

THE ARKANSAS TIMES is a mission driven magazine and online news source that is here to shine light on political skullduggery, celebrate our natural beauty and environment and spotlight the many culinary and cultural offerings this wonderful place has to offer. If you join our sales staff, you will be making a good living in addition to helping a magazine grow that is determined to make Arkansas a more just, prosperous and inclusive place to live.

THIS YEAR MARKS OUR 48TH YEAR of publishing the Arkansas Times. In addition to the glossy magazine, arktimes.com is one of the largest online local news sites in the state with nearly a half million unique visitors a month. We have also recently added ArkansasCannibiz.com which is an online trade magazine for the state’s growing cannabis industry. We sell advertising into all of these various media as well as into special sections targeted to the restaurant, college, legal and medical fields.

IF YOU ARE FEARLESS, curious about the world, have high energy, like people,and love learning new things from a wide variety of clients, then the Times might be for you. Sales experience is preferred, but the greatest value is a willingness to work hard, close sales, renew business, etc.

WE OFFER A GREAT WORK ENVIRONMENT, a sales and editorial staff that is the best in the business and a well respected publishing company.

IF THIS SOUNDS LIKE THE TYPE OF PLACE and the type of work you would like to do, email your resume to Phyllis Britton, Advertising Director at phyllis@arktimes.com.

ARKANSAS TIMES

FINE DINING AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: The Hive (Bentonville), The Preacher’s Son (Bentonville), Red Apple Inn (Heber Springs), Red Oak Steakhouse at Saracen Casino Resort (Pine Bluff)

FUN IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Hill Station

Finalists: Camp Taco, Cypress Social, Dust Bowl, Midtown Billiards

FUN AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Topgolf (Rogers)

Finalists: JJ’s Grill (Fayetteville), SQZBX Brewery & Pizza Joint (Hot Springs), Valkyrie Axe Throwing (Benton), Valhalla Kitchen & Bar (Benton)

GLUTEN FREE IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: The Root Cafe

Finalists: Cafe Bossa Nova, Dempsey Bakery, La Terraza Rum & Lounge, Star of India

GLUTEN FREE AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Baja Grill (Benton)

Finalists: Cafe 1217 (Hot Springs), Conifer (Bentonville), Snack Lab (Bentonville), Tavola Trattoria (Bentonville)

HEALTHY IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: The Root Cafe

Finalists: All in a Bowl, Neighborhood Nutrition Hillcrest, Vito & Vera, Zaza Fine Salad + Wood Oven Pizza

HEALTHY AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Pea Farm Bistro (Cabot)

Finalists: HWN Juice Bar (Cabot) MELD kitchen+sandwich bar (Bentonville), The Parsonage (Jonesboro),

HOME COOKIN' IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: K. Hall & Sons

Finalists: David Family Kitchen, Eat My Catfish, House of Mental, Maddie’s Place

HOME COOKIN' AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Pig ’N Chik BBQ (Sherwood)

Finalists: Campground Grill (Austin), Holly’s Country Cookin’ (Conway), Niecy’s (Benton), Peggy Sue’s Place (Heber Springs)

OUTDOOR DINING IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Cypress Social

Finalists: 42 Bar & Table, Brave New Restaurant, Casa Mañana, La Terraza Rum & Lounge

OUTDOOR DINING AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: Blue Heaven (Benton), Postmaster’s Grill (Camden), Rolando’s Restaurante (Hot Springs), Valhalla (Benton)

PLACE FOR KIDS IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Purple Cow

Finalists: All Aboard Restaurant & Grill, Big Orange, Crazy Hibachi, The Root Cafe

PLACE FOR KIDS AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Purple Cow (Hot Springs)

Finalists: Big Orange (Rogers), MuleKick (Magnolia), Smitty’s Garage Burgers & Beer (Rogers), Stoby’s Restaurant (Conway)

SEAFOOD IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Kemuri

Finalists: Brave New Restaurant, Eat My Catfish, Lassis Inn, La Terraza Rum & Lounge

SEAFOOD AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Who Dat’s Cajun Restaurant (Bald Knob)

Finalists: Blu Fish House (Bentonville), Copper Mule Table & Tap (Bryant), Dondie’s White River Princess (Des Arc), Fred’s Fish House (Mountain Home), Leon’s Catfish and Shrimp (Pine Bluff)

VEGETARIAN/VEGAN IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Star of India

Finalists: Blue Sage Vegan Bistro, House of Mental, Maryams Grill, Vito & Vera

VEGETARIAN/VEGAN AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Pea Farm Bistro (Cabot)

Finalists: Baja Grill (Benton), Cafe 1217 (Hot Springs), Snack Lab (Bentonville), SQZBX Brewery & Pizza Joint (Hot Springs)

WINE LIST IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Petit and Keet

Finalists: Cache, Ciao Baci, Graffiti's Italian Restaurant, Table 28

Thank you for

WINE LIST AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: The Grumpy Rabbit (Lonoke)

Finalists: Conifer (Bentonville), The Hive (Bentonville), Oak Room and Bar (Oaklawn Casino Resort, Hot Springs), Red Oak Steakhouse at Saracen Casino Resort (Pine Bluff)

BEST TAKEAWAY/MOBILE DINING

BUTCHER IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Hogg’s Meat Market (North Little Rock)

Finalists: The Butcher Shop, Edwards Food Giant (Cantrell), Hillcrest Artisan Meats, Heights Corner Market

BUTCHER AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Weldon’s Meat Market (Hot Springs)

Finalists: The Buck Stop Meat Store (Monticello), Butcher Boys Meat Market & Deli (Van Buren), Jim’s Meat Market (Bentonville), Mercado El Valle (Sherwood)

CATERER IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Trio’s Restaurant

Finalists: Catering to You, Heritage Catering, The Root Cafe, RX Catering

CATERER AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Pea Farm Bistro (Cabot)

Finalists: Carmelita Catering Co. (Bentonville), Gina’s Catering (Benton), Two Sisters Catering (Sherwood), Wright’s Barbecue (Johnson)

DELI/GOURMET TO-GO IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Boulevard Bread Co.

Finalists: Burge’s Hickory Smoked Turkeys and Hams, The Croissanterie, Hillcrest Artisan Meats, Terri-Lynn’s BBQ & Deli

DELI/GOURMET TO-GO AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Pea Farm Bistro (Cabot)

Finalists: Breitweiser’s Meat Market (Benton), Cabot Cafe & Cake Corner, Cafe 1217 (Hot Springs), Stone Mill Bread & Cafe (Springdale)

FOOD TRUCK IN LITTLE ROCK/ NORTH LITTLE ROCK

Winner: Lili’s Mexican Street Food

Finalists: Cajun Trouxth, Cheesecake On Point!, La Casa De Mi Abuelita Mawmaw’s House, Tacos Godoy

FOOD TRUCK AROUND ARKANSAS

Winner: Rock ’N’ Roll Hibachi (Hot Springs)

Finalists: La Casa De Mi Abuelita Mammaw’s House (Redfield), Yacht Club (Fayetteville), Yeyo’s Food Truck (Bentonville), Ying Chang Hmong & Chinese Hot Food (Fayetteville)

BEST BY REGION

OVERALL RESTAURANT IN BENTON/ BRYANT

Winner: Baja Grill (Benton)

Finalists: Eat My Catfish (Benton), Copper Mule Table & Tap (Bryant), Valhalla: Kitchen + Bar (Benton), Verona Italian Restaurant (Benton)

OVERALL RESTAURANT IN ROGERS/ BENTONVILLE

Winner: Tusk & Trotter (Bentonville)

Finalists: The Hive (Bentonville), Local Lime (Rogers), The Preacher’s Son (Bentonville), Tavola Trattoria (Bentonville), Wright’s Barbecue (Bentonville)

OVERALL RESTAURANT IN CONWAY

Winner: Mike’s Place

Finalists: Holly’s Country Cookin’, Pasta Grill, Stoby’s, WunderHaus

OVERALL RESTAURANT IN EUREKA SPRINGS

Winner: Ermilio’s Italian Home Cooking

Finalists: Grotto Wood Fired Grill and Wine Cave, Le Stick Nouveau, Local Flavor

OVERALL RESTAURANT IN FAYETTEVILLE/SPRINGDALE/JOHNSON

Winner: Hugo’s (Fayetteville)

Finalists: Bocca Italian Eatery & Pizzeria (Fayetteville), The Farmer’s Table Cafe (Fayetteville), Theo’s (Fayetteville), Wright’s Barbecue (Johnson)

OVERALL RESTAURANT IN HOT SPRINGS

Winner: DeLuca’s Pizzeria

Finalists: 501 Prime, The Bugler, Cafe 1217, The Vault

ONLY THE FINEST A PASSPORT FOR GOURMANDS.

How does one define fine dining in 2023? The meaning certainly feels like it’s changed over time. It wasn’t too long ago when a restaurant called Jacques and Suzanne opened up on the 30th floor of what was, at the time, Little Rock’s tallest building with a notable coat-and-tie policy and a kitchen full of chefs fresh from Europe, transforming Little Rock into a fine dining destination. But times have changed. The COVID-19 pandemic hit the restaurant industry hard, particularly fine dining restaurants that rely on people sitting down and eating in the restaurant. Also, generational vibes have become more casual. Restaurants with a wide variety of atmospheres feature chef-driven menus. When going out to eat at a restaurant with upscale prices you might blend into the crowd better in jeans than you would in pleated trousers. At Conifer, Chef Matthew Cooper’s new gluten-free Bentonville restaurant, you can get a beautiful dish of locally sourced food with a glass of fine wine wearing socks and sandals.

“I don’t care if you come in here with a T-shirt and baseball cap,” Cooper said in an interview with Arkansas Times. “I don’t care if you come in wearing flip-flops. Conifer is for everyone.”

In the future, Little Rock will likely have a plant-based fine dining restaurant or two. Will we go back to coat-and-tie policies in the year 2050 or rule them out entirely? Who knows? Prices change, attitudes change, style changes, trends change, but the one thing that will always be constant in fine dining is chef-driven preparation and carefully selected drink menus. We might not know how to best define fine dining in 2023, but we challenged ourselves to find 40 Arkansas restaurants that best fit the category, acting as a guide for people who are ready to experience the state’s best chefs and culinary teams. We think you’ll like what you find. The Arkansas Times proudly presents the 2023 fine dining guide in partnership with Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort.

—Arkansas Times staff

www.pcssd.org

Get Started with Pre-K Get Started with Pre-K

The Pulaski County Special School District is committed to providing a quality and equitable education to students in Pre-K through 12th grade. PCSSD’s Pre-K program is a free, standards-based program that aims to build strong foundational skills that help prepare students for kindergarten.

“PCSSD’s Pre-K program is one of top Pre-K programs in the state and as teachers we take a lot of pride in that,” said Sherwood Elementary Pre-K teacher Tiffany Darr. “PCSSD is at the forefront of early childhood education and we are fortunate to get extensive training opportunities to help further our education. PCSSD Pre-K classrooms create an atmosphere of love and respect for all students and with our center-based approach to learning students are taught in a way that is developmentally most beneficial to them.”

Pre-K teachers across the District work hard to ensure a positive and loving learning environment for their students.

“In Pre-K, students learn how to be a student and develop a love for learning,” said Joe T. Robinson Elementary Pre-K teacher, Ms. Amy Bubbus DeCastro. “They develop important social skills like communicating, sharing, and taking turns. Children also go through a reading readiness curriculum where they learn letters and phonics. They develop math skills such as counting and shapes. Developing fine motor and gross motor skills is so important for pre-k children, and we practice these skills daily.”

“Pre-K teaches children about what it means to ‘work together,’ what it means to be a friend, and how a teacher really cares for you, and most importantly, how to be a friend to others,” said Oak Grove Elementary Pre-K teacher, Ms. Kim Lee. “This is the first experience for Pre-K children, so Pre-K builds a child’s confidence through consistency, structure, creativity, and positivity. That is why children in Pre-K love school. Children learn that their classroom is a safe place they can learn.”

Pre-K programs are available at 14 PCSSD elementary schools: Baker Elementary, Cato Elementary, College Station Elementary, Crystal Hill Elementary, Daisy Bates Elementary, Harris Elementary, Joe T. Robinson Elementary, Landmark Elementary, Lawson Elementary, Oakbrooke Elementary, Oak Grove Elementary, Sherwood Elementary, Sylvan Hills Elementary, William Jefferson Clinton Elementary.

ABOUT PCSSD

“I love children, and I love to see them learn,” said Daisy Bates Elementary Pre-K teacher, Ms. Jennifer Martin. “Really I want to set an environment of education for these students that is fun, encouraging, and challenging. I want them to love school. So if I can set a positive example for these Pre-K students, next year they will want more.”

In order to attend Pre-K within the Pulaski County Special School District, families must meet at least one of the eligibility requirements issued by the Arkansas Better Chance (ABC) program, which can be found at www.pcssd.org.

Registration for PCSSD’s Pre-K program is now open and can also be found at www.pcssd.org. If you have specific questions related to PCSSD’s Pre-K program, please contact the Pre-K Department at 501-234-2065.

Pulaski County Special School District spans more than 600 square miles in central Arkansas and requires highly skilled and passionate personnel to adapt educational policies and personalization to 26 schools. Every school is accredited by the Arkansas State Board of Education. PCSSD has served schools across Pulaski County since July 1927.

PCSSD is committed to creating a nationally recognized school district that assures that all students achieve at their maximum potential through collaborative, supportive and continuous efforts of all stakeholders.

SPRING BREAK STAYCATION

A GUIDE FOR PARENTS WHO CAN’T GET AWAY.

BY CAROLINE MILLAR

If you can’t believe that we’ve already moved on from celebrating the new year and don’t have the energy or wherewithal or flexibility to plan an elaborate spring break vacation, we’ve got you covered. If you’re a parent or caregiver who isn’t able to take off more than a day or two from work, or who simply wants to let the kids sleep in, play with friends and decompress from the daily grind of the school year — this guide is for you. For us staycationers, spring break is about slowing down when we can, trying something new with our kids and enjoying the warming temperatures and lush beauty of our favorite season in Arkansas.

Note that, at our January deadline, many goto Little Rock day camps were fine-tuning their programs. Be sure to check their websites weekly for registration details and schedules. In the meantime, we’ve pitched a few ideas for things to do around town, as well as day trips and overnight stays.

DAY CAMPS: FERNCLIFF

Ferncliff’s spring camp is like getting to go to summer camp early. It’s a beautiful, natural setting for kids to play endlessly outdoors, doing their favorite camp activities, including hiking, games and sports. But they’ll also get the chance to try and learn new things, such as archery, bouldering and improving their problem-solving skills on a team building challenge course. It runs from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. March 2024 and accommodates grades 1-8. Price varies; see ferncliff.org for more information.

JUNIOR NATURALIST CAMP AT WILDWOOD PARK FOR THE ARTS

The Central Arkansas Master Naturalists who lead this day camp will teach kids through funfilled outdoor activities about the natural wonders of this 105-acre park in West Little Rock’s Chenal Valley. Check wildwoodpark.org for a schedule and details about registration.

LITTLE ROCK ATHLETIC CLUB CAMP

The Athletic Club’s spring break camp is always popular with families, but the club hadn’t

released details at press time. Check lrac.com or call 501-225-3600 for details.

THINGS TO DO AROUND TOWN:

Reserve a family field trip at the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub, and enroll the family in an hour-long class, such as high-tech 3D and vector design, watercolor science, tie-dye or printmaking. The Hub asks for a five-person minimum (bring the grandparents or a couple of friends) and that you make your reservation two to three weeks in advance. Expect music, arts, movies, gardening and beekeeping demos at various library branches of the Central Arkansas Library System; check cals.org for details. The Little Rock Zoo and Museum of Discovery aren’t offering camps, but they’re of course two of the most reliably fun places for family outings.

DAY TRIPS AND OVERNIGHT STAYS: DEGRAY LAKE RESORT STATE PARK

If you can get away for an overnight stay, DeGray Lake Resort State Park is our top pick for Central Arkansans. Located just 75 miles southwest of Little Rock, it’s close but still makes us feel like we’ve escaped to someplace new.

An especially creative team of state park interpreters have planned a full week of activities, which are focused on quality time on the water and forests of the park, rather than over-crowded, touristy gatherings. Among our favorites: guided one-hour horseback rides along the lakeshore and soft, pine-needle trails of the surrounding loblolly forests (shorts and tennis shoes are park-approved attire!). There’s also the “Geocaching Island Hopper,” in which you embark by boat in a high-tech hide-and-seek

adventure of island treasure-finding. Come sundown, you’ll experience the island’s nightlife by taking a flashlight-guided “owl prowl” boat excursion to remote coves. If you’re lucky, your interpreter will teach you how to call them and take part in this nighttime sonata. Back on land, an evening golf cart safari will cruise you along the park’s greens in search of nocturnal critters.

If guided tours aren’t your thing, rent a boat at the park’s marina and explore Iron Mountain. Hike and paddle the 3-mile “Islets Cove Paddle Trail,” or just spend the day on land mining for crystals and fishing on the lakeshores.

Note to day trippers: You don’t have to stay overnight to enjoy the resort’s amenities, like the Shoreline Restaurant and gift shop, as well as a playground, sand volleyball court, disc golf course and bicycle and boat rentals.

If you can stay overnight, there are many options. Campers can rough it on any one of 113 campgrounds available (water and electric hookups provided); glampers will love the yurt rentals equipped with cozy cots, lanterns and wood floors. Or, go all the way and book a room at the resort and lodge, which comes with all the amenities of a nice hotel with the exception of a few pet-friendly rooms. Note that many of the lodge’s amenities, such as the restaurant, are also available to campers.

BIKE THE DELTA HERITAGE TRAIL DAY TRIP WITH OVERNIGHT OPTION

We recommend this trip for a single parent and teenage kids. The bike trail is easy enough for beginners, but everyone needs to be game for a day-long adventure that is half car trip and half bike ride.

The Arkansas Delta Heritage Trail is a work-

DELTA HERITAGE TRAIL : A great family destination.

ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF PARKS, HERITAGE AND TOURISM

C E N T R A L A R K A N S A S S O U P S U N D A Y

in-progress, but some 44 miles of this rails-totrails system through Southeast Arkansas are open to the public. Our favorite section to do in a day is Barton to Lick Creek.

A quick pitstop note: On the way to the Delta Heritage Trail, take a quick restroom break at Louisiana Purchase State Park off of Highway 49, about 25 miles from your final destination. It’s one of the last remnants of the many headwater swamps that used to dot the Mississippi River Valley, and its old-growth beauty will take your breath away. An elevated boardwalk stretches over three-eighths of a mile of this swamp, past majestic bald cypress groves. Interpretive panels point to rare species of reptiles and birds that live in this special habitat.

Back to the Delta Heritage Trail: When you arrive at the Barton trailhead, park at the Visitors Center, which offers restrooms, bike rentals, a gift shop and friendly staff. The Barton to Lick Creek trail is packed gravel but a fairly smooth and flat ride that is at first canopied by trees and then opens up to spacious wide-open farmland and creeks.

To extend your trip overnight, try the Pedal & Paddle Tour, a 12-mile bike ride from Barton to Lake View followed by kayaking on Old Town Lake, with a bike ride back to Barton. Campgrounds are available at the Barton trailhead, where the Visitors Center is located. Or, bike a full day and stay overnight in nearby Helena-West Helena, 30 miles away. Spend the next day taking in the sites of this Delta city known for its blues music heritage. Try to catch a live broadcasting of the famous King Biscuit Radio Show at the Delta Cultural Center; call to confirm but broadcasts usually happen from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. daily.

WEEKEND TRIP TO MOUNTAIN VIEW

The natural beauty of the Arkansas Ozarks is always lure enough. But when we’re adventuring in Mountain View, we also soak in the folk music and art heritage that sets this region apart from the rest of the Ozarks. Because it’s a winding 107-mile trip from Little Rock, we recommend you make this a weekend/overnight stay. Here are some must-dos that’ll stock the family with adrenaline-pumping adventures and culture that’ll do everyone’s soul good.

Stretch your legs and picnic at the Blanchard Springs Recreational Area, located in the Sylamore Ranger District of the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest. Nearby are paved trails to Blanchard Springs waterfall, and the clear waters of Sylamore Creek, which will numb everyone’s toes in seconds. Reserve a tour of Blanchard Springs Caverns, an absolute mustsee even if you’re not into caving. If it’s been years since you last visited, take notice of the transformation of this “living cave,” which changes constantly due to the continuous drip of water on limestone. A quick ear-popping elevator descent transports you to a 200-foot magical underworld of stalactites, stalagmites and other limestone formations, beautifully

luminated. U.S. Forest Service interpreters will help you choose which of the three trails is right for you, which range from leisurely and wheelchair and stroller accessible, to strenuous expeditions through water-carved passages and underground streams. Dress warmly, as the cave keeps a steady 58-degree temperature yearround. Visit recreation.gov for tour times and to make your reservation.

See Mountain View from high: Zip lines, swinging bridges, Tarzan swings, rope bridges and swinging logs make Loco Ropes Treetops Adventure Park at the Ozark Folk Center State Park an adrenaline-pumping adventure. A variety of courses range from an hour-long course for the most cautious in your bunch, to the 3-hour End of the Line course that’ll keep you swinging in the treetops for 3 hours. Check the park’s web site for weight, height and age requirements.

Folk music and craft lovers: Hang out on the lawn of Mountain View’s courthouse square, where most any evening you’re sure to find locals jamming on mandolin, guitar and other traditional mountain folk instruments. At Mountain View Music, also on the square, browse state-of-the art banjos, mandolins, fiddles and many more folk instruments for sale; they’ll also give your child a private music lesson. Just a few minutes from downtown Mountain View is the Dulcimer Shoppe, known nationally for its specialty in hand-crafted mountain dulcimers since 1962. For ticketed live shows, check online for updated event information at the Ozark Folk Center. In the car, tune into the Ozark Highlands Radio program, which broadcasts live music weekly.

Craft and arts lovers: Immerse yourself in the folk craft heritage of this area by visiting and shopping at the Ozark Folk Center, which showcases area artisans like potters, coppersmiths and blacksmiths at work in its craft village. To learn a folk craft yourself, enroll in a class offered at the Ozark Craft Center.

Where to stay: A host of lodging options are available in Mountain View and the surrounding area, from bed and breakfasts in town to cabin rentals, campgrounds and R.V. parks on the Sylamore Creek and White River. Lodging is also available at the Ozark Folk Center, Jack’s Fishing Resort and Anglers White River Resort.

Where to eat: Tommy’s Famous A Pizzeria, Jo Jo’s Catfish Wharf and PJ’s Rainbow Café.

Mountain View is dry. If parents are looking to kick it back with a beverage, we recommend Gravity Brew Works, a few miles down the road from Mountain View in Big Flat. Locals tell us that Gravity welcomes you to bring one of Tommy’s pizzas as long as you share with the bartender.

Exhibitions on view February 3–March 17, 2023

Opening night reception with the artists, February 3, 5–7pm

NEELY & BIGGS GALLERIES

Fiber Artists’ Ideas to Improve Our World

An exhibition featuring 33 contemporary art quilts, each exploring solutions to improve sustainability in two-dimensional and three-dimensional works.

Museum Hours: Tues–Sat 12–5pm www.windgatemuseum.org

1600 Washington Avenue | 501-328-2386

WILCOX/TODD

GALLERY

“The biggest task for new generations is to realize that humankind is not separate from Nature. What affects one of us affects us all. Perhaps, maybe in a small way, these sitting places can establish a starting point.” –Annie Helmericks-Louder

Annie Helmericks-Louder: Land as a Living Room

Annie Helmericks-Louder, Living Room (#7) On the Breeze , 2022

Margaret Abramshe, Plastic Ocean, 2021

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FEB. 25: TRACY BYRD

MAR. 25: BRET MICHAELS

AMAZED BY THE MONSTER

ISAAC ALEXANDER ON FAMILY, FLAWS AND HIS DOUBLE ALBUM, “FUTURE SANCTUARY.”

BY DANIEL GREAR

Six years before the release of his new double album, Little Rock folk rocker and graphic designer Isaac Alexander snapped a photo of a big wooden sign, at least a dozen feet wide, that was sitting alone in an open field next to a church off of University Avenue. It read “FUTURE SANCTUARY” in large, capital letters, which Alexander thought was “hopeful, but kind of heartbreaking,” because a building was never erected in its place. The evocative image and message stuck with him for so long that it became the two-act record’s title and the artwork for part one. The cover for part two was taken years later by his daughter, and is a photo of the same sign, but this time Isaac and his guitar are slumped against the wordless backside of it.

The sign was eventually taken down, but I wonder if it was ever intended to be literal. Was the message supposed to genuinely announce the construction of an upcoming facility or was it more an inspiring, metaphorical call to work toward that which is magnificent, but impossible to achieve? I prefer to think of it as both at the same time. In fact, the conflicting, liminal space between practical and artful, or straightforward and unsettled, is a good way of describing Alexander’s music, especially on his latest releases.

Songs like “Covering Tracks,” track two on side two of “Future Sanctuary,” use arrangement as their subversion tool, beginning in a reliable fashion until they introduce an unexpected sonic element. Just when a steady trot lulls you into thinking this tune is merely a curmudgeonly perspective on growing old and feeling obsolete, a rogue guitar part appears, quivery and spacious, making us question the certainty of Alexander’s words. Perhaps he’s more contemplative than angry. Perhaps there’s beauty in aging.

The following track, “Testimony,” instead presents paradox through its lyrics. In the first

NOT ALONE: Although Isaac Alexander is a solo artist who spends a lot of time in his own head, he still relies heavily on the help of other musicians.

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two stanzas, Alexander mourns what was lost of he and his wife’s private coupledom when they decided to have children. When he sings “the bride and the groom don’t live here no more” and “the honeymoon is over,” it feels like a clear caution against parenthood. And yet, the next stanza celebrates it — “Rewind/Stop time/Two flowers climb the tower/One more time down the slide.” It’s a sneaky and lovely image that I only fully understood once I spoke with Alexander, who clarified that those staccato phrases are meant to paint a scene of his kids playing at the pool — “You kind of get irritated, but when you look back, you wish it would never end.”

Isaac Alexander, who is 46 years old, has been making noise with a “big collage” of other musicians since he was a teenager in Searcy. His first project was The Screaming Mimes, a high school band who he lovingly labels as “trying to be the Red Hot Chili Peppers.” After college, around the turn of the millennium, he and Brad Williams (known for his work with The Salty Dogs) started Big Silver, a “loose, big dumb rock” band that still performs on occasion. Before transitioning to mostly solo work in the late aughts, Alexander formed The Easys, a pop outfit a la Elvis Costello and Squeeze, and served for a stint as drummer for The Boondogs.

Before releasing “Future Sanctuary” on New Year’s Day of this year, Alexander put out three

solo records — “See Thru Me” (2008), “Antivenin Suite” (2012) and “Like a Sinking Stone” (2017) — all recorded and produced by Joe V. McMahan, who’s based in East Nashville. With such a rich history of collaboration, why invest so heavily in the production of solitary art? For Alexander, the songs he puts out under his own name are defined by an excavation of the self. If he finds himself writing something that looks inward rather than outward, that reflects rather than tells fictional stories, then it usually ends up in the solo world. That said, there are pitfalls to this approach. “I’ve used songwriting in the past as a way to feel sorry for myself,” he said. “You can get in a spot where you’re just being sad. When you get in a rhythm of how you make music, it’s hard to see it any other way. It’s something I’m trying to look into.”

Although Alexander conceives of his solo work as distinct from his time in bands, he still relies heavily on the help of other musicians. “I kind of fall apart when it comes to arrangement,” he said. “They have to do a lot of heavy lifting to make the songs sound cool in the studio.” He thinks of himself as primarily a songwriter who needs guidance and direction. Jason Weinheimer — one of Alexander’s long-time collaborators and the producer, engineer and mixer for “Future Sanctuary” — sees things a bit differently. “The songs are so good,” Wein-

"FOR A LONG TIME, I WAS NOT REAL HAPPY WITH MYSELF. I DIDN'T GET THE WHOLE THING THAT EVERYBODY'S GOOD. I'M A GOOD DUDE. I'VE REALIZED THAT OVER THE YEARS. IT SOUNDS KIND OF SAD, BUT IT'S JUST TRUE. MY PERSONALITY LEANS TOWARD BEATING MYSELF UP AND I'M KIND OF DONE WITH THAT."

OVERFLOW: When Isaac Alexander opened the floodgates at the beginning of the year, two dozen songs came out.

heimer said. “Everything else after that is just window dressing. The trick is not to fuck them up. Adding as little as possible to make them a finished product is my goal when making an Isaac record. A mediocre song requires a great arrangement or great production to sell the song, but a great song requires very little.”

The majority of the 24 songs on “Future Sanctuary” were recorded in two separate three-day sessions at Fellowship Hall Sound in Hillcrest, before Weinheimer moved the studio to a larger location downtown. The first session was tracked as a three-piece in 2018, with Jon Radford on drums, Weinheimer on bass and Alexander on guitar, piano and vocals. Weinheimer stuck around on bass for the second session a couple years later, but Radford was traded out for Paddy Ryan and Chris Michaels joined on lead guitar. After the foundation was laid down, Weinheimer tinkered with auxiliary instrumentation until the songs were fleshed out, including that transcendent guitar part on “Covering Tracks.” Because Weinheimer and Alexander share a studio space, Alexander could literally hear him experimenting through the walls.

Alexander didn’t set out to make a double album, but felt a paralyzed indecision about which songs to cut and which to keep. He consulted a friend who put together a suggested tracklist and sequencing, but nothing felt right. On a whim, Alexander released everything. “I couldn’t face going into the new year and not putting these records out.”

When I asked him what this collection of songs is about, or if they’re united by anything beyond the period of time in which they were written, he answered with the utmost sincerity: “For a long time, I was not real happy with myself. I didn’t get the whole thing that everybody’s good. I’m a good dude. I’ve realized that over the years. It sounds kind of sad, but it’s just true. My personality leans toward beating myself up, and I’m kind of done with that.”

“Future Sanctuary” has its fair share of despondency, but the albums are marked by a newfound willingness to think optimistically. In “Reeling Them In,” Alexander recalls a dreamy and uncomplicated moment from his childhood. “It’s a vague memory of going to church camp and that fun, innocent feeling of taking a swim in the creek and letting that be what it is,” he said. Even “Monster” — a simultaneously soft and grungy song that initially sounds like a critique of the toxic parts of organized religion and politics — contains a surprising lyrical turn: “I’m so amazed by the monster I made.” It might sound like self-deprecation, but amazement and hatred are two different things. By being in awe of his shortcomings and humanity rather than at odds with them, there’s less blame, more tenderness.

The release show for “Future Sanctuary” is on Thursday, Feb. 2 at White Water Tavern. Joshua Asante will open.

‘CARVING OUT TIME’

A Q&A WITH LATOYA M. HOBBS.

BY DANIEL GREAR

LaToya M. Hobbs, a visual artist who grew up in North Little Rock, makes work that is often epic in scope, but deeply intimate in its subject material. The bulk of Hobbs’ art spotlights the Black women she admires most, and through grand, tender and solemn mixed media portraits, the faces and bodies of local cornerstones are seen anew. Her most ambitious piece, “Carving Out Time,” which was created over the course of several months, is a series of nearly life-size woodcuts from her family life. If you observe Hobbs as she creates, which you can do by watching a YouTube documentary, you’ll be reminded of the physical reality of art making. No matter how lofty one gets with their thematic aspirations and the pursuit of truth and beauty, watching Hobbs scrape a tool into what was once a tree hour after hour makes it clear that art is honest labor, plain and simple. This idea — that what is sacred and monumental is closely tied to modest daily work — echoes the domestic scenes that lie in the frames of her art. Through the impressive proportions and remarkable detail of the renderings, we better understand that existing in communion with the people you love is about presence, humility and an appreciation for the quotidian.

Hobbs attended North Little Rock High School and the University of Arkansas at Little

Rock, but after receiving her MFA from Purdue University, she moved to Baltimore to become a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Since then, her work has found a home in public and private collections like the Harvard Art Museum, the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, the National Art Gallery of Namibia, the Getty Research Institute and the Baltimore Museum of Art. In April, she’ll be featured in “Together,” a curation accompanying the reopening of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. I spoke with Hobbs over the phone about her painstaking process, how she decides who will show up in her art and what’s next.

The two forms you’re most known for are painting and printmaking. I would guess that our readership is less familiar with the latter. As I understand it, printmaking is an extremely tedious form, especially when it’s done on a massive scale. Could you give a step-by-step walkthrough of the process?

Printmaking as a genre is based on the idea of being able to create multiples. There are a lot of different processes and techniques that fall under the umbrella of printmaking. There’s intaglio, where you work with a copper plate. There’s lithography, where you work with a

stone. And then there’s what I do, which is called relief. Under the umbrella of relief printmaking, you either work with a piece of linoleum or wood. Whatever material you use is called a matrix, where you develop your image. I draw on the surface of the wood and take carving tools, or what we call gouges, and enter a subtractive process, carving away at the block to make my image. The next step is to do the printing. Now that I have my matrix complete, I’ll use a series of rollers, or brayers as we call them, to roll ink over the woodblock. Typically, you want the ink to be evenly distributed. Then, you put a piece of paper on top of your matrix and put it on a printing press, where you manually crank this handle and adjust the pressure so it’s tight because you want the ink to transfer from the woodblock onto the paper. Then you do that several times to create an edition, a series of impressions that are the same.

Some of your work combines printmaking, painting, collage and drawing. How do you approach the layering of those different mediums?

Right now, I’m kind of exploring the idea of the print matrix as the final product, or the art object. I really love carving, so I’ve adopted that into my painting practice or my mixed media

MONUMENTAL: Artist LaToya M. Hobbs stands next to one of her life-size tributes to domestic life.

ARISTON JACKS

works. I literally carve into the surface of the panels as if I was trying to produce a print, but sometimes they’re not meant to be inked up. I’ll collage on them or draw on them or paint in the background to create a mixed media painting. Or sometimes, I’ll carve the blocks, print them and then use the wood matrices as a painting that I would hang in a museum or a gallery.

What is your pacing as an artist like? How frequently do you work and for how long at a time? Do you go for large periods of time without making anything, or are you always at work on something?

That depends on the time of year. I’m a fulltime faculty member at the Maryland Institute College of Art. I have two sons who are 8 and 6. My husband and I split homeschooling responsibilities for them. Different times of the year I’m able to make more when there’s a little bit less going on. It also depends on when I have deadlines. Right now, I have a show coming up that opens in March and they’re scheduled to pick up the work on Feb. 20, so I’m trying to get into the studio as much as possible.

Much of the work I’ve encountered from you is a kind of portraiture that highlights one person at a time in a fairly simple setting. How did you start doing that kind of work? Because so much of the focus is on the person, I have them front and center. I will say, in the past two or three years, I’ve tried to incorporate more settings in my work and that’s exemplified most by the large scale relief carving I did called “Carving Out Time,” which is basically a day in my life as a mom and artist, but it’s set in my home, so it’s not just one figure, it’s a figure in a fully developed environment and space. Five different spaces, to be exact, that represent different parts of my home and different activities that happen throughout the day. I’ve also been working on pieces with multiple figures interacting together. The last large relief carving I did is an 8-foot-by-12-foot piece titled “Genette's Daughters,” and it has six figures.

How do you decide who to feature in your art? Are all of the figures real people or are some of them conjured from your imagination?

I would say 90% of the time, they’re people that I know or have met at some point in my life. It’s really important to me to share the stories of my family, friends and the people in my community as a way of honoring them. “Carving Out Time” is me and my family. With “Gennette’s Daughters,” they’re all sisters. I went to their parent’s church when I started college. I’ve done some pieces of my mom, some self-portraits. I did a series of other Black women printmakers who I’m in a collective with. A lot of recent images are of my stepdaughter and niece. I’m inspired by the people I have access to who are part of my everyday life but are also doing really great

things. I’ve been in competition for commis sions to do notable people and I’m not opposed to it, but I like being able to talk to people about their experiences and make a stronger connection.

Your work is going to be featured in the in augural exhibit at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts when it reopens in April. What’s going to be included?

It’s just one piece, the first section of “Carving Out Time.” It’s really important for people to know that that’s only one part. I think about it as acts of a play. The first of five parts that make up the entire work. At the museum, they only had space to include the first scene. Normally, you’re supposed to see all five sections of it to gether, but it’s a really special opening for the museum and I think it’s going to be a really great exhibit, so I honored their request to bor row the first section of the work.

How does your work as a professor differ from or compliment your work as an artist?

My teaching practice over the years has helped strengthen my personal art practice. I teach several drawing courses and I think drawing is such an important and foundational part of the work I do. Sometimes, I get students who have never drawn anything before. Helping them develop their practice ultimately helps me become technically stronger in my own work. Also, there are so many amazing students and a lot of them are so talented. It’s really helpful being in an environment where there’s constant work being shown, constant creativity, not only from the students, but from my colleagues as well, who are doing really great things in their respective fields. That said, I’ve been starting to think about what it would be like to be a fulltime artist as my practice is starting to grow, and there’s more demand for my work. I think with all artists it’s in the back of our minds. Even people who really, really love to teach wouldn’t mind having more time in the studio. [laughs]

What’s on the horizon for you?

This is shaping up to be a busy spring. I have four shows scheduled. Three of them are solo and one is a group show. The thing I’m most excited about is a solo show at the Virginia Mu seum of Contemporary Art that opens in March, which I’m making some new works for. Obvi ously, I’m excited about the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts show. In April, I have some visiting artist things scheduled where I’ll be printing an edition and doing some lectures. And then I have residencies coming up with the Wom en’s Studio Workshop and the Joan Mitchell Center.

have going on by singing up for my newsletter at latoyamhobbs.com

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

ALL PROCEEDS GO TO FUND THE WORK OF THE ACLU OF ARKANSAS ORGANIZATION.

In “Boycott,” award-winning filmmaker Julia Bacha pulls back the curtain on a movement of conservative legislators and lobbyists in Arkansas and the United States who are succeeding in curtailing free speech. Thirty-four states have introduced anti-boycott laws, which require individuals and companies seeking public contracts to sign a pledge promising they will not boycott Israel. The Arkansas Times refused to sign on First Amendent grounds, losing much of its state advertising.

After Alan Leveritt, publisher of the Times, an attorney in Arizona, and a speech therapist in Texas are told they must choose between their livelihoods and their political beliefs, they launch legal battles supported by the ACLU. Their stories cut to the heart of a pressing national issue and illustrate how the right to free speech could be redefined across US society for generations to come.

The film is 73 minutes long and will be followed by a 30-minute Q&A with Suhad Babaa, the film’s Producer, Alan Leveritt of the Arkansas Times, and the ACLU of Arkansas team.

PRODUCT LINE:

CANNABIS WITHOUT THE MANSPLAINING

A MARIJUANA PROCESSOR IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS SETS ITS SIGHTS ON SELF-CARE AND SEXUAL HEALTH.

BY GRIFFIN COOP PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON

Inside a few small rooms in a Northwest Arkansas office building, four women are blazing a unique path in the state’s cannabis industry. Shake Extractions, located in Johnson just outside of Fayetteville, is a womenowned cannabis processor, bringing distinctly women-focused products (and big plans) to market in a male-dominated retail landscape.

The ladies have experienced their share of mansplaining and folks telling them they won’t be able to make it in the industry. “We couldn’t possibly know what we are doing,” Brittany Phillips, the company’s chief creative officer, said. “Certainly, early on, we had that. We don’t entertain it anymore.”

Shake isn’t just owned by women, it’s influenced by them, which is evident in the company’s products. The team focuses on three areas: beauty, dietary supplements and sexual health. It’s the last element of this trifecta, though, that is likely to garner the most attention — and a few snickers — from customers who spot the items on the shelves in the state’s dispensaries.

This male reporter felt a little awkward asking the four women owners about the sexual health products, but admitted it openly before pressing on out of professional obligation and personal curiosity. The owners — Julie Brents, Antigone “Tig” Davoulas, Syrona Scott and Phillips — were happy to answer all the questions. While

drops and balms make up the beauty and dietary supplement product lines, the sexual health products consist of vaginal suppositories and a sex lube for couples. Both products are infused with CBD and THC.

The vaginal suppositories come in a metal tin similar in size and shape to a container for Altoids mints, although you’d never want to confuse the two. The label describes the product as a “cannabis-infused vaginal moisturizer with coconut oil, shea butter” and says it is “ritual self-care for your delicates.”

While the products might engender a few giggles or awkwardness, they are infused with 80-85 mg of CBD and 7 mg of THC and treat real ailments that the state’s patients experience. Patients use the products for vaginal dryness, painful sex, menstrual pain, nausea and more, they said.

“It’s just a really lovely product,” Phillips said. “You put it in, it dissolves. The THC and the CBD enter your bloodstream in a quick way and it’s localized but also a body high.”

The sexual health product line also includes a sex lube for couples, and one owner said it optimizes orgasms.

“We are women and we understand women’s health issues, but we also want to broaden our market for everybody,” said Davoulas, the group’s chief legal officer. “So we want to balance. Yes, we targeted women with the

vaginal suppositories, but [the sex lube] is for anybody that likes to enjoy.”

Developing marijuana products with women in mind and marketing to women makes business sense, too. According to a report from the state Department of Health last year, 47,872 of the state’s medical marijuana cardholders were women, accounting for 51.8% of all cardholders.

“The void in the market for something this specific was absolutely why we came to market with this,” Phillips said. “It’s why we settled on these [products] and how, in an effort to differentiate, we can bring our patients something they can’t get otherwise.”

HOW IT STARTED

In 2015, Brents moved back to Arkansas after several years working in cannabis ventures in California. She worked on a campaign to legalize medical marijuana in Arkansas and then the serial entrepreneur, as she calls herself, saw a new business opportunity in Arkansas.

Brents had known Phillips previously and had met Davoulas on a previous trip to Arkansas. “I thought we could have an all-women team and get after this,” Brents said.

The team came together and created a line of CBD products called CBD & Me that are similar to the THC-infused products they are making today. The CBD products are USDA-certified

Shake Extractions’ line of products focuses on beauty, dietary supplements and sexual health and includes tinctures, vaginal suppositories and a sex lube for couples.

SHE IS LOVE.

TRUST. SHE. IS. HARVEST.

organic, which means that everything from the Vermont hemp farm where the plants are grown to the final stages of product creation in the Northwest Arkansas lab are organic.

The team’s THC products are also organic in a sense, even though they don’t carry the USDAcertified label. (Cannabis is still illegal on the federal level and THC can’t be bestowed a USDA distinction for being grown organically.)

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Brents and the team saw an opportunity to shift their focus and apply for a processing license. The arduous process, evident by the size of the fat binder Brents plopped down on a table, resulted in Shake being the first processor licensed in Arkansas. Shake also happened to be the first hemp processor licensed in Arkansas,

Shake, which buys distillate from Good Day Farm, sent its first product to market in October. Today, the products are in 12 of the state’s 38 dispensaries and the team plans to extend its reach into more dispensaries. The company has had several reorders, they said.

“Everybody has really responded well to us,”

BIG PLANS

Shake Extractions is more than a processor, though. These ladies have big plans.

Shake owns 13 registered trademarks for “Big drip energy” and other things and is working on another trademark for “Cannabis by women.”

The trademarks are an important part of the business, because they would allow Shake’s

brands to cross state lines, even if cannabis itself can’t travel across state lines because of the federal prohibition. A trademark, like “Cannabis by women,” could appear on products in other states without violating the federal prohibition, for instance.

Davoulas’ first job out of Ole Miss law school was in the legal department at Playboy Enterprises, an experience she said had some similarities to cannabis as a highly regulated industry. The company had an international portfolio of trademarks and the experience made her think big when it came to business. “That [experience] kind of lended itself in the same facet as what we do here,” Davoulas said. “We wanted to leverage our own brands, too.” Phillips, who owns a design firm in Fayetteville, said it’s important for the industry to create products for women but also to market to women. “For us it’s just so important to have that seat at the table and to bring the patients a perspective that they are not getting from a product development standpoint,” Phillips said. “Not to mention from a brand standpoint in how they are being represented essentially. That was super important to us to develop products that are made with women in mind, that was important to us and always will be.”

The owners showed off a bag from a company called “Buy Weed from women,” made by a woman in New Jersey who supports legalization as well as minority-owned, women-owned, Black-owned businesses. “We wouldn’t be Shake if we didn’t uplift other female brands,” Davoulas said.

CANNABIS BY WOMEN: Shake Extractions, located in Johnson near Fayetteville, is a cannabis processor owned by (left to right) Antigone "Tig" Davoulas, Julie Brents, Brittany Phillips and Syrona

COMPASSION. KINDNESS.

Marijuana is for use by qualified patients only. Keep out of reach of children. Marijuana use during pregnancy or breastfeeding poses potential harms. Marijuana is not approved by the FDA to treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of marijuana.

MOM. FRIEND. WARRIOR. OUR GM-EXTRAORDINAIRE.

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KETCHUP, INTERRUPTED

While quarantined from an extremely mild, nearly nominal case of COVID-19 in the middle of January, the Observer, who is approaching 30 years of age, ordered a mess of chicken fingers and fries to be contactlessly delivered to the front door of his apartment building in downtown Little Rock. Hear me out: At my most unmediated, I have the palate of a child, and I’ve accepted this. In keeping with my juvenile preferences, I also adore ketchup, and have loved it for as long as I can remember, so much so that I’m the kind of ketchup consumer who doesn’t mess with packets. There’s never enough and I’ve no interest in rationing. Instead, I keep a big bottle of Heinz original on hand at all times.

As I opened and broke down the lukewarm cardboard meal box to make a place for a heaping blob of the silly sauce, I noticed that the fries looked a little more wilted than usual, but what can you expect? Fast food is best experienced in the literal seconds after it emerges from the fryer. At the end of the day, it’s all going to mostly taste like ketchup anyway, at least if you dip like I do. As some pragmatic thinker once said, food is just a vessel for sauce, especially when the food is of questionable quality.

I’ve been told that I eat too quickly and, though there were no witnesses, I can only assume that this day was no exception. In fact, a blend of

fries, tenders, ketchup and the restaurant’s namesake dipping sauce entered my mouth at such a ferocious clip that when an unexpectedly rancid flavor started kicking at my tongue, I couldn’t immediately identify the origin. With perishability in mind, I suspected the chicken. Through rigorous triangulation, however, I deduced the real culprit: The ketchup. When savored in isolation, my favorite condiment had an awful, mouth-twisting aftertaste like rubbing alcohol. I sampled it over and over again, expecting the intruder to go away, but it didn’t. What was up? The bottle was far from expiration, had only been opened a couple months ago and had never left the chilly sanctum of my fridge for longer than a few minutes at a time. I wondered if even Heinz makes mistakes sometimes. As a lifelong patron of the brand, I could handle one preservative error. Sad but resigned, I ate the rest of my meal sans tomato aid.

While holding the three-fourths-full bottle over the trash can, ready to release my grip, I was struck with a harrowing and epiphanic thought: What if this is because of the COVID? It was, after all, my first time afflicted with the virus. People talk about changes or losses in taste and smell, but surely this couldn’t be what they mean? Wouldn’t everyone be taking the pandemic more seriously if so? After a quick phone call to my recently retired doctor mother, I learned that I was not the only person suffering from

this exact phenomenon after contracting COVID-19.

Still, I was skeptical. Could my taste buds really be this sensitive to the whims of a mere disease? Was my biology really that malleable? Isn’t ketchup one of the most powerful forces in the world? Are such levels of karmic cruelty and betrayal even possible? It all just seemed so farfetched to me. And so I let the trouble slip my mind for a few days, hoping to forget it like a bad dream.

Until it was time for the weekly burger, another staple of my ludicrously simple and indulgent diet. Sure enough, upon my first dunk in ketchup from an entirely different source than the last time, the taste was back, spiteful and vinegary. It wasn’t a fluke. Who knows how long this devastating reality will last.

So what should I do? Should I keep eating it until I’m used to the taste? Or is this an excuse to get off the sauce? Maybe I could take this as a sign from the universe that it’s time to finally reexamine my eating habits in the hopes of shifting toward more sophisticated forms of sustenance that are less dependent on the red stuff. I don’t know. If it’s any indication, I’ve already discovered that, for some reason, when ingested in smaller amounts, the mystery acidity of the ketchup is significantly less intense. It’s even tolerable. If I’m being honest, I bet I’ll keep eating the same shit.

Mushroom Wellington

Cherry Bourbon Short Rib

Coffee Encrusted Venison Chops