THE FRONT Q&A
HOSPITALITY INHERITED A Q&A WITH TRIO’S OWNER CAPI PECK.
Your grandparents owned Hotel Sam Peck and some of the menu items live on at Trio’s, like the Peck’s Special Salad. Is the Bing Cherry Jello Mold also a vintage recipe? Oh, yes. I don’t think I would’ve come up with the idea of serving Jello in a restaurant in this century (laughs), but people love it and it’s not just women — women and men love it. It goes with the chicken salad. That’s straight from the hotel.
BRIAN CHILSON
In February, Trio’s owners Capi Peck and Brent Peterson won the 2022 Proprietor of the Year award from the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame. Peck and Peterson opened Trio’s in Pavilion in the Park in 1986. The restaurant won the Arkansas Times Readers Choice Awards for Best Restaurant in Central Arkansas six times. Peck is also serving her second term as a city director for Little Rock’s Ward 4. We caught up with Peck after a very busy Valentine’s Day at Trio’s.
AGE: 69 FIRST RESTAURANT JOB OUTSIDE THE HOTEL SAM PECK: Tracks Inn (at Union Station). It was a happening place in the ’70s.
OK. I could talk forever about the disparity between the front of the house and the back of the house. The front of the house servers, it was Valentine’s Day last night, they all walked out with a couple hundred dollars cash in their pockets plus their paychecks, and it’s just not equitable. One way we try to address that is with a tip pool where everybody gets a cut. We got really aggressive with it during the pandemic because we morphed into curbside and delivery only for several months. We’ve maintained it, even if it means the restaurant having to supplement that to make it more equitable. You’re in your second term on the board of directors for the city of Little Rock. How has running a restaurant prepared you for your role in city government? I’m not a lifelong politician. I never dreamed of getting into politics. I represent my ward and the city the same way I run this restaurant. Be accessible and transparent, helpful and kind. Be nice to people, just listen and help them navigate the bureaucracy. You might not be able to get them the response they want, but you can be kind and try.
ALWAYS IN HER FRIDGE: What’s the biggest lesson you learned from Vanilla yogurt, homemade hummus your grandparents that you attribute to your and orange juice. Not to be eaten success at Trio’s? together. I would say to treat staff like they’re members of your family. I think that’s why we have so When we spoke in October of 2020 you’d just much longevity, so little turnover. We’ve got 10 made the decision to close Sundays and give people with 25 years plus and three or four who are in the 30 years yourself a break. Could you talk about that decision and what your plus range. My grandparents lived in the hotel, so it truly was their plans are for Trio’s as you’re closing in on your 40th year in busiextended family, and so that whole hospitality gene I inherited, that’s ness? Do you want to do this forever? my No. 1 takeaway. And not just staff, but customers and clients, too. I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. It’s hard as hell and these last two years have been the hardest yet, but it’s still the most gratiThe restaurant landscape looks different after two years of a global fying job I can imagine. If somebody chooses to come into Trio’s and pandemic. What’s going to be the most important thing that comes spend money and let us pamper them and cook for them and nurture out of the pandemic for restaurant workers? them, that’s huge and you get instant gratification when you go out I think that unless we start paying people a living wage, we will have and they say, “I love the voodoo pasta,” or, “This is the best key lime more and more trouble attracting new folks. I’m fully supportive of pie I’ve ever had.” You walk away just feeling great about a tiny little moving toward $15 an hour. Does that mean prices will have to go difference you’ve made in somebody’s daily experience. Profit margins up? Yes. Do a lot of my colleagues freak out at the thought of a $15 are slim. It’s a tough business, but it’s so rewarding. I love it. I have no minimum wage and hate me for it? Yes. But you know what, that’s plans to retire. — Rhett Brinkley ARKANSASTIMES.COM
MARCH 2022 9
