Gorging at George's

Club Manor Drive public meeting tonight; Planning Commission to meet tonight; 4th Fest is next Thursday; The Bronze Age plus sports and headlines

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Pandemic deaths unknown

The state Department of Health again didn’t have a Covid report available for this week. The last report made available to the public was in April. The virus has killed 13,920 Arkansans since the pandemic began four years ago. That would mean the pandemic death toll has now passed Marion’s 13,635 people, the state’s 29th largest city.

Covid toolkit

There’s now a one-stop shop to learn about vaccination sites and other Covid related information. Click here to learn more.

If you don’t want to get sick and die, there’s some things you can do:

• Get vaccinated

• Get boosted

• Wear a mask

• Avoid crowds

The Headlines

• Meetings:  The Maumelle Planning Commission will meet at 6:30 p.m. tonight. For more on that, keep scrolling. The North Little Rock School Board will have a special call meeting at 5:30 p.m. tonight. The Maumelle City Council will meet next Monday night at City Hall.

• Events: The Arkansas High School All-Star games started on Wednesday at UCA with the. Some offices will also be closed, or have limited hours, on Friday as well. So call before you go.

Club Manor Drive public meeting tonight

At 5:30 p.m. tonight, a public meeting will be held on the proposed Club Manor Corridor that is part of the Central Arkansas Regional Greenways Plan.

That plan would connect central Arkansas, from the far northern stretch of Faulkner County, to the metro area, then on to Hot Springs on a bike trail.

It would also include the city’s proposed Gateway Park.

The meeting will be in the South Room at the Jess Odom Community Center and for the powerpoint presentation, click here. You can also send comments on the plan to environmentalpimeetings@ardot.gov 

Planning Commission to meet tonight

The Maumelle Planning Commission will have its regular, monthly meeting at 6:30 p.m. tonight at City Hall.

The meeting is a short one.

One item of old budiness -- the Gateway Park Site Plan -- is on the agenda. It will  include a zoning adjustment as well as a review of the site plan and proposed landscaping.

The one item of new business -- a proposed code amendment has been requested to be deferred by planning staff.

For the agenda, click here.

The meeting is open to the public and will also be streamed onthe city's YouTube page.

4th Fest is next Thursday

Maumelle's 4th Fest Celebration is next Thursday, July 4th, with the parade starting at 4:30 p.m. and the route will be along Millwood Circle and Club Manor Drive. 

Parade awards will be handed out at 6:15 p.m. Music by R@NDOM starts at 7:50 p.m. with fireworks starting at 9:30 p.m. 

All those activities will be at Lake Willastein. It will also feature an assortment of food trucks, games and something dubbed the "space walk inflatables." 

Admission is free.

If you want to enter the parade, click here.

The best overall entry will receive $200.

Freelancer workshop set

The Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center will be having a free workshop next Tuesday at North Little Rock’s Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub.

The workshop is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. and last for one hour. It is designed for those who consider themselves as “freelancers, makers and Solopreneurs” and will cover funding for a new or growing business.

It will include business loans, microloans and grants among other funding options.

To register, click here.

Little Rock’s hottest hot spot

Special-occasion restaurants are an increasingly difficult thing to find in and around town, especially the ones you haven’t been to before.

Cypress Social? That was the anniversary dinner two years ago. Brave New? A birthday meal a while back. One Eleven isn’t open for dinner anymore. Neither is 42 Bar and Table. 

So it goes.

Then, looking for inspiration, you ask Ginny Kurrus one Sunday after church, and the first thing she says is “George’s.”

George’s? Oh yeah, the one that used to be Cafe Prego?

Yes, Ginny said. 

John Stephens, son of Harriet and Warren, was back in Little Rock after working in New York for the family firm and wanted a neighborhood joint of the sort he and his wife, Mary Olive, had grown accustomed to from when they lived in the city.

Cafe Prego, a longtime Heights destination, had closed, and the younger Stephens, seeing the opportunity, bought it and took it down to the studs, and George’s was born last August.

Since then, George’s, with its modern interpretations of Italian food, has become Little Rock’s hottest hot spot.

Perusing the online reservation system, most nights I couldn't get a table at all, and if something was available, it was at 9 p.m.

Also, the anniversary was a Tuesday, the one night of the week they’re closed.

Drats!

But we really wanted to eat there, and after some haggling, decided Monday or Wednesday night was fine.

There are some “secrets” about George’s you want to know before you go, though.

One, if you call, a pleasant enough voice will tell you they have ample walk-in space and to just come on down, even if you don’t have a reservation.

That’s true!

Because that’s what we did!

We just rolled on down Monday evening, around 6:30, and the guy working the front of the house asked if we wanted to sit at the bar or in Barnaby. There’s also plentiful outside seating, but, as you might recall, the temperature was 110 degrees on Monday, so that wasn’t even presented as an option.

We said Barnaby.

That’s when the second secret was revealed. If you pull on the wall hard enough, it swings open to reveal a very cool seating area and bar with banquettes and an eclectic mix of chairs.

The tables really aren’t built for multi-course dining, but they did well enough. The music was a funky mix of ’80s and ’90s jams, and the crowd was like the chairs, an eclectic mix of every age holding down a corner of the bar and 20-somethings dressed for something else after dinner. 

Being an old, I know not what or where they were going on a Monday night in Little Rock, but it was certainly someplace.

As for the food, it was terrific.

For a starter, we did the focaccia, which was served more like the bread sticks from Pizza Hut, and I mean that in the best possible way. 

We split a half salad, the Kavanaugh Chopped, which was light and refreshing. It also came with a couple of surprises. 

George’s, like every other restaurant these days, has mood lighting, so Barnaby was dim. Add in the reading glasses, and I really had no idea what was in it, besides chickpeas. So the first bite, I got the creamiest, meatiest chickpea I’ve had in my life. 

That’s the surprise, though. It wasn’t a chickpea. It was cubed soppressata, an Italian cured meat.

Regardless, it was delicious, but vegetarians beware.

The dinner entrees we chose were Chicken Parmigiana with spaghetti and Blue Crab Carbonara.

The chicken parm was golden, brown and delicious, while the noodles were a proper al dente. The red sauce was an acidic, tomato-forward variety. I would have liked a touch of sweetness to balance out the acid, but it was good.

The carbonara had a healthy amount of crab, as well as peas, and it was also very good.

Too many episodes of Top Chef have made us both a little Tom Colicchio-y about seasoning, but even if you wanted to add salt, you couldn't’ because George’s is a real restaurant, and salt shakers are for amateurs and chains.

Dessert was the cheesecake.

It might have been the star of the show. Just a plain slab of mascarpone cheesecake with no chocolate drizzle or raspberry coulis on the side, it was light and perfect.

As for the bar, I did a couple of varieties of Lost 40 with dinner. The cocktails, and mocktails, all looked terrific.

The ambiance was A plus. The music, the food, the decor. It was a leisurely two hours, and it felt like a special occasion, which it was.

You could also tell George’s was a Stephens operation with those terrific paper towels in the bathroom and the abundant Molton Brown product by the sink.

As for the tab?

A cool $117, before tip, for a four-course meal with drinks. We also came home with leftovers. No cheesecake, though, as it was devoured at the table.

Will we be back?

Yes. There’s a birthday in July, and we want to return then. But I suspect we'll make it for other meals, and maybe I’ll donate the chairman of the board painting I have of Jack that I rescued from the dumpster years ago and have kept in the garage ever since. It would look pretty good at the bar.

The Bronze Age

You don’t really think much about bronze. 

Maybe as a finish if you’re looking at new bathroom fixtures or drawer pulls as you indulge your inner-Napier. There is, however, another time, and that’s your eighth wedding anniversary, since bronze is the traditional gift. The more contemporary choice is linen, but we’ve always gone the traditional path.

The chart says bronze is also the anniversary gift for a couple’s 19th wedding anniversary, or in our particular case, 2035, which seems like the far-flung future, instead of a decade away.

Bronze used to be the “it” metal, though. Like, there’s a whole age named after it, and archeologists are always turning up bronze spearheads from the Bronze Age.

Buying your wife a bronze spearhead is not something I’d recommend though, assuming you could even track one down. So, what do you get?

Well, luckily enough, North Little Rock is blessed to have Stacy Bowers making bronze jewelry for her Bang Up Betty website.

I wanted something different and emailed her with what I was looking for and what I could spend.

My first choice, a smallish bronze sculpture or wall hanging, wasn’t doable.

“I only have a jewelry kiln, so it only fires small pieces,” Stacy wrote in an email. “It would be a really small wall hanging. I could do a bronze piece of jewelry for sure.”

I thought “G” earrings, my wife’s initials would be cool, so I asked. And Stacy said that would be very doable and they’d be one of a kind; while she had a pendant version, she wasn’t doing earrings in that style.

They could be ready before the anniversary, which made it even better.

Anyway, they were well received, and if you need some really cool art, or jewelry or whatever, give Stacy a call, or an email or fly over a carrier pigeon, whatever you prefer.

Sports

Ware drafted in first round

Former North Little Rock star basketball player Kel’el Ware was drafted by the Miami Heat at No,. 15 in the first round of the NBA’s draft on Wednesday night.

Ware played this past season at Indiana and his freshman year at Oregon,

A 7-foot center. Ware was a McDonald’s All-American his senior season at North Little Rock and led the ‘Cats to back-to-back state titles. He’s the second consecutive North Little Rock player drafted in the first round as Nick Smith Jr. was picked by Charlotte last year.

The first North Little Rock player to be drafted in the first round was Eddie Miles in 1963. Miles led the mighty Dragons of Scipio Jones High School to four consecutive state titles when sports were still segregated. Miles then played his college ball at Seattle University before going to a lengthy and All-Star career as a pro.

Travs back in town next week

The Travs return to North Little Rock’s Dickey-Stephens for a unique home and then away series with the Frisco RoughRiders.

The series starts on Monday for a three-game stand at Dickey-Stephens, then shifts to Frisco for three games starting on Thursday, July 4th. 

Then the Travs get two days off before heading to Midland for a six-game road trip.

That’s followed by the All-Star game break with action resuming on Thursday, July 19 for a three-game home series against San Antonio.

Upcoming Travs games

At Springfield, now through Sunday

Opponent – Frisco

Monday, July 1, 6:35 PM

• FREE Splash Pad Day: Young Travs fans get FREE access to the Kidz Korner, including Otey's Splash Pad! Children must be accompanied by a parent/guardian. Otey's Splash Pad may close early in the event of inclement weather or at the discretion of the Arkansas Travelers. 

• Run the Bases: Kids 13 and under are invited to run the same basepaths the Travs run after the game! | Presented By Museum of Discovery

Tuesday, July 2, 6:35 p.m.

• FREE Splash Pad Day: Young Travs fans get FREE access to the Kidz Korner, including Otey's Splash Pad! Children must be accompanied by a parent/guardian. Otey's Splash Pad may close early in the event of inclement weather or at the discretion of the Arkansas Travelers. 

• Run the Bases: Kids 13 and under are invited to run the same basepaths the Travs run after the game! | Presented By Museum of Discovery

Wednesday July 3, 6:05 p.m.

• Fireworks - Patriotic: Presented By Baldwin & Shell Construction

• All-You-Can-Eat Family Picnic: Purchase a special "AYCE" ticket that includes a seat in Section 216! Buffet will feature hot dogs, burgers, beans, chips, popcorn, soft drinks, water, plus cookies & brownies. (Alcohol will be available for purchase separately.) Two-hour buffet will begin at 6:05 p.m. Game tickets with the meal are $30 and can be purchased by clicking here. 

At Frisco next Thursday, July 4, Friday, July 5 and Saturday, July 6

At Midland, July 9 - July 14