As the official destination marketing organization for the City of Little Rock, Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau (LRCVB) debuts a new destination video highlighting the thriving dining scene in Arkansas’s capital city.
“Little Rock has always been something of a poorly kept secret among food lovers in the South,” said LRCVB’s Bill Fitzgerald, Vice President of Marketing & Communications, “but now we’re ready to let the world in on what we’ve known for a long time: That it’s hard to have a bad meal in Little Rock.” Little Rock’s dining scene has received numerous awards and accolades in recent years, including being named a “Top 5 Secret Foodie City” by Forbes Travel Guide, “America’s Next Hottest Foodie City” for 2020 by the Foodie Flashpacker, one of the “8 Most Overlooked Foodie Towns in the South” by Bourbon & Boots, one of “The 16 Best Diners in the South” by Travel + Leisure, and one of “15 Southern Cities All Food Lovers Should Visit Now” by Food & Wine and Southern Living.
The video features six locally owned restaurants:
- Three Fold Noodles and Dumplings
- Bruno’s Little Italy
- Loblolly Creamery
- Petit & Keet
- The Root Café
- Lassis Inn
Apart from its dining options, Little Rock enjoys a booming adult beverage scene. Little Rock is home to six craft breweries, including Lost Forty Brewing, winner of two medals at the 2018 World Beer Cup awards, and Rock Town Distillery, the state’s first legal distillery since Prohibition. Several of Rock Town Distillery’s whiskeys and gins have taken top honors at numerous national and international competitions including repeat inclusions in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible. Petit & Keet, a restaurant featured in the new video, was named to Wine Enthusiast magazine’s 2019 list of “American’s 100 Best Wine Restaurants.”
Little Rock is also home to several of the nation’s most storied food festivals. As the birthplace of cheese dip, the annual World Cheese Dip Championship celebrates the dish’s Arkansas roots, while the annual Arkansas Cornbread Festival, listed as one of Forbes’ “5 Fall Festivals for Food Lovers,” sees competitors vying for the rights to call themselves the state’s king or queen of cornbread. The 2019 edition of the city’s Main Street Food Truck Festival saw over 80 participating food trucks and welcomed over 65,000 eaters to the streets of downtown Little Rock.
Little Rock has gone through a major urban renewal in recent years spurred in large part by the opening of the Clinton Presidential Center in 2004. Since then, more than $3.5 billion in development has been invested in almost every area of the city. This boom has been especially noticeable in the city’s downtown, with a $70 million performing arts venue restoration, renovation and expansion. Cultural and historic attractions like Esse Purse Museum, Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site and Mosaic Templars Cultural Center have drawn visitors for years. Both Central High and Mosaic Templars are among six Little Rock sites along the U.S. Civil Rights Trail, with Central High a top ten Trail destination. More recently, the city has become known for its outdoor offerings, including a bounty of dynamic landscapes and recreational activities from hiking and rock climbing to mountain biking and paddling.
With the renewed culinary explosion full of local sourcing, ethnic and international influences, fine dining, artisan creativity, historic eateries, and more, Little Rockers are more than ready to welcome the world to pull up a chair at any of the city’s fantastic restaurants and to experience all the city has to offer.
