Jess’s Chicken, the fast casual restaurant from the family that owns David’s Burgers, has closed its sole location at 10907 N. Rodney Parham Road. The space will be converted into a pharmacy offering mini donuts, coffee, soda and ice cream, owner David Alan Bubbus Jr. said.
Bubbus said he is partnering with pharmacist Daniel Cate, who will run the pharmacy and eventually take over the food side of business — a spin on the drugstore soda fountains of old — once Bubbus gets it established. Bubbus said he’s always wanted to get into the pharmacy business.
“We just feel like this is the highest and best use for the property,” he said.
The business is located in the former Black Angus building in front of Premier Medical Plaza, which opened in 2019 after a renovation of a vacant Kmart. Black Angus operated in the shopping center for 28 years. In 2020, it moved back to its original location at the corner of Markham and Van Buren after getting notice from the new property owners that they needed to vacate the premises.
Jess’s opened in 2022. Its menu featured fried chicken sandwiches, nuggets, chicken fried chicken, salads, a multi-lane drive thru and its own line of branded soda.
Last week we reported that David’s had closed its downtown River Market location and is subleasing the space to its Ottenheimer Hall neighbor, Platnum BBQ. Bubbus explained that changes in the market, as well as high inflation, have made it more difficult to manage stores that aren’t doing high-volume sales.
“If it’s not real crowded and the drive thru’s not lined up, it’s difficult to make a restaurant work,” he said. Bubbus said the closure of Jess’s and the David’s Burgers in the River Market will allow his team to focus on their high volume stores, as well as a new David’s location slated to open in Searcy later this year. David’s currently has nine stores in Arkansas.
Bubbus said Cate’s Pharmacy is slated to open in the next three to four months.