The Purple Cow announced on social media this week that its original location at 8026 Cantrell Road will reopen in early September, almost a year and a half after the restaurant was hit by the EF-3 tornado that tore through Central Arkansas on March 31, 2023.
The building suffered significant damage that Friday afternoon while the restaurant’s staff safely sheltered in the freezer and walk-in cooler. Windows were blown out, the patio enclosure was ruined, the kitchen exhaust system was destroyed and half of the purple metal roof was ripped off. Some of the employees’ cars were also damaged.
About a week following the storm, Ken Vaughan, president of Purple Cow Restaurants, told the Arkansas Times that the plan was to rebuild.
“It’s our original location,” Vaughan said at the time. “A lot of our guests have a special place in their heart for it, and we have a very special place in our heart for it, so we want to rebuild there.”
But work didn’t start right away. For several months the restaurant sat vacant, prompting some social media users to question whether or not it would reopen.
Vaughan said on a phone call Friday afternoon that some of the delays were insurance related and some were internal, as the company tried to figure out whether the best path forward would be to relocate, rebuild to match the preexisting design, rebuild from the ground up or do a hybrid approach.
“We ended up choosing the hybrid approach,” Vaughan said, “and then that was modified a couple of times, just because it was cost prohibitive to do the grandiose initial design that we had come up with.”
Vaughan declined to comment on the cost of the renovation but said part of it was covered by insurance. The company worked with Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects on the design and hired The Dave Grundfest Co. to handle the construction. Vaughan said the goal was to make the building more efficient and increase capacity.
Reports began to surface in early March that the building was going to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. Vaughan told us at the time that was a miscommunication and that the plan was to rebuild within the building’s 2,000 square-foot structure. The new design includes more windows facing Cantrell Road and a dedicated entrance for take-out orders. The walk-in cooler and freezer will now be located on a concrete pad outside the back of the building. They will still be accessible from the inside, but this frees up more space in the kitchen, Vaughan said.
Renovation started in April. Vaughan said things could change but that they’re currently on track to open the week of Sept. 9. The restaurant posted to Facebook on Thursday that it is hiring for all positions, and Vaughan said several employees who worked at the Cantrell store prior to the tornado will return.
“We’re excited to get reopened,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming and we’re looking forward to welcoming people back.”
The Purple Cow has active locations at 4201 Warden Road in North Little Rock; 11602 Chenal Parkway in West Little Rock; 1055 Steel Ave. in Conway’s Hendrix Village; and 1490 Higdon Ferry Road in Hot Springs.
Chef Paul Bash of Jacques and Suzanne fame and businessman Ed Moore opened The Purple Cow in 1989. The restaurant celebrated its 35th anniversary in July.