The reason behind opening The Hope Bistro was simple, said Chef Coby Smith: to provide fresh, healthy, affordable and, more than anything, comforting meals.
The restaurant, which opened in August 2019 at CARTI Cancer Center at 8901 CARTI Way in Little Rock, serves not only patients but their families, CARTI team members and the general public. In fact, 40% of the restaurant’s sales come from members of the public just looking for a good meal, Smith said.
“We try to incorporate things that are going to be cancer-fighting but also warm the soul and make people happy,” he said. And that means not just making patients happy, but also making the CARTI team members who care for those patients happy. “If we can feed them, keep them happy, they’re going to take better care of our patients.”
Smith’s father was a farmer, and Smith, born and raised in North Little Rock, spent “lots of weekends on the farm, picking, growing, doing whatever.”
Smith was about 12 when his eldest brother, Jamie, entered the restaurant business with partner Tommy Hilburn. “So I started cooking and working a drive-through window when I was really, really young,” Smith said. “Food was always the center of everything.”
He said CARTI’s leadership has given him free rein on menu planning, “and I cook the way I like to eat,” but he consults with a team of dieticians on determining healthy menu options.
Smith creates a new menu every week and serves something different every day, but always includes a lunch special and a sandwich special.
Taco salad is probably the most popular offering, he said. “But this week I did a new dish, and it was an Arkansas peach and prosciutto pasta salad,” Smith said. “It was phenomenal.”
“We do lots of bowls, quinoa bowls. Lots of salads, just different takes on those. We do lots of tacos, like salmon tacos. Cantaloupe and strawberry panzanella salad.” The emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables extends to smoothies, including Arkansas blueberry smoothies.
Sometimes, cancer patients don’t have much of an appetite, and some patients need extra calories. Smith, who lost his own mother, Charlotte, to cancer in November 2019, keeps those diners in mind.
“A lot of times patients, they don’t want to eat,” he said. “Maybe they want to eat fried chicken or a chicken-fried steak, and that’s the only thing they want. And so a lot of times that’s just as important as serving something that’s healthy, serving something that’s comforting, easily recognizable to them. That’s a big thing for me. Mashed potatoes. You’ve got to have mashed potatoes every now and then.”
Most of the lunch specials are about $10, sometimes rising to $12. Sandwiches of the day range from $6.50 to $8. The bistro also serves homemade soup every day; a cup runs about $4.
The restaurant employs six in addition to Smith and seats, including the patio, 85 to 90 diners. Smith touts that patio as “the best patio in town. Nobody knows about it.”
The Hope Bistro is a nonprofit, but Smith seeks to break even, and “we do a pretty good job of that.”
And he wants people to know that he also offers free live cooking demonstrations twice a month, an outreach that’s part of CARTI’s The Bridge programming for patients. Those cooking demonstrations are also open to the public.
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