Getting to Know Team Barnaby

David Hesselbein, left, Greg Baber and Wes Mickel, the daily operating partners of the Barnaby Group, at George’s restaurant in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood, one of the projects of the hospitality company.(Karen E. Segrave)

The Barnaby Group, founded by Mary Olive and John Stephens, has made some big moves lately, so I visited with the Little Rock hospitality group’s daily operating partners — Greg Baber, David Hesselbein and Wes Mickel — to get some further insight into the company’s origins and its plans.

For those who need a reminder, the Barnaby Group is the company behind George’s restaurant at 5510 Kavanaugh Blvd. in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood, which many readers remember as the former Cafe Prego. George’s, an Italian restaurant, opened in August 2023.

In March, the company bought the Town Pump, another Little Rock institution, this one at 1321 Rebsamen Park Road in Riverdale.

Then in April, the Barnaby Group announced plans for a neighborhood pub called The Lady, at 5700 Kavanaugh Blvd. in Little Rock, and South School, a 23-acre nature-based retreat at 21 E. 19th St. in Fayetteville.

Mary Olive Stephens is the wife of John Stephens, who in January was named co-CEO with his brother, Miles, of Stephens Inc. on the retirement of their father, Warren. She also is the daughter of the Rev. Chris Keller, former dean and rector of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral of Little Rock.

Baber, Hesselbein and Mickel have extensive experience in the restaurant industry in Arkansas and elsewhere and, like Mary Olive and John Stephens, have deep roots here.

George’s emerged after COVID shut down Cafe Prego, where Baber and Hesselbein had both worked for several years. “In 2020, when COVID shut everything down, the restaurant closed and was essentially looking at just going out of business,” Hesselbein said. “There wasn’t much future there.

“We had great ideas for opening up a neighborhood restaurant, and I had grown up with John. And Greg and I had also been working with him previously trying to do a concept, and this was just a good opportunity.” And so George’s was born.

About two years before George’s opened in 2023, Hesselbein brought on Mickel. “There was an appetite between all the parties to do a lot of neat, creative things,” Mickel said. “That’s when, through mutual conversations, it was, well, if that’s what we’re going to do, we need to go ahead and put that infrastructure in place now.” And so, in 2023, the Barnaby Group was born. It now employs more than 35 workers.

Baber, in addition to his experience at Cafe Prego, bartended at the old Cajun’s Wharf and worked for Yellow Rocket Concepts, including as general manager at Heights Taco & Tamale. At the Barnaby Group, he’s in charge of front of house and hospitality, overseeing the guest experience and employee relations.

Hesselbein, who has also worked for Yellow Rocket, is in charge of beverage operations for the Barnaby Group.

Mickel started his hospitality career in high school as a dishwasher at the Purple Cow in Little Rock. “Miles James over at James at the Mill put me on the path to culinary school and working in Napa,” he said, referencing a legendary northwest Arkansas restaurateur. Mickel attended the Culinary Institute of America and has worked for hospitality companies the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group and the Florence Group. At Barnaby, he oversees the group’s culinary direction and daily operations, including finance.

As for the Town Pump, which opened in the 1960s and closed in March, Baber said they hoped to reopen it “soon” but they weren’t ready to share a date. They have, however, given a lot of thought to what they want it to be.

“All of us grew up around here, and I specifically grew up going to lunch at the Town Pump,” Baber said. “And David and I, in our mid-20s, were pretty frequent guests of the bar.”

Many people, he said, have had similar experiences. “What’s interesting to me is that everyone seems to have a little bit of a different idea of what the Town Pump is.”

“Being true to what it’s been from a food perspective is important: burgers, wings, fries,” Baber said.

There have been, at various times, different games at the Town Pump, including pool tables, shuffleboard and foosball, and he said the new Town Pump will feature games of some sort.

The Lady will be new construction, Tudor-inspired, and is “meant to be very much a meeting place for the community,” Mickel said. Its opening is planned for early 2027. It will be two stories, with bars on both floors. “It’s quite a spacious restaurant with lots of outdoor access,” he said. Polk Stanley Wilcox of Little Rock is designing the project.

The Barnaby Group, in announcing its new projects in April, described South School in Fayetteville, off South School Avenue, as a “nature-based retreat.” Set to open in mid-2026, South School will feature a restaurant, bar, working farm and brewery, as well as eight cabins and, eventually, event spaces.

“We started our growing operations back in October,” Mickel said. “The purpose behind that is not only to supply our restaurants and a couple of other places around Arkansas. But it’s really about creating this beautiful space that’s very, very close to downtown Fayetteville.” There is, he said a market in northwest Arkansas for such a hospitality project, one that includes catering.

Asked what sets the Barnaby Group apart as a hospitality company, Hesselbein said it is just that: hospitality. “That is what we do. That is what we focus on. And that is what we want to be known for, is how welcoming we are, how hospitable we are, and how much we are trying to bring the community together and give them a place to hang out and a place to have fun.”

He added: “We want to have great food. We want to have great cocktails. But in my experience, the reason people come back to restaurants is because they feel welcome and because they feel comfortable.”