Hot Springs Announces Top 5 Restaurants & Hotels in 2024

The Arlington Hotel & Spa in Hot Springs (File photo)

As the Whispers crew occasionally has to explain to longtime readers who still miss our lists of top restaurants and hotels, it’s against state law for cities to release the local-option taxes remitted by individual establishments.

That was public information that we used to create the rankings until, in 2015, then-state. Rep. Micah Neal, R-Springdale, whose family owns a restaurant, persuaded his colleagues to exempt that information from the Freedom of Information Act. (Springdale did not and still does not levy a local-option tax on restaurants.)

Less than two years later, of course, Neal admitted in court that he was on the take, receiving kickbacks of state money he directed to some favored organizations.

While Neal’s adventure as a corrupt politician ended years ago, his diminution of the FOIA lives on. Neither curious diners nor commercial real estate professionals have had the benefit of that data for the past decade.

But Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, does make public the top five restaurants and hotels in his city, albeit without any dollar signs attached.

For calendar year 2024, the top five restaurants, in order, were:

• Oaklawn Racing Casino Restaurant
• Chick-fil-A
• Texas Roadhouse
• Cracker Barrel Old Country Store
• LongHorn Steakhouse

The top hotels were:

• Embassy Suites
• Oaklawn Racing Casino Hotel
• Arlington Hotel & Spa
• DoubleTree by Hilton
• Hotel Hot Springs