A.W. Lin’s Asian Cuisine and Ira's Restaurant both have plans in the Rose Building to join the growing downtown restaurant scene.
Restaurateur Ira Mittelman loves the Little Rock area and his excitement about opening his namesake restaurant in the renovated Rose Building at 307 Main St. downtown is palpable.
Mittelman, whose most recent local restaurant was Ira’s Park Hill Grill in North Little Rock, which he closed early last year, is investing $1.2 million in the project. That includes brand new everything — equipment, chairs, tables, etc. — and remodeling costs. He hopes to open the 3,800-SF Ira’s, which will seat about 90 and employ 20-25 full- and part-time employees, sometime in February.
Mittelman called it a prime lunch location, citing Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill across the street. (However, Bruno’s Little Italy, also across the street, recently discontinued lunch, with Gio Bruno blaming payroll costs tied to the lengthy time it took the restaurant to prepare everything from scratch and the lack of parking during the daytime.) Neighbors also include Soul Fish Cafe and Brewski’s Pub & Grub. And Mittelman said he expects a fair percentage of patrons will walk from nearby homes and businesses.
“It’s the perfect time for me,” Mittelman said of opening Ira’s. He said he was invited to open a restaurant in the Rose Building by Thomas Lasiter of the Lasiter Group, which owns the historic structure. “I’m quite humbled and flattered that he asked me to do this,” Mittelman said.
As for the location, “it seems to me it’s the best location in town,” he said. “That area just keeps growing and growing.
“The building is gorgeous,” Mittelman added. The Rose Building, built about 1900, was named for Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Uriah Rose and is an example of neoclassic revival architecture. It’s attributed to renowned Little Rock architect George R. Mann, who designed the Arkansas State Capitol and the Mann Building, at Fourth and Main streets. The Rose Building, which once housed the state’s oldest and largest bookstore, Allsopp & Chapple, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Ira’s will serve lunch and dinner Monday through Friday and dinner only on Saturday. Mittelman called his menu “new American cuisine,” with an emphasis on farm-to-table offerings, prime meats, appetizers and salads — “everything that I’m known for, all my recipes.”
After closing Ira’s Park Hill & Grill, Mittelman leased an Italian restaurant on a lake in Idaho. “That kept me going, but I’m ready for this to open. It’s time.”
Mittelman went to high school in New Jersey and “fell in love with the Ozarks years ago, riding my bicycle across country, and I always wanted to come back. I’ve been a lot of places and Little Rock is just a perfect-sized city. And as a bike rider, I love the bike trails,” he said. “I love this city.”
Meanwhile, at A.W. Lin’s …
The Rose Building will also house apartments and a second location of A.W. Lin’s Asian Cuisine, whose first opened at the Promenade at Chenal more than five years ago. When last we talked to Andy Liu, A.W. Lin’s owner, construction hadn’t begun on his 4,800-SF space, but he expected it to start by late this month. Liu is shooting to open in mid- to late spring. He expects to employ about 30.
“It’s a very good business spot,” Liu said. “Business lunch will be busy and it’s close to hotels, the convention center, North Little Rock. I think we’ll do well.”
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