After a series of soft openings in March of this year, the Sterling Market food hall opened in the former Sterling Paint Factory building (515 Shall Ave.) in downtown Little Rock’s East Village neighborhood.

The newly updated, posh spot by Fidel & Co coffee shop owner Fidel Samour’s restaurant concept group Remolinos LLC boasts about 4,000 square feet and features a butcher shop, fresh greens station, bakery, artisan pizza station, full bar and grab-and-go market offering housemade granola, jams, pickled veggies, Arkansas-shaped cutting boards, bottled wine, local beer and an assortment of Sterling Market swag like T-shirts and water tumblers.

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Neighboring Cromwell Architects renovated the space with legacy in mind. It’s hard to miss the nod to the building’s history: The wide swath of orange and white paint cans (designed to look like Sterling originals) along the eastern wall spell out the word Sterling. In development is an additional rain-or-shine green alley space directly behind the kitchen on the building’s northern end that will feature a retractable roof and a massive TV wall. The green alley space is slated for late summer and will add an additional 126 seats to the current setup: 56 inside, 18 on each of two front patios.

Brian Chilson
THROW BACK: A nod to the market’s history with the word Sterling spelled out in paint cans.

Samour opened Fidel & Co — located directly across the street from Sterling Market — eight weeks before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and when I became a regular a short time later, the coffee shop already felt like an established brand, with excellent coffee and food offerings. Other downtown coffee shops were closing, yet here was one east of Interstate 30 that was growing — and in a time when office buildings were mostly deserted.

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Less than a mile east on Bond Avenue, Rosie’s Pot & Kettle opened in 2020 and was also able to grow despite pandemic hurdles. The ability of restaurants to succeed in such a precarious time speaks to the potential for business growth in one of Little Rock’s first industrial districts, which includes previously established Lost Forty Brewing (2014), The Rail Yard beer garden (2018) and Camp Taco (2021), which made use of the space formerly occupied by Rebel Kettle (2016) and later, East Sixth Brewing.

Staffing was difficult for many restaurants during the 2021 labor shortage, and Samour considers himself lucky in that regard.

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“Our employees are phenomenal, and they make the experience behind the product worth coming back for,” he said.

“We try to put as much care and compensation into their hands as we possibly can. I’m not playing any type of short game. I’m passionate about people and I want them to feel important and part of it.”

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Samour grew up in El Salvador and was reconnected with a childhood friend named Raul after finding out he supplied coffee to a handful of U.S. roasters, including Onyx in Northwest Arkansas. More than 80% of the coffee roasted at Fidel & Co comes from Raul’s farm in El Salvador.

Early on in the pandemic one of Samour’s friends and business partners told him to be on the lookout for gems in the job market who might be unavailable otherwise, as well as businesses that might be closing. He found two such gems in John Burt and Paige Russell-Burt, Sterling Market’s executive chef and executive pastry chef, respectively. The couple met in Los Angeles and worked together at the Culver City restaurant Hatchet Hall. While working there as a pastry chef, Russell-Burt, a Conway native, made the 2015 Zagat Guide’s Los Angeles “30 Under 30” list for culinary professionals.

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Shining as a pastry chef in Los Angeles isn’t easy, but the accolade made so much sense as I recalled the list of pastries I’ve had at Fidel & Co and Sterling Market. The first thing I tried at Fidel & Co was a Saturday morning cinnamon roll (I ordered the last one and heard audible groans of disappointment in line behind me) and it was one of those bites you want to share with everyone you love, or at the very least show off to your TikTok followers. I also had a perfect chocolate chip cookie at Fidel & Co’s newer River Market spot with chocolate chips the size of quarters, as well as an unforgettable bite of cardamom coffee cake.

Brian Chilson
BAKERY: Russell-Burt’s expanded offerings at Sterling Market include donuts, Kouign-amann, muffins, pumpkin bread, banana bread, scones and a variety of bagels.

Burt and Russell-Burt both started at Fidel & Co in the summer of 2020, Samour said, and were instrumental in the development of Sterling Market’s concept.

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“I saw the value in hiring them,” Samour said.  “I knew from interacting with them at Fidel & Co that something like Sterling would be possible.”

It was around that time when Samour heard that Sterling’s previous occupant, Cathead Diner, was closing down. Samour said the original idea was to take over the lease and use the building as a ghost kitchen for chefs wanting to try a new concept or get into delivery. It would also give Russell-Burt a bigger kitchen space where she could expand her baked offerings while maintaining the quality of the items she was doing in the smaller kitchen at Fidel & Co. As the pandemic’s peaks and valleys wore on, ideas materialized and the group wondered if they could turn the space into a food hall.

Food halls are ubiquitous in bigger cities, but aside from Little Rock’s Ottenheimer Hall in the River Market, the only food halls by definition existed in shopping mall food courts. Samour said his team took inspiration from Denver’s Milk Market while consulting with Cromwell Architects about the design concept.

Russell-Burt’s expanded offerings at Sterling Market include donuts (strawberry glaze, chocolate ganache, salted caramel and buttermilk icing flavors have been available when I’ve stopped by), Kouign-amann, muffins, pumpkin bread, banana bread, scones and a variety of bagels.

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Stephanie Smittle
MARKET GOODS: The pastry case at Sterling Market.

 

The highlights from our visits include a diamond-shaped orange-cream cheese danish (swoon), a blueberry cream cheese muffin and the brookie, which is perhaps the best brownie I’ve ever eaten. In addition to the pastries, breakfast items from the bakery include three toast offerings made with house-baked milk bread. We tried the ricotta toast with seasonal jam, and it was like a piece of strawberry toast on steroids. The toast itself had a perfect texture, a crisp exterior and soft pillowy interior that married perfectly with the cool, creamy ricotta and fresh jam.

Rhett Brinkley
RICOTTA TOAST

 

If you’re looking for something more savory, you can get a bagel or an egg and cheese sandwich (add house bacon for $3.50) on a bagel or a croissant. Drip coffee from Fidel & Co is available, as well as cold brew on draft. The vibe is chill and quiet in the morning, if you need a place to get some work done away from your home or office. Saturday brunch is also available from 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

The pizza station features fresh lunch slices (until 3 p.m.) of cheese, housemade Italian sausage or pepperoni on house-made sourdough crust. Whole pies are available as well. We tried a cheese slice ($4) and the whole margarita pie ($15) with tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil. It’s obvious when restaurants are using quality ingredients on pizza, and that was apparent here on both visits.

Rhett Brinkley
MARGARITA PIZZA

A variety of sandwiches are available from the butcher station: a smoked beef sandwich ($18); an excellent roast pork sandwich with shaved pork on toasted sourdough ($13); we loved the croque monsieur ($12) made with house-cured ham and milk bread nearly dripping in béchamel sauce.

Rhett Brinkley
CROQUE MONSIEUR

My colleague Stephanie Smittle’s report on the Sterling Burger ($16): “When a pizzeria-slash-coffee shop-slash-bar-slash specialty grocery is slinging house-cured ham on its Croque Monsieur and aging Flintstone-esque hunks of meat in the window case, chances are they’ve given some thought to how they wanna serve up a burger. Pleased to report my late-lunch craving for a dairy bar burger got a fancy spin when our food writer plopped a cardboard container onto my desk, inside of which was a pillowy milk bun, toasted and topped with sesame seeds and an adorable stack of thick pickles, then filled with a crisped patty made of Sterling’s house-ground beef, plus lettuce, tomato, a not-too-sweet onion jam and melted white cheddar.

Rhett Brinkley
STERLING BURGER

And, as it turns out, the “less is more” thing I wanted from a Friday afternoon dairy bar burger was there, too; Sterling knows what I’m after isn’t so much a whopping volume of beef, but as much griddled surface area as possible. And I’d happily eat this onion jam on its own with a spoon. If you can skip the chips and spring for the Wonka-esque triple-cooked potatoes with the bearnaise sauce to dip them in, you will not be sad you did.”

Rhett Brinkley
TRIPLE COOKED: Sterling Market’s crispy potatoes.

One of the highlights from the market menu is the Little Gems salad ($16) from the greens stand with smoked chicken, herb breadcrumbs, pickled red onion, grated egg garnish and a delightful cheddar dressing.

Rhett Brinkley
LITTLE GEMS

The Caesar salad ($14) features boqueróns (anchovies processed with vinegar), and if you want a locally made bread salad, try the Panzanella ($12) with cucumber, kalamata olives, red onion, cottage cheese and a wonderful tomato vinaigrette.

Rhett Brinkley
PANZANELLA SALAD

I met a friend for a recent happy hour (4-6 p.m. Tue.-Thu.) and had a fantastic $6 Old Fashioned with a house-soaked cherry garnish I’m still thinking about. My friend tried the pre-chilled Tiki-La shot with tequila, passion fruit liqueur and tiki bitters. It was so delicious you might choose to sip it, though my friend threw it down in hopes of making room for more happy hour specials before the time ran out on us.

The actual butcher case features a dry-aged ribeye chamber as well as house bacon, German brats from Rabbit Ridge Farm (Bee Branch), jalapeno cheddar dogs, Spanish chorizo and more. Samour says they’re trying to source locally as much as possible, partnering with vendors from Barnhill Orchards, War Eagle Mill (Rogers), Arkansas Natural Produce and several others.

Stephanie Smittle
BUTCHER CASE

Currently Sterling Market’s hours are 8 a.m.-9 p.m. Tue.-Fri. and 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Sat. You can order any item on the menu from any station in the market. There is no table service. Parking is available in front of the market, in the parking lot on Sixth Street or in the Heifer lot north of the restaurant. The space is available for private events. For more information go to sterlingmarket.com.

 

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