This reviewer is a diner food freak, so it came
as a little bit of a shock that we’d never heard of Bobby’s Cafe in
North Little Rock until a few months ago. To be fair, we don’t get
waaay down MacArthur very often. But recently, we were working on a
film that needed a diner set. Somebody who lives down in Levy
recommended Bobby’s as just the kind of old-timey joint we were looking
for. Lo and behold, they obliged. Just to be polite, the crew decided
to eat there before the shoot. And sometimes, friends, the gods are
kind.

It turns out that Bobby’s is one of
those places only the locals seem to know about, but everybody should
(bring cash, though; they don’t take checks or credit cards). We’ve
eaten there three times now, and everything we’ve ordered off the menu
— from burgers to desserts — has been uniformly great. Add to that a
really friendly staff, relaxed atmosphere, great backwater diner decor
and cheap prices, and you’ve got a real winner.

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A Friday night visit to Bobby’s is a
treat. For one thing, the place is perpetually packed. After a short
wait, we managed to get a table in a room bedecked with NASCAR
knick-knacks and overseen by a cloudy projection TV. Always the
adventurous sort, we went for the Bobby Burger ($7), their one-pound
claim to fame. Our companions, meanwhile, tried the catfish platter
($11), which is available only on Friday night. Going with the flow, we
all had gargantuan glasses of sweet iced tea, which seems to be the
house wine.

We’ve had a number of the
humungo-burgers that lurk on the menus at various places around town.
For the most part, they’re a novelty act, more about shock and awe than
flavor. There’s only so much you can do with an inch-thick patty of
ground beef the size of a regulation discus. That said, the Bobby
Burger is actually one of the best hubcap-style burgers we’ve ever had:
lean ground beef, topped with all the usual burger goodies and served
on a grilled bun. The secret, I think, is that instead of just scooping
out a wad of beef, making it roughly patty shaped, then salt and
peppering it to death on the grill (a process which does nothing to add
flavor to the meat inside) they do some seasoning magic beforehand.
Bobby’s custom-grinds all its own meat. They must be sprinkling a
little fairy dust into the mix. The Bobby Burger, big as it is — too
big, in fact, to really pick up, or even to eat at a sitting unless
you’re trying to go for some kind of World Record — is as good as their
regular-sized cheeseburgers, and their regular-sized cheeseburgers are
really good. We’re definitely a Bobby Burger fan, though we’ll likely
go with the plain ol’ cheeseburger next time and save ourselves some
later gastrointestinal misery.

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We were equally impressed with their
catfish platter. For one thing, the very generous platter comes with a
lot of nice extras — including a bowl of good brown beans, a slab of
sweet white onion, and some of the best (no kidding) homemade cole slaw
we’ve ever had in our life. The fish, too, is great — meaty, with a
great, peppery breading. Though we stand by our statement that
Georgetown One-Stop up near Searcy is the best fried catfish in the
state, the stuff at Bobby’s is pretty dang good, especially when paired
with their homemade tartar sauce, which is sweet, lemony manna.

As if all that weren’t enough, we
somehow found room to fit in dessert. From the nice list, we chose the
banana pudding and the carrot cake. The banana pudding was the real,
hi-test stuff, big on ‘nanner flavor and served with vanilla wafers and
whipped cream. “Excellent” is the word we’re looking for. The true
masterpiece, however, was the carrot cake. We’re not big carrot cake
fans, but one bite had us scraping the plate for the dregs. Bobby’s
serves theirs warm, with a gooey icing drizzled over the top. More like
a spice-cake, it was darker than any carrot cake we’ve ever seen, and
moist to the point of sticking to the fork. We’ll definitely be repeat
customers.

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In short, we’re really digging on
Bobby’s, and we’ll be back soon for the burgers, fries, fish and
desserts. If you’re willing to take a ride into the dark heart of North
Little Rock, it’s diner bliss.

 

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Bobby’s Cafe

12230 MacArthur Drive, NLR

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851-7888

Quick bite

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If you’re out cruising Levy during the early
a.m., Tuesday through Friday, Bobby’s breakfast menu — served from 6:30
to 10 a.m. — features a ton of cheap, homemade goodies, from
eggs-n-bacon to pancakes to scratch-built biscuits and gravy.
Definitely an eye-opener.

Hours

6:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Tue.-Wed., 6:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Thu.-Fri., closed Sat.-Mon.

Other info

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Cash only, no credit or debit cards accepted. No alcohol.

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