Readers Choice 2021

We reached Chung in South Pasadena, Calif., via Zoom to compare notes on Ozarks living (“I don’t miss the ticks”), to discuss the merits of a family as a protagonist and to jinx him by invoking the work of noted Oscar hoarder Bong Joon-ho.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Arkansas Times’ Readers Choice restaurant contest. This year, we have a new category to join our traditional bests: Best Pandemic Dining.

Forty years ago this year, the Arkansas Times first asked its readers to vote on their favorite restaurants. That kind of history makes our annual Readers Choice restaurant poll the gold standard among an array of latecomers by other publications. To celebrate the anniversary, here are some memorable quotes, factoids and other odds and ends from the last four decades

It rolled out a new gastropub and a new canned beer.

NORML-izing Mary Jane.

The Observer has long been an America junkie. We don’t buy dumb T-shirts or American Flag swim trunks or bumper stickers that say “Love It or Leave It,” but we swear to you that we would, this moment, give our life for this country if our democracy was threatened, because that is what it takes sometimes.

Play at home, while waiting for the FBI battering ram to hit your door.

A q&a with Little Rock's newest and youngest city director.

On Nov. 3, 2016, we answered, affirmatively, the question of whether a modern democratic republic like the United States could actually choose a psychopath as the head of the government, as Germany had in 1933 when it installed Adolf Hitler as chancellor.