Bookends cafe in the Central Arkansas Library System’s Cox Creative Center is collaborating with Brazilian Cafe Bossa Nova restaurant to add some of the Hillcrest eatery’s dishes, such as its breakfast and beef empanadas (found at Bossa Nova’s Rosalia’s Family Bakery), its chicken salpicao (served on pita bread), its trademark cheese bread (made with yucca flour), its twist on a Japanese yakisoba (a noodle dish), muffins, energy bars, gluten-free brownies and soup.
Bookends’ other sandwiches are still on the menu, along with other items in the cold case, like fresh fruit. New CALS Director Nate Coulter is said to have had the idea for the collaboration. CALS will change the name from Bookends to The Cafe at River Market Books and Gifts. Prose Garden, the cafe on the fifth floor of the Main Library, is now closed.
Weekday hours at the Cox Center have changed to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (opening an hour earlier than previously so you can take advantage of that breakfast empanada). The Cox Center and cafe are also open 9 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.