LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The Purple Cow on Cantrell opened in 1989. Unfortunately, the restaurant did not celebrate 35 years with customers due to the March 2023 tornado.
After several delays, the staff is getting ready to reopen its doors.
"What we do in the restaurant business is take care of people," Purple Cow's Director of Operations Leslie Cotton said. "The building process is not as fun as opening the doors."
It's been 18 months since the tornado swept through Little Rock and damaged the restaurant.
Now, the Purple Cow is ready to serve its customers again after many delays in the rebuilding process.
"Some of the view was created by the tornado," Cotton said. "We had a lot of old trees. There's some buildings missing. The landscape has changed slightly but the people haven't."
Along with a newer, bigger building there is a larger bar with new seating.
There's also more tables to host larger parties.
The restaurant is also changing its operating hours to serve customers seven days a week. The Purple Cow will be open at 9 a.m. for brunch, which it previously only did on weekends.
"Now, it's new and shiny, but it still has that feeling of this is our hometown location," Cotton said. "It's our community location."
Keep an eye out for a special someone when you walk in: the Purple Cow herself, Polly.
The Polly hanging in the Cantrell location survived the tornado with just a scratch along her tail. It's a telltale sign of how far they've come.
"We didn't really want to fix it," Cotton said. "We just kind of wanted to keep it as a reminder."
Purple Cow on Cantrell will also start selling draft beer, wine and cocktails. The grand reopening is on Sept. 23 at 9 a.m.