Not Browning’s!

LITTLE ROCK — WE KNOW you’ve heard this refrain before, but this time it’s all too true: What’s the world coming to?

For in the same week that bullfighting was outlawed in Catalonia, which is the equivalent of outlawing rodeos in Texas or fishing in the White River, the unimaginable has happened right here in Arkansas:

Browning’s has closed.

That’s right: Browning’s in Little Rock. The vaguely Mexican restaurant that’s been an Arkansas institution since 1946. It’s been shut down without notice-not even enough for folks to make it there for a last meal.

Not since the old Arkansas Gazette was closed suddenly and unceremoniously after the last daily shot of the state’s newspaper war was heard has so famed-well, familiar-an institution hung out the CLOSED sign so abruptly. It’s said the closing may be only temporary, but we all know how permanent temporary can be. Any hope of the restaurant’s re-opening is tenuous, the shock of its closing immediate. And keen.

Browning’s was always supposed to be there, whether you frequented it or not. It was a local and even something of a state fixture. Like funnel cakes at the state fair. Like the bullfight in Spain, even if you’re not an aficionado. Granted, the food at Browning’s was-how to put this?-an acquired taste. If you could find it under the mountain of chili that might cover your order. At least we think it was chili.

Browning’s may have been a taste that could be acquired only in childhood; those who came to it later in life might prove immune to its asserted charms. But those who had the addiction, had it. And once upon a time no week could be considered complete without an obligatory visit there.

BROWNING’S cuisine, usually served in quantities that would feed an army, or at least a division or two, was surely the least important thing about the place. It was the unchanging atmosphere, the lighting (or absence therof), the accessories like those pralines at the checkout counter, the ubiquitous Razorback football schedules from years back, displayed no matter the season, the tradition of it all, that made a young person’s first visit to the fabled eatery a rite of passage. Diners, usually in family groups, went to Browning’s almost out of a sense of obligation, the way tourists have to visit the Eiffel Tower or the Trevi Fountain. It was expected.

A friend who grew up in the Heights shares this reminiscence: “Oh, the Heights of our childhood. Some of us were already nostalgic for it when we lived in it. We rode our bicycles up to Smith’s Country Club Drug Store to buy Archie comic books and candy in the late ’80s, missing-without ever having known it-the Smith’s that once served real soda-fountain malteds to kids who biked over on their lunch breaks from Forest Park Elementary.We can just barely remember our parents going to see The Last Picture Show at the Heights Theater and coming home to rave about it. Our older siblings, we are told, belonged to a generation who would go to Browning’s before the picture show and order only cheese dip and that sugary red punch. We remember the waitresses who wore orthopedic shoes and servedbreakfast at Bard’s just around the corner and then dinner at Browning’s. Now our Safeway parking lot, former home of the Cajun Snow hut, hosts the back of a massive Kroger and a row of shops. Restaurants, shops, and art galleries seem to thrive there. Kavanaugh Boulevard is alive in the evenings, and we are glad.

“But Browning’s has closed.

“We don’t know what happened. We remember the Razorback football schedules on the wall in the front room; they ran back ten, fifteen years but seemed to belong to the distant past. We remember the pralines. The candy under the classic glass counter-what was it? Butter Rum Lifesavers? Velamints? It hurt us to see Browning’s Mexican Food change its name to Browning’s Mexican Grill a few years back. But, hey, it’s the Heights. We know everything up there is a little yuppie these days. But much the same gentrification has been happening since the streetcars were still running people from downtown to the cool waters of the Forest Park swimming pool. And, in 1906, to a ‘farewell performance’-in Camille, no less-bythe one and only Sarah Bernhardt in the Forest Park pavilion.

“So why not stick to what worked? The last time we went to Browning’s, it was so crowded people were at tables on the sidewalk in January, being warmed by heat lamps. Our waitress, who did not wear orthopedic shoes, seated us in a back room, which would have been fine twenty years ago. We used to sit there all the time. But the ‘new’ back room featured a big television at eye level to the seated diner. CNN Headline News or some such wholesale outlet was playing a ghastly loop, with commentary, about a garbage bag of bones found by Florida police; the bones, the anchorpeople were claiming with that air of faux authority, might very well be those of a missing child. This was not the Browning’s I had known.

“The knowing folk of the blogosphere seem to agree that a taste for Browning’s must be acquired during childhood; normal people, aka outsiders, cannot understand it. We agree. The salty, crispy chips, the dip that can only be called cheese dip and dimly traced to Mexico, the punch, and whatever else came afterward (who could remember after foundering on the punch and dip?) belong to a world where a simple Ark-(barely)Mex restaurant offered a treat to Little Rock palates. But however humble the food, back then at least eating and watching television were separate activities, nourishing and not so. There was an order to things my inner child knew was the way the world should be: Browning’s now, The Last Picture Show later.” OUR FRIEND’S grief at the loss of Browning’s, or maybe of her childhood, or both inseparable, is palpable. And understandable.

It’s hard to believe the Browning’s Era has come to an end. Even temporarily. But now it is all like yesterday when it is gone. Heck, it was yesterday, or rather just last Wednesday, that Browning’s closed. It happened so suddenly the shock hasn’t had time to change to sorrow, let alone acceptance.

First La Corrida in Barcelona. Now Browning’s in Little Rock. Both shut down in the same week. Is nothing sacred?