One of Little Rock's top food trucks is set to open a non-mobile restaurant downtown.
Southern Gourmasian chef and owner Justin Patterson said he expects to open the new location in the Sterling Annex, 219 W. Capitol Ave., sometime mid-fall.
The Southern Gourmasian truck, which was the top-selling individual mobile unit in Little Rock last year with $108,542 sales, will still operate. The Arkansas Times blog Eat Arkansas first reported news of the Capitol Avenue location.
Patterson said having a brick-and-mortar restaurant will attract customers who sometimes voice concerns about finding where the truck is parked on a given day. And it promises a major increase in space, from 140 square feet in the mobile unit to about 3,000 in the new venture.
"It's just going to expand our customer base greatly," Patterson said. "It will expand what we're able to do on a day-to-day basis."
The new location is less than two blocks west of Main Street, where a number of redevelopment projects are ongoing and where the Tech Park recently opted to locate. Patterson said that development coupled with a "huge, huge outpouring" of business when the mobile truck parked downtown made the Sterling Annex a good spot.
The building has been unoccupied for some time, Patterson said, adding that the restaurant will occupy only part of it.
"We just felt like the downtown scene has really embraced us," he said. "They've embraced food trucks, but we felt like they kind of let us know they were going to take care of us."