A Little Rock restaurant that represents one Arkansan's lifelong passion will close for good next month, the owner's daughter wrote in an email Tuesday.
Dan Spencer, who owns Arkansas Burger Company at 7410 Cantrell Road, wasn't considering retiring, even after he turned 78 in June, Jana Hunter said.
But in July, the restaurant temporarily shuttered, with a handwritten note on the door citing a "health emergency," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported.
According to Hunter, a diabetic episode landed her father in the emergency room July 17.
"After several doctor visits, they told him it was time to retire," Hunter wrote.
Hunter said a deal to buy the restaurant with someone who had been interested for several years didn't go through, so Spencer decided it would be best to close for good. The business will officially shut its doors Nov. 1.
Spencer opened the restaurant in October 2000. Hunter recalled that her father told her he spent his earnings from his newspaper delivery job on hamburgers as a 12-year-old growing up in Memphis. He started a "hamburger file" in 1982.
"We carried on his childhood tradition of eating hamburgers every Saturday night growing up," she wrote.
After living in Dallas for 25 years, Spencer moved the family to central Arkansas, where he and his wife are originally from. With no previous restaurant experience, he opened Arkansas Burger Company.
The restaurant has since won more than a dozen awards and was featured as a top spot in Little Rock on the Food Network's website in June, according to Hunter.
Hunter said her father's health has improved since the summer, and he is looking forward to retirement. She said she is thankful for the bond the restaurant had with the community.
"I knew he was a very special man but hearing the amazing stories from others, the employees, vendors, to people on the street, has been such a gift," she said.
