The website, blackbeardiner.com, for the Redding, Calif.-based Black Bear Diner chain, which has outlets in several Western states (previously no farther east than Oklahoma), lists a North Little Rock location as "coming soon."
A company spokesman told us it's headed for Lakewood Village Drive, which would put it in the Lakewood Village Shopping Center, off McCain Boulevard -- very possibly, though we have not yet confirmed it, in the free-standing building left vacant by the closure of the Dixie Cafe chain -- with a target opening date of mid-November.
The restaurants serve an all-day breakfast menu of impressive proportions, plus a lunch that focuses on burgers and sandwiches and a more-or-less homestyle dinner menu.